I was walking down Laurier heading for the Mile End when i came to the intersection with Jeanne Mance. I looked to the right for traffic,
and something about the street caught my eye.
On the right hand side were the old buildings that once were, but beautifully renovated.
And the entrance of each one opening up directly onto the street.
And on the other side, the new world encroaching: the apartment buildings.
One entrance to the apartment building. Not to the individual apartments
On the old side, something else caught my eye.
A father and his young daughter getting ready to go on a bike ride
I stopped to chat with the father. He talked about neighborhood.
"We have a neighborhood here. That's because all our entrances open up directly onto the street.
On this side all the neighborhood know each other.
Talk to one another.
And in the summertime, we have a BBQ for everyone, including all the neighbors in the back whose property touches ours.
But across the street, we don't know anyone in those apartment buildings.
And they don't know us.
They are not part of the neighborhood."
Sad. So sad.
There's an interesting postcript.
"A couple of years ago I had to borrow $30,000 from the bank to pay for resurfacing the brick.
"To pay off the loan I recently sold the triplex for...."
you'll never guess...
"$1.5 million!!!!!!!!!!!"
rebricking the building. I sold the building to pay for the loan.
I sold it for $1.5 million!
