Jonathan Sa'adah

Category: Canada

  • The Bittersweet Story of Syria’s Christians

    The first in a series introducing my new photo book “Return to Damascus: A Personal Journey.” This post is about my family’s long-term history in Syria and at least some of the story of how we ended up in America.

    “He saved us with a single act of mercy.”

    These words, spoken by my father, referred to Abd el-Qadir al-Jaza’iri’s heroic intervention in Damascus in 1860 – a moment that shaped my family’s destiny and countless others.

    ▲ Abd el-Qadir (1808-1883) was trained as a religious scholar but for 15 years (1832-1847) he led the Algerian resistance against French colonization. After his surrender in 1847 he was imprisoned in France for five years before being released by Napoleon III and moving to Damascus. He lived in the city as a respected figure with a retinue of Algerian followers, so he was uniquely positioned to intervene in the anti-Christian violence of 1860. (US Library of Congress)

    When I set out to understand my family’s roots, I discovered that the story of Levantine Christian migration is both a tale of lucky survival and and stubborn resilience. It stretches from the violence that erupted in Mount Lebanon and Damascus in 1860 to the streets of Montreal, Brooklyn, Detroit-Dearborne, Brazil, Argentina, and many other places today. Syrian Christians have forged new communities across the globe, carrying traditions, languages, and memories with them.

    The 1860 Watershed

    In the spring of 1860, centuries of relative coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman Empire shattered. Economic tensions, administrative reforms, and armed conflicts in Mount Lebanon spilled into Damascus, where Druze militias and local mobs attacked Christian neighborhoods. Thousands were killed, and homes and churches were destroyed. It was a catastrophe that reverberated across the Mediterranean world.

    ▲ The Christian quarter of the Old City in Damascus after the 1860 violence In spite of Abd el-Qadir’s intervention an estimated 2,500 Christians died in Damascus alone, with 1,500 homes burned and 270 houses destroyed by looters. (US Library of Congress)

    Amid the chaos, one leader stood out: the Algerian-born Emir Abd el-Qadir. Living nearby, he intervened to protect Christian refugees – placing his family and followers between the mobs and Christians and personally leading women and children to safety.

    ▲ My paternal grandparent’s wedding photo My grandfather is wearing a fez because under Ottoman rule Arab Christians were required to show subservience. My grandmother was not born in Damascus but came from the nearby Christian village of Yabrud.

    This 1860 violence triggered the first large wave of Christian emigration. Families, traumatized by the massacres and fearful of a repeat, turned their eyes westward.

    Pioneers to Canada

    The earliest Levantine Christian settlers in Canada arrived in New Brunswick in 1879. Unlike the later urban enclaves in Montreal and Toronto, these pioneers ventured into small towns – opening general stores and peddling goods across rural routes. They etched their names into local histories as hardworking merchants who bridged cultural divides. Many never expected to settle permanently. They did though, building homes, marrying local partners, and raising children who knew their Syrian history only through photographs and stories passed down at the dinner table.

    America’s Mass Migration

    Simultaneously, a much larger exodus was underway to the United States. Steamship companies marketed opportunities in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York – highlighting factories hungry for labor and the potential for a better life. Between 1860 and 1914, nearly half of Mount Lebanon’s Christian population emigrated, with Syrians joining the ranks of what was referred to at the time as “the new Americans.”

    In Philadelphia, Syrian entrepreneurs opened fruit stands and textile shops. In Chicago, they staffed steel mills during the city’s rapid expansion. My father, who left Damascus in the 1920s for Beirut and later America, found work in a Vermont school teaching Arabic and in a couple of nearby churches as an Universalist minister. Like many, he sent letters back home – describing snowdrifts blocking roads and the smell of pine forests in ways that made our family’s memories of olive orchards and souks feel like distant dreams.

    ▲ Mounir Sa’adah, my father, on the porch of the Universalist Church in Woodstock, Vermont, where he served as minister from 1946-1964. (Ken Miner, Photographer)

    A Special Bond with France

    Across the Atlantic, France held a unique allure for Levantine Christians. The French “Protectorate” over Lebanon and Syria (1920-1946) created educational, linguistic, and administrative ties, making Paris a natural destination for students and professionals. Catholic missions in Beirut and Aleppo funneled promising young Christians into French universities, where they studied law, medicine, and literature.

    After graduation, some returned home; others remained in France, blending into Parisian neighborhoods. Their emigration differed from North America’s because they often enjoyed closer political ties and shared religious networks – and yet, they encountered challenges of assimilation and identity that echoed those of their North American counterparts.

    ▲ Syria’s complicated history with France In the text I put “Protectorate” in quotes because the reality is that France forcibly prevented Syrians from forming their own independent nation. These are buildings bombed by the French in 1920, at the same time the roof of the main souk was shot up. (US Library of Congress)

    Economic and Social Drivers

    These early migrants were motivated by more than fear. Steamship agents sold tales of golden opportunities, churches organized sponsorships, and community letters home detailed business successes. Young men also sought to avoid Ottoman military conscription, which often meant years of service under harsh conditions.

    This “emigration fever” spread quickly. Prosperity stories – of peddlers returning with wagons full of cash – encouraged others to risk the voyage. Similar stories were repeated by migrants to Mexico and South America. Families pooled savings to buy single tickets, hoping to reunite later. Missionaries and diaspora societies provided lodgings, language lessons, and job placement assistance.

    Preserving Culture in the Diaspora

    Diaspora communities across Canada, the United States, and France worked hard to preserve their culture. Churches taught Arabic and Aramaic liturgies; social clubs hosted dance nights; local grocers sold za’atar and ma’amoul; newspapers in Arabic bridged generations. Families celebrated Christmas with mezze spreads, blending Levantine recipes with North American traditions.

    Through these practices, they maintained a strong sense of identity – one that connected them to the villages of Mount Lebanon, the courtyards of Damascus, and the stone village of Ma’lula. Yet, each new homeland shaped them in turn, creating unique hybrid cultures that were neither fully Syrian nor completely Western.

    Weaving Family and Diaspora

    My own family’s journey followed these patterns. My paternal grandparents remained in Damascus where my father was born in 1909, later attending the American University in Beirut. In 1946, he and my mother traveled to Vermont. After departing the Middle East, he never returned for any extended period, yet It remained a strong part of him.

    My mother, who was not Syrian but Armenian, had three children with my father, of which I was in the middle. The book “Return to Damascus” is loosely about my father’s own pilgrimage to Damascus in 2000 when he was ninety years old and where he retraced his arc: from the United States back to the streets he had grown up on.

    ▲ Early 1990s family trip to Montreal to purchase Syrian groceries We drove up from Vermont on a day trip to shop in a small Syrian grocery store. I have my arms around my parents and the woman on the left (next to my wife, Beth) is Abbe Sawabini, who married into a Palestinian family and lived in Burlington, Vermont.

    Setting the Stage for Cultural Preservation

    History plays an important role in my photography book. The images of Ma’lula, the candid portraits along with the streets and places of Damascus, carry deeper meaning for me because of the family diaspora story. But our stories are by no means unique. My family’s history reminds me that many family photo albums hold stories of departure and return, of belonging and loss. But for me the journey from Damascus to Montreal is not just geographical – it is a testament to the enduring spirit of Levantine Christians who carried their heritage across oceans and generations.

    “Return to Damascus: A Personal Journey” can be pre-ordered from Phoenicia Publishing at a discount for delivery in November.

  • The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities

    ▲ Catania Fish Market The star of this market is the swordfish, but even the sardines are unusual. It’s true that plastic crates and digital scales abound, but still there’s a feeling of the market being enmeshed in long-running traditions, which gets reflected in the city’s approach to urban planning as well.

    The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities: Understanding Why We Love What We’re Missing
    Part II

    One of the most striking features of these older cities is their incredible diversity of housing types and price points, often within the same neighbourhood. In Damascus, you might find a restored 17th-century merchant’s house next to modest apartments that house working families, with both sharing the same narrow street and the same access to local amenities. Palermo’s neighbourhoods mix recently built condos (often retaining traditional facades) with affordable housing apartments, creating the kind of economic integration that many newer developments actively prevent. To give Montreal credit, some neighbourhoods share this diversity, but it’s often frowned on as “gentrification”.

    ▲ No problem with gentrification here This street was founded by Greek colonists in Agrigento, on the southern coast of Sicily, probably around 580 BCE. I would surmise that the Greeks used slaves to haul the blocks used in the construction.

    This mixing isn’t just socially beneficial – to me it’s economically essential for urban vitality. It’s what helps create a local economy with non-chain, locally owned businesses. Diverse housing types create diverse local economies, supporting the small-scale entrepreneurship that makes a neighbourhood interesting and economically resilient.

    The housing diversity in these cities also reflects their adaptability over time. Buildings that were constructed as grand single-family homes can be subdivided into apartments when economic conditions deteriorate, or combined back into larger units when gentrification pressures increase. We’re often critical of this, but it ‘s a flexibility built into the architectural DNA of older cities that allows them to respond to changing demographics and economic conditions without wholesale demolition and reconstruction.

    ▲ Even in ancient neighbourhoods like this one in the Sicilian hill town of Piazza Armerina you can differentiate the renovated houses by window style and roofing.

    The Art of Adaptation and Resilience

    Perhaps the most remarkable quality of these beloved gritty cities is their capacity to adapt and evolve while maintaining their essential character. They’ve survived empires, wars, economic collapses, and social upheavals not by standing still, but by continuously adapting their built environment to new needs while preserving the underlying urban logic that makes them work.

    Damascus offers perhaps the most dramatic example of this adaptability. The old city has continuously evolved over millennia, with Roman columns supporting Islamic arches, Byzantine churches converted to mosques, Ottoman palaces repurposed as museums, and traditional courtyard houses transformed into restaurants and cultural centres. Each layer of history adds to rather than erases the previous ones, creating the rich texture that makes the city so compelling.

    ▲ Damascus is probably the best example of a living city, with Roman, Ottoman, and “contemporary” structures all sharing space in this photo.

    The Integration That Creates Magic

    What makes these cities truly special isn’t any single characteristic but how all these elements work together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. The human scale enables walkability, which supports diverse public spaces, which creates markets for diverse housing types, which generates the economic activity that supports adaptation and renewal. It’s a virtuous cycle that has been refined over centuries of urban living.

    What We’re Missing at Home

    Standing in my ordered, well-regulated neighbourhood in Montreal, I often think about what we’ve traded away in our pursuit of efficient, predictable urban environments. Our streets are wider and cleaner, our building codes more rigorous, our public spaces more carefully maintained. These aren’t bad things – they reflect genuine improvements in public health, safety, and accessibility.

    ▲ The Montreal Plateau is relatively flat as its name implies, with spikes of church spires and an occasional out-of-place apartment tower. The visually boring cookie-cutter buildings in the foreground enforce a visual style, but their predictability saps vitality.

    But in our effort to eliminate the inefficiencies and unpredictabilities of older urban forms, we may have eliminated some of their essential vitality as well. Our zoning codes separate uses that these older cities mix naturally. Our building standards favor large-scale development over the small-scale, incremental growth that creates diverse, affordable neighbourhoods. Our traffic engineering prioritizes movement over lingering, getting through rather than being in.

    ▲ Exceding all predictions The Décarie autoroute as it was designed in the early 1960’s was supposed to max out at 90,000 cars per day. It now handles an average of almost double that.

    The question isn’t whether we should abandon our standards and return to some romanticized past, but whether we can learn from what these older cities do well while maintaining the genuine improvements of contemporary urban planning. Montreal offers some lessons in this direction. The city’s pedestrianization of portions of Ste-Catherine Street shows how even established cities can evolve toward more human-centred design.

    Living in the Tension

    Perhaps what I’m really drawn to in these places isn’t their grittiness per se, but their willingness to live in productive tension between competing values. They’re not trying to optimize for a single goal but rather to balance multiple, sometimes contradictory objectives: old and new, local and global, efficient and experiential, ordered and spontaneous.

    The cities I love aren’t perfect, and I certainly wouldn’t want to eliminate building codes or return to pre-modern public health standards. But they offer something that our more regulated urban environments often lack: they feel like places where humans have lived, adapted, and created something together over time. They feel like home not because they’re comfortable or convenient, but because they’re complex and alive.

    The narrow streets of Damascus, the piazzas of Palermo, the pedestrian rhythms of Thessaloniki – these aren’t just tourist attractions or nostalgic throwbacks. They’re working examples of urban principles that we ignore at our peril. As cities around the world grapple with climate change, housing affordability, and social isolation, these older urban forms offer tested strategies for creating places that are not just efficient but truly livable. The question is whether we’re wise enough to learn from them.

    ▲ A couple in a Piaggio Ape, a vehicle nimble enough to navigate easily through town, and displaying the icons of their traditions. Piazza Armerina, Sicily.

    The Damascus photograph in this post is taken from a book I’m just finishing (Return to Damascus: A Personal Journey) on the experience I had in returning to where my father had been born.

  • The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities | Part 1 of 2

    ▲ Catania Open Market I envy the Sicilians and their abundant produce, even at the end of November. Their markets are noisy and colorful. The produce feels close to the farm, which it is.

    The Irresistible Pull of Gritty Cities: Understanding Why We Love What We’re Missing

    I’ve always found myself drawn to certain cities with an almost magnetic pull – places that feel lived-in, weathered, and wonderfully imperfect. From the narrow stone alleys of Damascus to the chaotic vitality of Mexico City, from Palermo’s winding streets to the crumbling decadence of Thessaloniki, these are cities that seem to embrace their contradictions. They’re places where modernity coexists awkwardly but beautifully with centuries of accumulated history, where every street corner tells multiple stories, and where the urban fabric feels genuinely human in scale.

    ▲ Thessaloniki Old City We drove our car through these streets and it was definitely a social experience, since traffic was both directions and each encounter was a negotiation. The stairs on the right definitely would not satisfy Montreal’s setback regulations.

    As someone who calls Montreal home – a city that sits comfortably between order and character – I often wonder what it is about these grittier places that captivates me so deeply. Is it simply the allure of the tourist’s gaze, romanticizing what locals might find frustrating? Or is there something more fundamental about how these cities are designed and how they’ve evolved that creates genuinely superior urban experiences?

    I believe it’s the latter. These cities embody qualities that many of our more regulated, sanitized urban environments have systematically designed out – and in doing so, we’ve lost something essential about what makes a city truly livable.

    ▲ Jean-Talon Market Montreal Our winter markets are abundant but everything is quite orderly, and (sadly!) imported from afar, especially when compared to Catania.

    The Human Scale That We’ve Forgotten

    Walk through the old quarters of Damascus or wander the residential streets of Palermo, and you’re immediately struck by how perfectly sized everything feels for human beings. Buildings rise to four or five stories – tall enough to create urban passageways but low enough that you can still make eye contact with someone leaning out a third-floor window. Streets are narrow enough that neighbours can converse across them but wide enough for the essential choreography of urban life: children playing, vendors selling, neighbours meeting, deliveries being made, life happening.

    ▲ Damascus Street Football Other than there not being any women in this photograph, a lot is happening on the street. This was in the Old City.

    This isn’t accidental. It’s the result of centuries of organic development where buildings were constructed at the pace and scale that individual families and small communities could manage. In Thessaloniki, the traditional urban fabric prioritizes pedestrian comfort over vehicular efficiency. The narrow streets that might frustrate a traffic planner become perfect corridors for social interaction, where the pace naturally slows and encounters become inevitable.

    ▲ Palermo’s streets pick up on the city’s ancient layout, with automobiles present but taking a backseat.

    Contrast this with our modern approach to urban development, where efficiency and standardization trump human experience. Even in Montreal, our newer developments tend towards what we define as modern experience – wider streets, taller buildings, larger blocks that prioritize movement over lingering. We’ve optimized for cars and commerce rather than for the casual encounters and spontaneous connections that actually make urban life rich.

    ▲ Looking north in Montreal from Côte-des-neiges at residential and commercial buildings in one of the fastest expanding parts of the city.

    The smaller scale of these older cities creates what seems to me the conditions necessary for urban vitality. Even though they may look to be museum pieces, they aren’t. They are living examples of urban design that puts human experience first.

    Public Spaces as the City’s Living Rooms

    Perhaps nothing distinguishes these gritty, beloved cities more than the quality and accessibility of their public spaces. Not just parks or grand plazas, but the everyday spaces where public life unfolds: the stepped streets of Damascus that become impromptu gathering places, the piazzas of Palermo that serve as outdoor living rooms for entire neighbourhoods, the casual sidewalk life of Mexico City where sidewalks and public spaces encourage people to meet and relax”.

    These cities understand something fundamental: public space isn’t just about recreation, it’s about democracy. It’s where different social classes, ages, and backgrounds encounter each other naturally. When public space works well, it becomes the foundation for social cohesion and civic engagement.

    ▲ Preparation for Women’s Day March International Women’s Day has been commemorated in Mexico City since the 1930s, but the massive street mobilizations began gaining momentum in more recent decades as a response to Mexico’s epidemic of gender-based violence.

    Mexico City is often dismissed as sprawling and car-dependent, but alongside that reality I see a lot more going on. The city’s downtown areas have spacious parks and sidewalks, accommodating an unending ballet of commuters, tourists, and street vendors. On Sundays, major arteries like Paseo de la Reforma are closed to cars and opened to pedestrians and cyclists, temporarily transforming the large parts of the city into one enormous public space.

    ▲ Mexico City’s less romantic side The city government has tried different approaches at reducing car traffic, all with little success. Nevertheless, there is an inexpensive and well-used public transport system used by 14 million people a day. The open lane is a reverse direction lane for buses.

    What these cities understand is that public space isn’t a luxury – it’s infrastructure. Just as essential as water pipes or electrical grids, public space is the network that allows urban society to function, providing the venues for the informal encounters and casual sociability that bind communities together.

    Walkability as a Way of Life

    In these cities, walking isn’t exercise or a lifestyle choice – it’s simply how you get around. This creates a fundamentally different relationship between residents and their urban environment. When you walk regularly, you notice things: the quality of surfaces, the presence or absence of shade, the rhythm of street life, the small businesses tucked into ground floors.

    ▲ Damascus Old City Bakery Man carries away hot bread purchased from a small bakery.

    Thessaloniki, despite its challenges with broken pavements and sidewalks, illegally parked cars and motorcycles, kiosks and coffee tables, has a vibrant street culture. I look forward to going back soon to see how the city has adapted to its newly-opened metro system, which hopefully will reduce the perpetual gridlock many of its streets experience during the day. Hopefully the ongoing integration of walking and public transit has created an even more layered urban experience.

    Mexico City exemplifies this integration beautifully. Despite its size and complexity, the city maintains an impressive pedestrian culture. Under the leadership of mayor Claudia Sheinbaum (who has a background in environmental engineering) the city dramatically expanded its network of public transit, bolstering its generous public spaces with wide sidewalks and creative public squares.

    ▲ Mexico City’s Metrobus System provides rapid transit with a two dedicated lane system. Multi-unit buses (some all electric) load in stations much like a metro line. Claudi Sheinbaum was instrumental in launching the system as Secretary of the Environment (2000-2006) under then-mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who went on to be President, as she has too.

    Next week: Housing.
    The Damascus photographs in this post are taken from a book I’m just finishing on an experience I had with my father, returning to where he was born.

  • Michael Pitts

    ▲ Michael Pitts Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, 1991-2009.

    A Dean Who Changed Our Lives: Remembering Michael Pitts

    On Sunday morning as I sit in the familiar wooden pew of Christ Church Cathedral during the Sunday mass, listening to the announcement of his death, I can’t help but think of the man who shaped this sacred space for so many of us over eighteen transformative years. The Very Reverend Michael J. Pitts served as our Dean from 1991 to 2009, but to simply list those dates feels inadequate – almost insulting – to capture what this remarkable man meant to our cathedral community.

    When Michael first arrived in Montreal from England in 1988, eventually taking on the deanship in 1991, Christ Church Cathedral was at something of a crossroads. The Anglican Church was grappling with questions of identity, relevance, and inclusion that would define the next several decades. We needed more than just a competent administrator or a polished preacher – we needed a visionary, a pastor, and a bridge-builder. In Michael Pitts, we found all three.

    The Preacher and Teacher

    Michael’s sermons were legendary among our congregation, and for good reason. Here was a man who had studied classics and ancient history at Oxford, trained at Queen’s College Birmingham, yet possessed the rare gift of making complex theological concepts accessible to everyone struggling with faith questions. His intellectual rigor never overshadowed his pastoral heart. Whether he was exploring the intersection of science and faith – a particular passion of his – or unpacking a difficult biblical passage, Michael had this remarkable ability to make you feel both challenged and comforted.

    A Champion of Justice

    Perhaps what I admired most about Michael was his courage in championing causes that weren’t always popular, even within our own Anglican community. His advocacy for the full inclusion of LGBTQ2S persons in church life and ministry wasn’t just a theological position for him – it was a moral imperative rooted in his understanding of the Gospel. This wasn’t easy in the 1990s and early 2000s, when these conversations were tearing apart Anglican communities worldwide.

    ▲ In Dean Pitt’s tenure huge strides were made as the Cathedral contributed to leading the diocese on LGBTQ2S issues. In July, 2006 Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church, gives the sermon during a special mass at the Cathedral.

    Michael navigated these turbulent waters with remarkable grace. He never compromised his convictions, but he also never demonized those who disagreed with him. Instead, he created space for dialogue, for questions, for gradual understanding. Our cathedral became a place where gay and lesbian couples felt welcomed long before it was officially sanctioned, where transgender individuals found acceptance, where families wrestling with these issues could find support rather than judgment.

    ▲ Dean Pitts with Assistant Priest Joyce Sanchez. With Canon Sanchez and Dean Pitts the cathedral had a leadership team that helped ordain the first openly gay priest in the diocese (2012).

    Michael understood that justice work wasn’t separate from pastoral care – it was pastoral care. When he stood up for the marginalized, he was doing exactly what he’d been called to do as our Dean.

    ▲ With Kylliki near their home in Rawdon. December, 2004.

    A Family Man in Our Cathedral Family

    Michael’s wife, Kyllikki, herself a Lutheran pastor and theologian, brought her own wisdom and warmth to our community. In her quiet way she was a strong presence alongside him, and together they formed a strong union from which we were all touched by their love.

    Michael never pretended to have it all figured out. Throughout his life, as well as his time with us, he was refreshingly honest about the challenges of ministry, the struggles of faith, the difficulty of maintaining work-life balance. This vulnerability made him more effective as a leader, not less. We trusted him precisely because he didn’t present himself as superhuman.

    Beyond the Cathedral Walls

    Michael’s ministry extended far beyond our cathedral walls. His work with seafarers, factory workers, and the urban homeless before coming to Montreal shaped his understanding that the Gospel was meant for everyone, especially those on society’s margins. During his time as Dean, he maintained connections with Montreal’s broader community, participating in interfaith dialogue, social justice initiatives, and community building efforts that reflected well on all of us.

    ▲ Dean Pitts with Cuban children in our then-partner Anglican cathedral in Havana. The relationship with the Havana community was established through the work of Canon Sanchez. Dean Pitts made two trips to Cuba, where found a vibrant congregation participating both in their faith and as members of the communist state. (Photo credit: unknown)

    After his retirement from the deanship in 2009, Michael’s commitment to ministry only deepened. His work in the Diocese of Quebec, travelling by air, water, and land to serve isolated fishing villages along the north shore, demonstrated that his calling to serve had nothing to do with prestige or comfort. Here was a man in his seventies, still willing to endure difficult travel conditions to bring communion to people others might have forgotten.

    A Lasting Legacy

    As I look around our cathedral today, I see Michael’s fingerprints everywhere. Not in any physical renovations but in the spirit of the place. We’re still the inclusive, intellectually honest, socially conscious community he helped shape. New members often comment on the warmth they feel here, the sense that questions are welcomed rather than discouraged, that faith is understood as a journey rather than a destination.

    Michael taught us that being Anglican didn’t mean being wishy-washy or uncommitted. Instead, he showed us that our tradition’s emphasis on reason, scripture, and tradition working together could produce a faith that was both deeply rooted and dynamically responsive to the needs of each new generation.

    The Very Reverend Michael J. Pitts wasn’t perfect – he’d be the first to tell you that. But he was exactly the Dean we needed when we needed him. He challenged us to grow, and showed us what it looked like to live out the Gospel with both conviction and compassion. For those of us privileged to call him our Dean for eighteen years, the gratitude we feel is matched only by the responsibility we carry to continue the work he began among us.

  • Two City Parks | Montreal Unfiltered

    Summer evening softball in Parc Lafontaine

    I’ve lived on the edge of two parks in Montreal. The first was an established historic park known for its beauty (Parc Lafontaine), and the second a recently constructed city park (Parc Saidye-Bronfman) where we live now in an “up and coming” neighborhood, the “Triangle” section of Côte-des-neiges. Soon after we moved in we invited a friend from our first neighborhood over and looking out she exhaled “¿That’s a park?!?!!??”.

    She’s actually a very kind person, it was just a momentary slip.

    Trucks waiting to be loaded with fill from excavation of a new apartment building. Part of Parc Saidye-Bronfman is visible on the left.

    She had a point. It’s not much of a park right now, and it may never be. There’s a difference between a park that inhabits a large parcel of land and evolves over decades, weaving its way into people’s lives, and one that’s a relatively soulless small pocket park, put in because developers are required to tick a box called “green spaces”. The whole thing comes off as if no one really has their heart in it.

    Parc Saidye-Bronfman

    The history of our present park runs something like this: it was envisioned as being twice its current size (which would still have been small), but somewhere along the way its boundaries got whittled down. It was also planned to showcase the use of indigenous plants, but that too is falling short as the messy natives are uprooted and replaced by fabric cloth and the standard city plantings. It’s a bit like after the check-box we’re moving on.

    Beth, who blogs occasionaly about the city with an invariably philosophical and generous eye, goes down when she spots the city gardeners. They hem and haw, in the end sighing and saying they’re just doing what they are ordered to do (and “could she write a letter….”) But I wonder what the real story is, and what it is we will probably never know.

    What I do know is that humans need places where they can exhale a little, and it’s in parks where the air tastes a little greener and the asphalt recedes enough that you can hear your own heartbeat. I do miss Parc Lafontaine where I used to go out for an early morning and walk on damp paths, hearing children chattering on their way to school. It’s too bad that in these new neighborhoods the city more often than not bows to developer’s wishes rather than taking a long step back and acting with a vision that’s more than a future of promised bike paths and trolleys and two-lane roads, which won’t work. Parks matter because cities are not built of steel and ambition alone. We need the quiet space true parks give. We need green sanctuaries where the earth remembers itself, and invites us to remember it too, even if it is a bit messy.