Second in a series of four articles devoted to books that crystallize the essence of a Montreal neighborhood. This week, we take you to the streets and balconies of the Centre-Sud, and on the trail of the ghosts of its Faubourg à m’lasse.
Located along the river, east of downtown, Centre-Sud, today bordered by Saint-Hubert Street to the west, the Canadian Pacific Railway to the east and Sherbrooke Street to the north, took shape in the 18th century.e century. First called Faubourg Québec, because of the passengers from the capital who had to disembark there to go to Montreal, the district has undergone profound changes over the years.
Having quickly become an industrial area, notably thanks to its proximity to the railway which encouraged the establishment of a number of factories, the Centre-Sud — also called the Faubourg à m’lasse because, if we are to believe the rumour, of the smell of molasses coming from the port quays — established itself as a place of life for thousands of working-class families housed in the surrounding area by manufacturers.
In the middle of the 20th centurye century, already affected by deindustrialization, the inhabitants of the district are massively expropriated due to major urban development works aimed at modernizing the city. Five thousand residents will be forced to start a new life elsewhere.
Even today, the Centre-Sud is the scene of major transformations. In vacant lots and parking lots, forests of condo towers are being erected in the name of modernity, erasing a little more of the neighborhood’s history with each hammer blow.
Yet, somewhere, its soul and its appeal remain, as evidenced by the many writers and artists who have made it the driving force behind their creations. “The Centre-Sud is a beast that reacts when you try to tame it,” poetically says Francis Ouellette, author of the novel Fancy Molasses (La Mèche, 2022), which takes place in the Faubourg. I have the impression that the neighborhood, for better or for worse, is difficult to “gentrify.” Every time attempts at cleaning or modernizing are made, they are doomed to not fully work. Nature returns at a gallop.
A microcosm
Richard Beaulieu, better known by his pen name Richard Suicide, can attest to this. A resident of the area for nearly 35 years, he has made the area, particularly Ontario Street, the central theme of his comic strip. Chronicles of the Center-South (Pow Pow, 2014). In this work told in the form of anthropological chronicles, the author delivers, through the character of Bison, a touching portrait of the crippled, colorful and hoppy fauna of the neighborhood in the early 1990s.
“The Centre-Sud has always been a microcosm of what’s happening on a larger scale in Montreal,” says the cartoonist. “Right now, a big steamroller is rolling over the neighbourhood. When I wrote my columns, I already knew that it was important to document an era, to talk about these places that would be doomed to demolition, these old businesses that are now being replaced by empty premises.”
Richard Suicide still finds his bearings in this constantly changing living environment. “I live on Dorion Street, a little above Ontario. Recently, the tenants of five or six blocks were evicted. History is repeating itself, they want to transform the Centre-Sud into the second Plateau. But it’s still warm, there’s still a neighbourhood life, especially because there are still locals, people who have lived in the same place from generation to generation. It’s unique.”
When asked which book depicts the soul of the neighborhood with the most authenticity, the cartoonist cites Fancy Molassesmentioned above, funny and lucid fable written by Francis Ouellette. “Francis is pure wool and it shows. The whole novel is absolutely delicious.”
Balcony Theatre
In this touching and tender story, the writer explores the nooks and crannies of his memory and his neighborhood to bring back to life the myths and legends of his childhood, which come to life in the form of characters as exotic as they are menacing. “René Richard Cyr, who signed the reading of the audio novel, is himself a native of Faubourg,” says Francis Ouellette. “He grew up in a general store run by his father. He says that having witnessed the spectacle that unfolded in this place every day made him a director. When I was very young, I had this impression. I spent my childhood watching people who had to blister their dramas to make them even bigger. A quarrel on a landing could become a centuries-old hatred between two clans. A disappointed love story turned into a reference: don’t turn out like Nancy and Roger! The balconies were the places of tragedies and comedies that seemed even more real than reality. I didn’t have to imagine these characters. They already existed.”
For the novelist, the book that best represents the neighborhood is We are not assholes (Moult Éditions, 2019), by Marie Letellier. “This anthropological work, published in 1971, is both an involuntary novel and an absolute reference in all directions. The author wanted to paint a portrait of the culture of poverty, the codes that constitute it, and how it is embodied in language through the anthropological study of a couple from the Centre-Sud: Ti-Noir and Monique. We understand to what extent the inhabitants are resourceful and united, to what extent the feeling of community is stronger than the shenanigans.”
As we can take the guy out of the Centre-Sud, but never take the Centre-Sud out of the guy, Francis Ouellet will also devote his second novel, Pole Syrupscheduled for winter 2025, to the neighborhood and its legends. “Frigo will be the main character. By transforming him into an incarnation, a living soul of the Faubourg, I am carrying out an exercise in mythification. I will also bring in other mythical figures — both fictional and real — from the Centre-Sud. Le Bison by Richard Suicide, the cursed couple formed by Denis Vanier and Josée Yvon, Ti-Noir and Monique, from the book by Marie Letellier, and Morel, by Maxime Raymond Bock.”
This Jean-Claude Morel, an anonymous worker imagined by Maxime Raymond Bock, has devoted his life to the major construction sites of the metropolis. While he strives to build towers and modernize the city, the works he helps to build destroy his Faubourg, displace his family and unravel, brick by brick, the ties that unite him to his family.
“I work at 600 Fullum Street for the Ministry of Education. It didn’t take me long to wonder about the state of the place; a no man’s land in which there is only one building, the one belonging to the government. By asking around, I learned that my father was born there, in the Centre-Sud, that his father himself worked in catastrophic conditions at the risk of his health for a local factory. My historical quest has become an intimate and family story, in which I seek to understand how major urban transformations affect human lives,” explains the writer.
Three years after the publication of his novel, he is surprised that it is already a piece of history. “Today, the intersection I describe no longer exists. All the wasteland and parking lots are being built for luxury condos that will further gentrify the neighborhood, and impoverish a population that suffers from an economic system that has nothing to do with them. History continues to be written.”
For the author, it is essential to discover the historical novel In the middle, the mountain (Les Herbes rouges, 1992), by Roger Viau. “This book, published in 1951, offers another point of view on a situation at the Second-hand happinessbut takes place in the Centre-Sud rather than in Saint-Henri. It follows a young woman who falls in love with a man from Outremont, who is part of a higher social class than hers. The author shows aspects of daily life at the time, with the perspective of the time, and gives us the opportunity to read details and forgotten realities. It’s excellent.