I'm a sentimental person by nature and especially so when it comes to my city. I don't love my country - I appreciate it. I don't love my province - I respect it. But my city, where I was born and grew up and still live, with its insanity and its pulse and being truly somewhere that never sleeps and never stops and never lets go, I love.
This place is fucked though, and don't let anyone tell you differently. There`s corruption and poverty and unemployment and the mob and gangs and drugs (and drugs, and drugs), all made worse by the complete inability by anyone in power to put their finger on the real problem, name it and change it.
There are activists but most are wet behind the ears teenagers just looking for something exciting to do. The rest are career anarchists who would truly love to watch the city burn. Right now they're taking to the streets to protest a 70$ a year tuition hike. I have no faith in them.
The smaller protests, the ones with the feminists, the immigrants and the grassroots social workers or the ones that are keen to raise shields against the carefully calculated, government-sponsored, language-based initiatives meant to turn individual citizens against each other, barely make a blip.
Even when you think there might be a change, like recently when we elected the first Jewish Anglophone mayor in the city's history (someone we hoped may have an understanding of minority grievances), nothing happens. Because the money the mayor wants to pocket doesn't come as fast from everyday citizens as it does from the long established network of organized crime and old money executives and landowners. The city works just fine, for these people. The benefits of their positions are well ingrained. They don't need anything to change, so nothing does.
The infrastructure here is crumbling. I don't mean that figuratively. Concrete blocks from highway overpasses are falling onto motorists, killing them sometimes. Decorative facades descend from downtown buildings onto unsuspecting pedestrians, killing them too. Last week a sinkhole in the airport parking lot ate two cars. We used to worry about potholes here, informally but impartially called the worst in the world, but now that's the least of our problems. The city is protesting its own misuse and the ones to suffer are the casual worshipers, those who pay their tithes and work the land and just want to live in peace.
A perfect example of the city's ruin sits just a few blocks from where I live in the N.D.G. (Notre-Dame-de-Grace, or, Our Lady of Grace) neighbourhood.
The Empress Theatre opened in 1927 as a home to burlesque and vaudeville performances and premiere films. I can only imagine the culture and characters it must have supported (and I mean literally that I can only imagine - Montreal history, particularly anything to do with English-speaking Montreal, is criminally under-documented.) As the only theatre in Canada to be built in Egyptian - Art Deco style, the exterior may not be to everyone's artistic tastes but it cannot be denied that it is at least striking.
I have only ever been inside once, as a kid, when the summer camp I was attending took us there to see The Rocketeer. Since the theatre closed to the public in 1992 I could not have been more than 7 years old but I vividly remember the impression the building made on me. Having spent most of my short life either at home, in school or at the park, this theatre seemed a fantasy palace. It astounded me that the place I lived held such a remarkable thing.
I ran my hands over the ornate carvings and stared up at the frescoes with single minded awe, believing them to be as old and as significant as the actual Valley of Kings (a place I knew about benefit of a richly pictured book my mom once brought home to me.) This building made me want to know more about my city. It made me want to know about history in general, and art, and the experience of being in beauty. If that sounds overwrought, well, that`s just the type of child I was.
It's doubtful that I'll ever go inside again. The city owns it now and its representatives have publicly stated they will not contribute a single dollar to the theatre's restoration. Over the years a variety of non profit organizations have tried to raise funds for its redevelopment. One by one they have failed.
I've lived in this neighbourhood a long time. Watching the building deteriorate over the years has been heartbreaking. At present the exterior is officially cordoned off with metal barricades to protect passersby from falling debris. One of the King Tut sculptures is missing half its face. Graffiti is bright and extensive. The windows are covered in mangy paper, the colour of blown light bulbs.
There's talk, again, as there always is, of a local group taking over responsibility for the building in order to turn it back into a modern cinema playing Michael Bay productions and selling overpriced popcorn. I wouldn't even mind that so much - at least it would prevent the theatre from being demolished. But that's far from my own dream of seeing it reopened as a playhouse, something to give the local artists a place to work and the neighbourhood a true cultural center to call its own.
I don't think anything like that will ever happen. The days of the city reinvesting in itself simply for its own sake and the sake of the people who live here are, I fear, long gone. Those who care simply don't have the resources to do anything about it. And yet, some stubborn part of me refuses to give up hope. It can't just be the lay folk who love this city enough to want to fix it. Maybe by some miracle someone wealthy shares my dream for the Empress Theatre and for the people in this neighbourhood. Maybe they too can see that we're actually all living in the gutter
and will join us in looking up at the stars.
