The Ugly Canada Thread

[West_aust]

Montreal's South Shore Finest

Commie Block - Not old, built 3 years ago or so


Kitshy house - Notice the roman soldier on the side of the driveway

[Rico Rommheim]

Montreal's suburbs are years behind contemporary aesthetic and lifestyle trends. Entering Laval and the south shore sububrs is like entering a time warp, or an alternate reality, a place built not to please the eye. Most of these suburbs (not all, St-Lambert is sort of an exception) are very nihilistic in form. That 3 year old commie block is a prime example.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by West_aust

Montreal's South Shore Finest

Commie Block - Not old, built 3 years ago or so

LOL! I was referring to Montreal proper and not the eyesore everyone knows as Longueuil. That is truly shocking if that Commie Block is only 3 years old. I wasn't aware cement was even cheap enough anymore to build such bunkers. And how the hell is the colour such a perfect match for 40 year old commie blocks? Is there a colour for "faded soviet commie block"?

[MolsonExport]

I wish Longueuil was Shortoeil. Too big and shabby, the place is. Downtown Longueuil is an assault on my vision. St. Hubert is worse still.

[Airboy]

East Berlin behind the Russian Embassy

Originally Posted by O-tacular

LOL! I was referring to Montreal proper and not the eyesore everyone knows as Longueuil. That is truly shocking if that Commie Block is only 3 years old. I wasn't aware cement was even cheap enough anymore to build such bunkers. And how the hell is the colour such a perfect match for 40 year old commie blocks? Is there a colour for "faded soviet commie block"?

[MTLskyline]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I wish Longueuil was Shortoeil. Too big and shabby, the place is. Downtown Longueuil is an assault on my vision. St. Hubert is worse still.

LOL, don't get me started on St. Hubert! It makes the ugly parts of Longueuil look aesthetically pleasing.

Guy La Patate is a landmark in St. Hubert.

http://goo.gl/maps/9ngfo

Grande-Allée

http://goo.gl/maps/ObsDS

The St. Hubert trailer park

http://goo.gl/maps/NJrlr

[someone123]

Coming from Toronto or Vancouver, most of Montreal seems like a bit of a time warp. It's not necessarily bad, but it hasn't changed much physically over the past 40 years compared to most Canadian cities.

Cultural traditions also farther back in Montreal. Vancouver's early history is about 80's Hong Kong real estate developers or something (I don't think anybody here actually knows).

[MolsonExport]

AHHHH!!! MY EYES!!!! ST HUBERT!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!

really, I hate the place. Those photos bring back horrid memories. I had an ex-gf out there years ago. would ride the metro to longueuil then the world's longest bus ride out to fucking St. Hubert and Grande-Allée and Gaetan Boucher, Montée St Hubert, and that fugly pataterie. I've actually been to that wretched trailer park!! Gross place. Gross people. Soul-suckingly fugly to the nth degree. Montreal has the best and the worst. Best urban fabric in the country in some parts, and some of the fugliest suburbs in the known universe. Made the Waste-Island (where I grew up) look like fucking Paris (France). The only thing uglier than St. Hubert is that clock tower condo in Laval. Terrebonne is also very ugly. And Salaberry-de-Valleyfield.

[vid]

One of the companies that supplies my company with things is based in an industrial park in Longueuil. I feel so, so sorry for them. I looked it up on streetview and it looks even worse than Thunder Bay.

Longueuil is the Thunder Bay of Quebec.

[MTLskyline]

I live literally 2 minutes from Longueuil. It is a very weird city. On the one hand, it is quite well located (compared to the West Island or Laval), most of it is grid pattern with sidewalks, and it has decent bus service for a suburb (The Terminus Longueuil is probably the Montreal area's best bus terminal from a passenger perspective). It has some of the basic ingredients that are required to build a real city.

However, there is very little private (or public) investment and development. Most of what is there was built between the 1950s and 70s. When these buildings were built, Longueuil had a very lax building code, and was a bit of a libertarian paradise. Poor people from Montreal (fleeing overcrowded conditions) and the country moved in (seeking jobs), and built homes with whatever materials they could find and afford. Today, it is built up, for the most part. However there has been virtually no redevelopment. In Longueuil, things do not have a tendency to get torn down and replaced, although low-budget renovations are somewhat common. Longueuil's population has been more or less stagnant since the 1980s (http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/demographie/dons_regnl/regional/Tableau_top_10.htm)

New development moved more toward Brossard, Boucherville and beyond in the 1980s. However, there is much more development in Laval and the North Shore.

Laval is kind of the opposite of Longueuil, also in a bad way. Its bones are much more suburban than Longueuil's, and most development has come since the 1970s. Despite being better liked by the provincial government with its brand new bridge, 3 Metro stations and five commuter rail stations (Longueuil has 1 of each), its busses have only about 2/3 the passengers of Longueuil's despite both transit agencies serving the same number of people (400,000). It has an extreme lack of urban planning, and is very disjointed and spread out.

I think I will have to do a Longueuil-centered photo thread at some point.

[Nicko999]

Originally Posted by West_aust

Montreal's South Shore Finest

Commie Block - Not old, built 3 years ago or so

This is 3 years old??? WTF!!!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by vid

One of the companies that supplies my company with things is based in an industrial park in Longueuil. I feel so, so sorry for them. I looked it up on streetview and it looks even worse than Thunder Bay.

Longueuil is the Thunder Bay of Quebec.

I doubt Thunder Bay has houses from the 1740s and 1750s...


The Longueuil suburbs are super bland, like pretty much all suburbs, but there's a nice core... and some good density as well near the subway station.

Here, I managed to find something in English for you about downtown (Old) Longueuil.

http://marigot.ca/html/visites/indexEng.html

[vid]

Post-1950s Longueuil is the Thunder Bay of Quebec.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by vid

Post-1950s Longueuil is the Thunder Bay of Quebec.

Post-1950s ugliness in Longueuil isn't really any different from what you can easily find all over the place in other Montreal suburbs or Quebec City suburbs... or even in certain areas within the core cities themselves... and in QC mid-sized towns as well.

(Just FYI, nothing personal.)

[Architype]

St. John's has these low rise commie blocks (Hillview Terrace), originally clad in brick (1960's), now in vinyl. This is my least favourite complex in SJs; consisting of eleven buildings, reclad and rebranded but still with large areas of totally wasted unusable empty space between the buildings, no privacy, open parking lots, no landscaping even after 50 years, and no sidewalks. The area would be better suited to higher density and higher standards. This bleak alien suburban survivalist landscape sits next to a four lane highway and is partially surrounded by a rather conventional residential area. It's little wonder that St. John's residents have a strong dislike of apartments. Some of the city's 70's townhomes are much uglier though.


http://goo.gl/maps/N30Qv

[MexiQuebecois]

Originally Posted by Architype

St. John's has these low rise commie blocks (Hillview Terrace), originally clad in brick (1960's), now in vinyl. This is my least favourite complex in SJs; consisting of eleven buildings, reclad and rebranded but still with large areas of totally wasted unusable empty space between the buildings, no privacy, open parking lots, no landscaping even after 50 years, and no sidewalks. The area would be better suited to higher density and higher standards. This bleak alien suburban survivalist landscape sits next to a four lane highway and is partially surrounded by a rather conventional residential area. It's little wonder that St. John's residents have a strong dislike of apartments. Some of the city's 70's townhomes are much uglier though.


http://goo.gl/maps/N30Qv

Nothing pisses me off more than no sidewalks.

[ssiguy]

I don't think there is a city in the country that does commie-block quite as well as London and London builds then downtown to boot.

That said, I love the Metal Trees of London. When everything is grey in the winter and early spring they offer some colour to the downtown. I think they are a great display of public art that is in keeping with London's Forest City reputation.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by someone123

Coming from Toronto or Vancouver, most of Montreal seems like a bit of a time warp. It's not necessarily bad, but it hasn't changed much physically over the past 40 years compared to most Canadian cities.

there was more there in the first place.

much of canada came of age in the postwar era, if not even more recently than that.

montreal came of age in the 1920s -- slightly behind the eastern seaboard, which came of age a decade or two before that.

[Andrewjm3D]

Originally Posted by Architype

St. John's has these low rise commie blocks (Hillview Terrace)


http://goo.gl/maps/N30Qv

These remind me of Regent Park in Toronto. Thankfully it's all being torn down and replaced with a new mixed use community. When Regent Park was firts built it was home to 10,000 people.

Source CBC - http://www.cbc.ca/mosaic/timeline.html

[Marty_Mcfly]

^I stayed at Hillview Terrace for a few nights back in high school with my sports team. You can rent rooms there by the night, week, month, or year.

We destroyed that place. Holy hell. Probably should have just torched it They have painted the vinyl siding on a few of the buildings a mustard-yellow color before I moved away, it was as hideous as before.