Following the release of the newest video designed to help save the lower Main from destruction at the hands of a developer, the developer in question, Angus, has said it needs more time to complete its project.

They are also now talking about a smaller building, closer to the Monument Nationale in size, instead of the 12-storey behemoth Quadrilaterre they had planned. This is largely due to the efforts of the Save the Main Coalition and the court case brought on by Cafe Cleopatre owner John Zoumboulakis.

While this buys the artists trying to save the Cleo and other historic building some time (the wrecking ball was supposed to fall in March), the fight isn’t over yet. Some have suggested that a new, alternate plan is needed.

Donovan King of OTL explained this on CKUT radio before the latest announcement from Angus:

Following the viral success of Lapdance for Prince Charles, the artists hoping to save Cafe Cleopatre and the lower Main from destruction have released another video, this time in both French and English.

Rather than an appeal, it’s a parody infomercial for a new product called Demolition in a Box, that can “destroy any landmark, city, part of town” in one easy and incredibly corrupt step.

The French version is available here and the English version is below:

The following is a video plea and open letter to Prince Charles on the occasion of his visit to Montreal.  After having exhausted all other means of stopping the destruction of their performance space in the heart of Montreal’s historic Red Light district, burlesque dance troupe the Dead Dolls have turned to the Prince, a man who cares about heritage, with a simple request:  Save the Red Light District and Save the Main:

To HRH Prince Charles,

We are writing to you today from Montreal with one simple request. As someone who has demonstrated his love for the preservation of history, we are asking for your majesty’s assistance in saving the historic Red Light District on Montreal’s Main from destruction when you visit us on Tuesday.

St-Laurent Boulevard, commonly known as the Main, was the first street to leave the fortifications of what was then the city of Montreal. Over the next few centuries, it welcomed immigrants from all over the world to become the thriving multicultural hub that it is today.  It has even been declared a national heritage site.

Behind its historic facade, numerous independent artists including burlesque dancers, fetish performers and others call the vaudeville thrust stage of the legendary Café Cleopatre home and have done so for several years.

The lower Main, the gateway to the old port is living history and a vibrant artistic community, but it is under threat. A developer wants to evict the artists and residents, demolish the buildings and replace them with a twelve-story office tower under the guise of a Quartier des spectacles (entertainment district).

Despite objections from historians, academics, residents and artists and a ruling against the project from the Montreal public consultation office, the developer and the city plan to go ahead with the project, dubbed the Quadrilatere St-Laurent.

With nowhere else to turn, we are requesting that your majesty bring the issue up with Mayor Gerald Tremblay and any other officials you may encounter on your trip to Montreal or at very least make a public statement in support of the artists and residents and in support of our history.

UPDATE: TRYING TO MEET THE PRINCE

Tuesday night, the riot squad prevented us from delivering our message to Prince Charles in person:

Velma Candyass of the Dead Dolls and riot cops (photo by Domenic Castelli)

You can read media reports of what happened here:

“Prince Chuck misses out on lapdance” by Jamie O’ Meara, Up to the Hour (Hour Magazine)

“Royal welcome” photo by Kate Hutchinson, Montreal Mirror

“Montréal : œufs, tomates et strip-tease pour le Prince Charles” par Yannick Vely, Paris Match

“If the mayor won’t listen, maybe the prince will” by Jason C. McLean, Forget The Box

“please, charlie boy, save montreal’s red-light district” by Andy Riga, Montreal Gazette

“Une foule bigarrée accueille le prince” par Judith Lachapelle, La Presse

We never got to deliver our message to the Prince Charles in person and still haven’t received a response to our letter or video.  He’s in Ottawa until tomorrow.  Hopefully he’ll hear our message before returning to England.

** If you want to help spread the word, please forward, re-post, Facebook, Digg, etc. this post and/or this video to all your friends and lists, especially to people in England.

****You can also contact Prince Charles through his Regeneration Trust:

info@princes-regeneration.org

In case you haven’t noticed, this is election season in Montreal.  This year’s campaign has been quite a raucous one.  There has been plenty of talk about water meters, mayoral candidates’ ability to speak English and new transportation strategies.  One issue that seems to have been pushed to the background, though, is the protection of the Main.

St-Laurent Boulevard, the first street to make it’s way out of the fortified city which is now called Old Montreal was designated as a national heritage site by Parks Canada.  In keeping with this status “intrusive elements must be kept to a minimal.”

Anyone who’s been to the Main lately will notice that this is anything but the case.  From the giant scaffolding wrap billboard mounted last summer by an allegedly dubious promoter, to the billboard trucks that drive up the street all summer long, to the heavy corporate presence at street sales that are supposed to be for local merchants but instead are policed for the benefit of NewAd Media, to attempts by a developer to replace historic performance venues with a giant eyesore office tower, the Main is under threat.

Since Parks Canada has given the city of Montreal the job of protecting the Main, the Reclaim the Main campaign wants to know what politicians are going to do about it if elected or re-elected November 1st.  So, we are proud to present the first ever Reclaim the Main challenge! The rules are simple – mayoral candidates or their appointed representatives are asked to answer this one question:

What will you do to preserve the Main’s historic status, promote the interests of those who live and work there and protect against corporate intrusions?

One response per party. English, French or bilingual. Independents are also welcome to respond. Answers should mention their plan to deal with billboard trucks, unscrupulous advertisers and developers and how to combat corporate and private dominance of public space at street fairs.  They should be sent to main@optative.net and will be published here before the election.

The winner gets the endorsement of the Reclaim the Main campaign and OTL and will be featured in this space. Plus, they’ll be doing the right thing for the Main and for Montreal.  Ordinary citizens are also invited to address this issue and send their responses to the same address or just post them in the comments below – see how you compare to the politicians!

Yesterday, the OTL phone got a very interesting missed call.  The caller ID said Time2Ad. This is the company responsible for the giant scaffolding wrap billboard on the corner of St-Laurent and Sherbrooke Street, so it’s quite surprising that they would be calling us.  Maybe it was to apologize for violating the historic status of the Main, a protected site – we could only hope.  Today, we got our answer.

Time2Ad called back, this time from a blocked number.  Once they established that they were indeed speaking with a member of the collective responsible for this blog, the phone was passed to someone identified to us as Matthew Alzubi, president of the company.

Alzubi said that we have until midnight tonight to remove this post dealing with what Time2Ad did on the Main or else face legal consequences.  Just what consequences may arise over a post that states facts and gives voice to people opposed to the cultural effects a company’s project has in their opinion is unclear at best.

This might explain why Mr. Alzubi merely repeated his statement about midnight tonight and added that we didn’t know what he was capable of “so help me God” when asked to send what he was saying in written form.  That could also explain why no one left a message when they called our phone yesterday.

Maybe they don’t want any record of what Time2Ad and Matthew Alzubi said to us to exist.  Maybe they know that we have a right to freedom of speech and any court that looked at their case against us would throw it out.  Maybe they thought they could scare us with some tough talk.  Sadly for them, they can’t.  Sadly for Montreal, it looks like Time2Ad still plan to put up more scaffolding wrap billboards.

Montreal’s “Quartier des Spectacles” project is proceeding at a fast clip. The neighbourhood is currently undergoing major transformations as new parks are laid out, a state-of-the-art concert hall goes up, and select buildings are appropriated and destroyed to make way for “development”. Designed to transform Montreal’s old red light district and environs into a less-seedy destination for those seeking spectacles of theatre, music, dance, and other performances, the project is attracting more and more controversy.

For reasons unexplained, developers have been busy trying to raze existing authentic performance venues in the area, despite their historical value and ongoing use by various artists and spectators. The storied Spectrum concert hall was unceremoniously demolished to make way for a box store, and now developers are threatening to appropriate and raze the Café Cleopatra, a burlesque venue that should probably be a heritage site by now, and Katacombes, an activist co-op spectacle hall. That St. Laurent boulevard is a historic site where “intrusive elements must be minimal” has not deterred a so-called French “starchitect” from drawing up plans to construct a gigantic 12-story glass office tower called the Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent on the footprint of the destroyed venues, which would only have their facades preserved.

The irony that the “Quartier des Spectacles” project is destroying real spectacle venues and replacing them with office towers is not lost on local artists or residents. Now the very artists who create the spectacles from which the Quartier takes its name are raising their voices in dissent. Many are demanding that developers respect existing venues and stop their plan to destroy local culture and heritage. The Coalition des Artistes du Cabaret Cleo has issued a RED ALERT! and is mobilizing. They are hoping to “integrate the creative spirit of the last 5 years at Cabaret Cleo’s within a constructive, honest and positive plan to revitalize Montreal’s legendary Main,” and have prepared a petition, which you can read and sign here.

You can sign the petition Saturday June 6th starting a 8pm on the occasion of a “Friends of Cabaret Cleo” rally event (1230 St-Laurent, 2nd floor). There will be a lively evening of performances, lectures and cultural resistance, so join in and add your voice to the chorus of diasapproval. Velma Candyass of the Dead Dolls Dancers, frequent performers at the threatened venue, asks:

“How is a 12 story office tower part of the Quartier des Spectacles? As alternative artists we were looking forward to learning about the proposed revitalization plans for the Quartier des Spectacles. However by eliminating the 2nd floor show bar, a vital venue for local alternative artists in the proposed plans does not endear us to the proposed ideas. They wish to have ‘ethical business’ such as ‘ethical flower shops’ ‘quebec artisinal soaps ‘ or or chic bistros. somehow neo vaudeville, neo burlesque and cheap hotdogs do not fit their image of things to be. Cleo is a special venue that has supported and mentored alternative artists. The stage setup is quite unique as it is the only cabaret style setup here in montreal. We simply wish to continue doing our shows and to be included in the Quartier des Spectacles.”

On Tuesday June 9th the Coalition will deliver a lecture of memorandums and a presentation of their petition at the final Public Consultation on the project, to be held at the ballroom of Hôtel Holiday Inn Select, 99 Viger ave. W. (corner St-Urbain), Place-d’Armes metro. The petition will be presented to Société de développement Angus (SDA), officials of the Ville de Montréal as well as the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) and Conseil du Patrimoine de Montréal.

Now is the time to support the real Montreal artists and the real Montreal culture. Destroying authentic and storied performance venues in a Historic Site should be illegal. To destroy them in a “Quartier des Spectacles” makes no sense whatsoever. If anything, they should receive protected designation for their authenticity. The idea of bringing in a French “Starchitect” to destroy Montreal culture is utterly appalling, and the notion that a 12-story office tower belongs in a Historic Site suggests that the “Starchitect” is misguided. The tough-guy tactics of threatening appropriation demonstrate once again that Mayor Tremblay is ignoring artists, heritage activists, and business owners in his attempt to push through yet another ill-conceived project. The “Quartier des Spectacles” has a history of kicking out artists who express themsevles in alternative ways, and with an election coming up in November, now is the time to voice your opposition to these disrespectful and counterproductive plans. Sign the petition, and join the artists of Café Cleo in demanding protection for our culture!

Today is the beginning of “MainFest”, a 3 day “street fair” on St. Laurent Boulevard, or “The Main” Historic site. The boulevard will be completely closed to traffic and is expected to receive an estimated 300 000 visitors. According to The Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent (SDBSL), organizers of “MainFest” and other “street fairs”:

“With summer on the way, everyone’s invited to come to Saint-Laurent Boulevard and check out the action. MainFest is the perfect occasion for the public to enjoy Saint-Laurent Boulevard’s great terrasses and discover the hot new summer trends in fashion, decor and music. It’s time to put those tuques and boots away for the season and revel in the warm weather! MainFest will be serving up a fabulous cocktail of beauty, fitness, sports, and music sessions that will appeal to all our visitors.”

Known for its capitalist approach and corporate connections, the SDBSL even promotes “guerrilla marketing” in the historic site where, according to the Canadian government at least, “intrusive elements must be minimal”. In the past the SDBSL has sold out the historic site to corporate interests on many occasions, including to unethical sponsors such as PartyPoker.Net, which prompted local citizens, heritage activists and culture-jammers to launch a campaign to Reclaim The Main!

Culture wars on the street are starting to heat up, and as the “MainFest” sets up shop, signs of corporate interference are already all over the place.

This beer company/sponsor, which has a mobile “DJ Booth” has co-opted anarchist colours (black and red) and revolutionary imagery to sell its brand of suds. Furthermore, a security force including private guards and police officers is enforcing “rules” in the corporate zone, while not actually following them themselves. For example, cycling is apparently prohibited.

However, this regulation did not stop police officers from zipping through the crowd on their bikes, even blowing red lights, all the while warning others to dismount their bikes or face a ticket.

Faced with such hipocrisy, on the other side of the equation activists are working with culture-jammers on a movie documenting the corporate takeover of the historic site. Guerrilla Video Productions, Optative Theatrical Laboratories, and others are demanding change and inviting resisters to participate and Reclaim the Main. Contact optatif@gmail.com to get involved.

The next street “event” organized by the SDBSL is called “Club Main”, and runs June 18–21, 2009:

“We can’t bring Saint-Laurent to the beach, so we’re bringing the beach to Saint-Laurent! Everyone is invited to join the fun at Club Main, Montreal’s one-of-a-kind urban beach, where partying is the name of the game. No need to travel halfway round the world to soak up that holiday atmosphere. It will all be right here! Visitors will be able to stroll around, laze in the sun or underneath a palm tree, enjoy beach sports, volleyball, and Wake dans’rue, watch the performers, and in the evening, party under the stars!”

While corporate sponsorship deals have not been announced yet, the closure of “The Main” coincides with the opening of the Montreal infringement festival.

One act that is sure to participate in culture-jamming the corporate spam is the ninth edition of Montreal’s “longest-running theatre experiment”, Car Stories. Optative Theatrical Laboratories is seeking volunteers to participate and get involved. The show runs from June 19 – 21 during the street closure, and is open to all interested players. Interested players will bring it to the fifth annual Buffalo infringement festival in late July. The next meeting is Tuesday June 2 at 6pm at the Bifteck (3702 St. Laurent). All are welcome!

So get on down to “The Main” and witness the corporate SDBSL events theatrically clashing with heritage activism, concerned citizens, culture-jammers, and those demanding the protection of the historic site. Better yet, join in the action and help usher in a new era where people take precedence over corporations!

It looks like ripping up the ground to create open pit mines in places like Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala just isn’t enough for some Canadian mining companies: RoyalOr has gone local!  The Johannesburg, South Africa-registered organization has plans to turn Mount Royal into an open-pit mine.

“People always talk about buying local food and local produce,” argued RoyalOr CEO and director Alonse Barbe to people on the mountain yesterday, “so why are we taking our gold all the way from Mexico when we could be taking it here from Mount Royal?”

anticipated pit scope for the Mount Royal project

Barbe cited the activities of his firm and other Canadian mining companies in communities around the world and the lack of reaction in Canada as an example of Canadians’ acceptance of the practice of open-pit mining.  He also hopes that protests against and opposition to RoyalOr’s plans can be quashed in a similar manner to how dissent is dealt with in the developing world: through bribery of officials and silence in the media.

The RoyalOr plan involves digging up an area which goes from around Dawson College to St-Urbain Street on the Plateau.  This would gut most of the mountain and also prompt the forced relocation of residents, many of them currently living in Upper Westmount.  Barbe hopes that the company’s generous offer of moving everyone affected to places like Longueil and Laval for free will help to offset potentially litigious opposition.

There is also oppositon brewing against the project by community organization and citizens in general.  It has also started generating buzz in the media, with articles appearing in the Montreal Mirror and Rue Frontenac.

It was with this in mind that Barbe and a team of surveyors, geologists and marketers went to the weekly Tam Tams celebration on the mountain yesterday to explain their project to members of the community.  They were met with some skepticism, but support as well.  Here is a video of some of what happened:

Representatives of RoyalOr will make their claim official today as they hammer in the last stake as part of a press conference.  You are invited to join them at 1:30pm by the gazebo.

Today is May 1st, recognized in many places around the world as International Workers Day.  It traces its roots back to May 1st, 1886, when workers demanding an 8-hour work day walked out en-masse.  The police crackdown at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago two days later led to the Haymarket affair in where eight anarchists were eventually convicted of murder in a show trial.  Four of them were hung to death.

In Montreal, there is a long history of protest and artistic activism on May Day.  Sadly, there is also a history of police repression.  In 2008, for example, police cracked down on a mostly peaceful anti-capitalist march moments after it began.

This year’s march happens in the shadow of that event and also just a few months after the anti-police brutality march which ended, unfortunately, in police brutality and rioting.  Nonetheless, the march will begin today at 5:30pm in Cabot Square, leaving at 6:30pm for the Caisse des depots et placements in Old Montreal.

May Day also kicks off the Festival of Anarchy which now includes a theatre festival, arts exhibits, workshops, a squat (more on this in a few week) and of course the Anarchist Bookfair.  The festival lasts until May 31st.

Stella, the sex workers advocacy group, is hoping that workers’ rights will someday be extended to sex workers as well and in hopes of making this happen, they will be launching the latest edition of their ConStellation magazine tonight at Academy, 4445 St-Laurent, as part of a party thrown by Cirque de Boudoir.   The event starts at 9pm, costs $15 at the door (free for sex workers) and features DJ Frigid, Plastik Patrik and the Dead Doll dancers.

Over the past few years, the Immigrant Workers’ Centre in Cote-des-Neiges has hosted MayWorks an artistic celebration of workers’ rights.  This year is no different, except that the event will happen a week later on Saturday, May 9th starting at 5:30pm.

It took a while, but the federal government finally seems ready to invest a bit of money in the Quebec arts scene.  In fact, the department of Canadian Heritage is giving $4,222,861 to Montreal organizations like the National Theatre School, Les Grands ballets canadiens de Montréal and The Leanor and Alvin Segal Theatre.  They are doing so through the Endowment Incentives component of the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program.

The National Theatre school is scheduled to receive funding

Arts funding, particularly in Quebec, is always a welcome thing.  The industry employs quite a few people here as the Conservatives found out when cuts to funding may just have cost them their majority government last election.  It’s also a good thing considering having any type of job is becoming a rarity these days.

Does this mean that the government has changed its tune towards the arts?  Or could this be the continuation of a pattern that they started this past February when they replaced the Trade Routes program that helps Canadian artists travel abroad with an “Arts Prize” to be given out to artists from around the world by the people behind Toronto’s corporate-funded Luminato Festival.  This pro-corporate model was also apparent when the government refused to give extra funding to the CBC and instead considered bailing out CanWest Global.

Could that be what’s happening here?  Well, these investments aren’t donations to arts organizations in a vacuum.  The funds are to match donations by individuals, companies and community groups.  In fact, in its press release, the government claims that “this initiative complements other measures taken by our Government to encourage private-sector participation in arts funding.”

This is not new investment in artists that don’t have funding to begin with.  While it’s certainly a good thing that Harper’s government wants to “ensure that these organizations continue to enrich our lives for many years to come,” the fact that it took so long to get to this point could mean that it may take even longer for new artists that don’t have backing already to get some startup cash.

When someone or a group of people is doing art that challenges our corporate culture or even the capitalist system in general, government funding is usually the only outlet for them to be able to survive and do their work without changing it.  Now that the government is playing politics with culture and insisting on a public/private model instead of funding the arts out of obligation to our culture, then what chance will underground artists have in the future?