The scene is moving. As our photographer asks Frances Foster and Virginie Gauvin to pose, the former takes the latter’s hand and raises it as a sign of victory.
After more than 10 years of struggle, the two women can finally say: mission accomplished. The green space they ardently protected in Mile-Ex has become a park that will be officially inaugurated by the City of Montreal in a few days.
The sign even indicates that the park was created by a community, and that its name refers to the vegetation that grew like a jungle after the cessation of railway activities on this obliquely shaped site that extends over nearly 500 metres, from Beaubien Street to Saint-Zotique Street West (between Saint-Urbain and Waverly Streets).
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Accessible since the beginning of the month, the Gorilla Park will be officially inaugurated shortly.
If the Gorilla Park is named this way, it is also to refer to the “guerrilla” that followed in 2013 the sudden felling of about fifty mature trees on the wasteland frequented by locals. Overnight, after Olymbec bought the land from Canadian Pacific, their green oasis had ceased to exist.
For years, however, people have taken over the space with furniture, artwork, gardening containers and cleaning chores. Then, in November 2022, following consultations for the MIL campus, the city council approved the $10.4 million development plan for the Gorilla Park on the land.
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
This metal structure recalls the period when dancers gathered in the same place under a kind of makeshift shelter during the pandemic. It is now a free space with water and electricity.
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Aerial view of the park
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PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
The park is already very busy.
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Work began in March 2023 and was completed a few weeks ago. “The sign makes the history of the Gorilla Park and its name official. It’s touching to see people read why the park is called that,” Virginie Gauvin says.
Frances Foster recounts the day hundreds of trees were planted. “Imagine… One day I’m walking here and it was a garnotte. And the next day there’s a forest. Like it fell from the sky.”
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Frances Foster has lived in the Marconi-Alexandre district, or Mile-Ex, for 32 years, while Virginie Gauvin moved there in 2017.
The Gorilla Park will serve as an urban laboratory with a unique model of “co-management” between the City and its community. “We are giving people the power to take ownership of the site,” rejoices Virginie Gauvin.
Citizen mobilization sometimes gets a bad rap with the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. Here, it was a super unifying vision and it’s not for nothing that the City decided to get on board.
Virginie Gauvin
“It’s incredible to carry a project like this collectively,” she says. “It’s an experience that has marked a large part of my life and will continue to do so for the rest of my life,” adds Frances Foster, who is part of the hard core of the “guerrilla” that led to the creation of the group Les AmiEs du Parc des Gorilles.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
The Gorilla Park is located between Saint-Zotique West, Saint-Urbain, Beaubien West and Waverly streets.
“My heart is full. But it’s not over,” says the woman who now wants to campaign for more social and affordable housing in the neighborhood.
Consult a document on the Gorilla Park