June 16 2012
This weekend was the annual street sale on blvd Saint-Laurent when the street is closed to traffic and the stores, bars and restaurants extend out into the road. Saint-Laurent is always pretty lively at night, but when the street is closed (which happens a few times each year), the street becomes even more lively.
So I took a walk up from rue Sherbrooke to avenue du Mont Royal this evening to attempt at getting a few street shots.
The Parc des Amériques (on the corner of Rachel) has been taken over by The St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival that is currently taking place at various venues across Le Plateau during the month of June. At the entrance to the park, I came across this artist who was happy to strike a pose (and turn on the lamp dangling above her head) and promote the Butt Kapinski, Private Eye show.
The Park has been transformed with a stage and lots of seating and tables for the audience and makes for a great spot to hang and be entertained by the various acts performing there during the festival.
The famed smoked meat and deli restaurant Schwartz’s was as busy as ever.
Love the entrance door for the Blvd 44 night club.
The Balattou club has been open since 1974. The image was pretty grainy, but I didn’t try to clean it up too much as I thought the grain added to the atmosphere of the picture.
With street food being banned in Montreal for the last 50 years (crazy, I know), the great part of the street sale is the number of food vendors on the street. Although it’s generally the restaurants who simply set up BBQ’s, fryers or whatever on the street outside their restaurants, the aroma of food wafting down the street is what makes the street closure special for many…me included 😉
The good news is that Montreal is reviewing the street food issue this autumn and hopefully will lift the ban. Until then, here are a few ‘street meat’ vendors making the most of cooking out on the street.
To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.
Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.
Martin