Cymbals and pinwheels

At 9 o'clock on Sunday morning I heard the fanfare, loud and slightly wonky. It was coming closer.

They were back.

The Complesso Bandistico Italiano was marching along St. Viateur in honour of San Marziale.

I first heard them on my very first morning at the corner of St. Viateur almost 20 years ago after a long hot day of moving and a late night of unpacking. As it was then, the recurring crash of early-morning cymbals and the honking brass remained impossible to ignore.

Back then I looked out my window and saw a band made up of old men in uniform, with gold braid on their hats. The trumpet and trombone players had music clipped to their horns. Where did they come from? What were they doing here? And how much longer were they going to be making this noise?
















While I still don't know all the answers, over the years I became familiar with the festival of San Marziale, the patron saint of Isca Sullo Ionio, the Calabrian birthplace of many Italian Montrealers who originally settled in Mile End, and then moved north to St. Leonard and Laval.

I learned that the early morning marching band was a prelude to the disco hits and Italian classics that another band would blast out from the stage on my corner. The decibel level of their renditions of "I Will Survive" and "Volare" was floor-shaking and ear-splitting, even with all my doors and windows closed.






















There was always a ceremony in Italian for the saint, a blessing by the priest; folk dancing, and free pasta cooked up in huge vats on the patio of Café Olimpico.

The morning after San Marziale the street would be adrift with saintly raffle tickets that losers tossed to the wind late at night, once the winners of bikes and trips to Italy had been announced.

I turned into Old Sneep, the grumpy lemon-sucking character in the children's book Lentil who frowns on the festivity of a marching band. In my case, it was the throbbing sound system of the Italian wedding band that made me ornery. I would slam out of my door during "Dancing Queen," stepping impatiently around the families sitting on my steps eating pasta. I'd escape to a movie, careful not to come home until it was all over. Sometimes I went out of town to avoid the whole thing.

But this year, as I ate breakfast and heard the first faint oompah-pah it was different. My two-year-old daughter looked at me and said: "I want to go see the music."

So we went. There was a day-long spectacle on our doorstep, the perfect way to occupy a toddler from morning until night.





















Was it just me, or was the disco band less deafening than usual? When we came inside for a break, I sang along to "Besame Mucho" and "Guantanamera." It was just one day, after all, why be annoyed?

We went back outside and in a thick cloud of smoke in front of The Social Club, we got a grilled Italian sausage. We ran into all kinds of neighbours and friends. We watched the final round of the marching band and then clapped and waved a pinwheel as kids whirled through Italian folk dances in bright vests and skirts.






















The night was warm and gusty – made for pinwheels – and the street looked different. For a moment, old Italians had taken back the neighbourhood. They sat in lawn chairs, and observed the festivities, outnumbering groovy young Mile Enders.

As it grew dark and her bedtime came and went, Amelia kept looking at me. "Not go inside! Not go home!" she insisted, as if I were about to whisk her away from all the fun.

She was right, I might have, except there was no point trying to go to sleep at our place.

We lined up for the last batch of free penne with tomato sauce at 10:30. We ate it on a neighbour's dim stoop, half-way down the block where things were a little quieter.

Full of late-night pasta, she fell asleep during the raffle, the last event of the evening.














The next morning when we looked out the window, the Fernand Femia electricians were already pulling down the festive strings of coloured flags and lights. The Ville de Montreal was hauling away the portable stage. Festa di San Marziale, finito for another year.

I had a newfound appreciation for the marching band and blaring disco tunes, for the lights and crowds and vats of pasta. So the morning after felt a little like the day the Christmas decorations come down, the end of something special.

Mile End Line

At the north edge of Mile End a web of footpaths leads to the railroad tracks.

If you follow the paths to the chain link fence there's a hole, and if you step through that, you end up someplace else.

It’s quiet and the air smells sweet. Pink blossomed milkweed plants and a tangle of purple wildflowers mix with Queen Anne’s lace along the tracks that stretch into the distance.

It's a big, wide-open space –the opposite of an underpass. This is the scenic route to the other side of the tracks.

I used to haul my bike over the tracks all the time. I admired the way gaps in the fence always opened up, no matter how many times Canadian Pacific mended them to keep people out.

Then I heard about people getting tickets.

I sit down on a bench in the sculpture garden north of Van Horne, not far from the hole in the fence.













I meet a friendly dog, Kismo, and his owner Vito, who says he stopped crossing the railway when he heard about the ticketing. Then Vinnie and his young daughter Gabrielle wander by, but steer clear of the railroad. Vinnie got a warning from the CP police about crossing the tracks and says that’s enough to keep him out.

Mary was walking her dog Maggie across the tracks when the CP police stopped her. They said it was illegal, and that she could get killed.

"They did this whole what-if thing," she says. "'What if you tripped and hit your head, and a train comes. Then they gave me a ticket for $140."

Somehow, despite the ticket, she can’t stay away.

"It's a great walk, away from the sidewalk and I love the solidarity with other people who walk there. It's a little anarchist."














Some of the anarchist walkers are organizing. A group of citizens recently papered a section of the fence with signs that say: "Open/Ouvert." And now there's a petition demanding an end to ticketing and safe level crossings at the tracks (http://www.petitiononline.com/ouvert02/petition.html).

















As I walk alongside the tracks, I don't run into any CP police, although I do see their signs. Danger. Private Property. No Trespassing.

There's not a lot of traffic on this line now, maybe a couple freight trains a day. I don't see any during my walk but I find a pigeon sliced in two by an earlier train. A reminder: if you’re going to be here you better watch out.














The sculptor Glen Lemesurier has a workshop that backs onto the tracks and he nods when I point out the bird. "They fall asleep in the sun on the warm tracks and don't wake up when the train comes," he says.

"Off the tracks, off Augie," Glen tells his son as they walk along the track with Bonnie Prince Billy, a husky-chow mix who's as energetic as his owner. "I don't want you ever to get in the habit of walking on them."

Augie is 10 and his dad has been working in his rail-side studio since before he was born. Augie has already spent years train spotting with his father's binoculars.

For his part, Glen seems to have reached an understanding with his neighbours at CP. He advises people to watch for the railroad cops and to not cross if they see them. But since he's not one to keep a low profile, his personal method of dealing with the rail authorities is based on a love of trains.






















"The chef du chemin is pretty cool," he says. "I used to go down to the Outremont rail yards before they closed to get parts from old engines, brake pieces, nuts, bolts. I did 30 sculptures made from train parts."

Some of these are on display in his sculpture garden near the tracks, a Mile End landmark at Van Horne and Clark.


















"The engineers used to stop the train and come into my workshop for a break," Glen says. "I'd talk to the switcher when there was one here. He was great, he gave me a lot of parts."

Striding through the tall grass along the tracks, he moves past the trees he's planted in the past few years. Forget about private property, he's a proud gardener as he points out willow, aspen, chestnut, sumac, white pine, poplar, pear, hemlock and cedar trees.












"In 10 or 15 years it'll be a forest," he says, picking a strawberry growing in the grass and popping it in his mouth.

His tree planting along the tracks makes me think of the parks some cities have made on old railway lines, like la Promenade Plantée in Paris or the High Line in Manhattan. But Glen's not waiting for the trains to stop running.

I sit on the bench in the sculpture garden in the shade of some poplars. A train thunders by with a long rumble. After that there's just the whoosh of traffic from the underpass and the sound of the breeze in the leaves.

Then, with a rustle, a person pops out of the hole in the fence, like a deer, or a rabbit. A few minutes later someone else comes through. They startle when they see me, but I'm not giving out any tickets, so they take the path by the sculptures made from the gears and rods and bits of old trains and continue on their way.

A line of poetry

On a warm breezy spring morning François Pilon heads out to the back lane. This is where he works, in yards and alleys all over the city.

"It's another world," he says of his alley turf. "The back lane doesn't appear on any map. There are no laws in this territory."

The way he talks about it, he sounds like an outlaw, but he's no criminal. He's a superhero of the Right to Dry movement.

He's Monsieur Corde à linge: Mr. Clothesline.

He wears blue work clothes, bright red suspenders and a headset so he can answer calls while he's two or three stories up his extension ladder.

His constant companion is Ricky, a quiet Doberman who waits in the truck or sniffs the perimeter of the yard while Pilon works.


















In the back balcony of a 15-year-old building in Villeray, Mr. Clothesline looks around, sniffs and nods. "Condo lifestyle. No clotheslines, except for the person with young kids," he says, pointing to a line full of diapers.

He installs posts, ropes and pulleys all over the Montreal neighbourhoods of Mile End– where clotheslines are part of the landscape, Outremont, Villeray, Rosemont, Ville Emard, NDG, Montreal Nord, Ahuntsic, and even in Hampstead, where clotheslines are technically illegal because they're deemed unsightly.

Websites like laundrylist.org oppose municipal restrictions on line drying and advocate clotheslines as a way to save electricity and reduce emissions.

Last year, Monsieur Corde à linge put up 550 clotheslines.

It all started in the mid-80s, when he was working for a cable company and damaged a few clotheslines by grazing them with his ladder. He had to buy a length of rope and a few pulleys to repair the damage. That's when he noticed how precarious the laundry lines were. He'd found his vocation.























Before long he quit his day job. "I didn't want to die a cable TV guy. The pay is low, the hours are long and there's no security."

Today, as Monsieur Corde à linge, he works under essentially the same conditions, except he's his own boss.

"If I were doing it for the money, I'd do something else. I do it because I love being outside and I love clotheslines. The clothesline is my baby."

Francois Pilon's other baby is The Green Party. He's run in the Outremont riding in the last three federal elections. He was motivated by what he saw as collusion between government and the forestry industry.

"I got upset," he says. "I thought, OK. What do I do about it? Keep bitching? Or get involved." He doesn't expect to ever get elected, but says it's important that someone run for the Green Party in every riding, partly to push the other parties on their environmental agendas.

In the Villeray backyard, Caroline is happy to be Monsieur Corde à linge's first client of the day. "It's my third time using him over the years, because we keep moving," she says. "He's really busy! I called him weeks ago but he was booked up until now."

Pilon installs a five-foot post on her second floor balcony. Then he goes down the back spiral staircase and climbs his ladder to attach a hook and pulley to the Hydro pole in the corner of a yard. He dismounts and climbs the ladder again with a silvery clothesline in tow.

The day is perfect, the small orderly backyards are still, except for a few gardeners, a pregnant woman and the spinning drift of poplar fluff from a towering tree that provides a high canopy over most of the block.

"For me it's important to have a clothesline," Caroline says. "It's ridiculous to use a dryer when it's 30 degrees outside. And I love the poetry of a clothesline; there's something I like about seeing the diapers of the baby next door.

"Today I'm paying $250 for the best quality line and a good post on my balcony. Worth it! That's two hockey tickets and it will be good for years!"

While Monsieur Corde à linge goes out to his truck to write her bill, Caroline scrunches up her shoulders in anticipation. "I can't wait to do a load of wash. All I need is clothespins!"

She can't contain herself. She steps out on her front steps. "Hey!" she calls out to a neighbour. "I got a clothesline!"

A young guy, wearing New York T-shirt, looks at her and gives a blank nod, indicating that not everyone understands the poetry or the point of a clothesline.



















"Women are my bread and butter," Pilon has told me, and judging from this exchange I can see why.

He hands Caroline her bill, and with it a complimentary packet of clothespins. "You've made my day," she tells him.

You might think a single guy in this line of work would get a lot of dates. But François says he maintains a professional distance and is careful not to mix business with his personal life. He always vousvoyers his clients. A bit of a performer, he likes to joke and do the odd stunt on a balcony railing (he says he only takes calculated risks and almost always wears a safety harness).

In a different yard a few blocks away he works with a helper, Gerald, to dig a hole for a new steel post to replace a rotting wooden one. The afternoon is boiling hot and François takes a break, instructing Gerald to "keep digging!" (-continue à creuser, toi!)

Out in the alley, he notices something and points. Behind the leaves of a climbing vine, it's his red and white sticker, two doors north of the yard he's working in today.

"I've been here before," he smiles with recognition. He's put up so many clotheslines in the past 18 years that the jobs and alleys all blur together.

"There's another one!" he pulls aside a leafy branch to show a pole across the alley bearing another one of his stickers: Montreal Corde à linge, with his telephone number and email.

As Caroline said, there's poetry in a clothesline.

Each one is particular, but somehow they all offer a ripple of hope.

Undershirts. Bras. Pillow cases and flowered sheets. Diapers and tiny socks. Enormous panties billowing in the breeze.

Now when I see clothes waving on the line in my alley, I look for Monsieur Corde à linge's stickers. There's one now.

Monsieur Corde à linge Montreal
514-731-7261
email: francoispilon at sympatico.ca

Outside the box / hors de la boîte

There's something strange going on at the Videotron on Parc Avenue near Fairmount.

It's the people who work there, behind the mustard coloured counter, in their black Videotron Super Club polo shirts with gold nametags pinned to their chests.

They seem happy.

They open the doors for customers with strollers, look up a half-remembered title on the computer without condescension and then sprint out from behind the counter to show you exactly where to find it on the shelf.

They love movies. And, in contrast to the miserable, alienated employees in Clerks, or the music geeks in the record store in High Fidelity, they actually like working with the public.


















"I love it when people ask my opinion," says Vincent Labrecque, 26, a budding director who watches two or three movies a day and can often be heard at the counter, rhapsodizing about a favourite, as customers punch in their rental code.

"The social part of the job is the best, talking to customers, recommending films," agrees Noémie-Anaïs Guichard, 27. She's worked at the store for 6 years and is the assistant manager.

"If she goes away for a few days, everything just falls apart," Vincent says.

Noémie-Anaïs shrugs modestly. The store may soon have to survive without her, as she hopes to get a job on a film shoot this summer. Her long-term goal is to find work as a script supervisor or camera assistant. "This store is a great place to make contacts. A lot of people in the neighbourhood work in movies," she says.


















"The other day, our late list was like a Who's Who," echoes Vincent, who said he had to phone Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique, 2009); Isabelle Blais (Les Invasions Barbares, 2003); and comedian Pierre Brassard about overdue DVDs.

Not that the movie rental business is all glamour. At the store they have to deal with shoplifters, and customers who want to fight instead of paying late charges. Vincent says he doesn't mind, the director in him likes learning the psychology of people, even if they get madder and madder.

He and Noémie-Anaïs have both had to deal with guys getting naked and whacking off in the adult video section. "We tell them to get out of there and go do that at home," Noémie-Anaïs explains calmly.

And still, they like their jobs.

For fun, and perhaps to expand the cinematic horizons of their clientele, Noémie-Anaïs and Vincent play obscure or forgotten films in the store and wait for customers to ask about them. Then, they make a pitch about why a certain film is worth seeing. "It's a classic of Québec cinema," she tells me while Les Ordres (Michel Brault, 1974) plays on the screens behind her.

Another day, Vincent exclaims, "It's beautiful! You can really see the influences of Truffaut and Goddard, and it's amazing to see Montreal at that time. Just look at the cars and there's Andrée Lachapelle, incredible!" He points to a blonde in a stylish convertible in YUL 871 (Jacques Godbout, 1966).
"Mine rented in 20 minutes!" the former film students will say to each other afterwards, competitive about how quickly they can get customers to fall under the spell of the footage and their spiel, and decide to take the film home.

You'd think cinephiles like this would want to work at a boutique video store like La Boîte Noire.

"The people who go to La Boîte Noire are already sold on what they want to see. I like seeing a wider spectrum of people watching films. I like finding out what people respond to," says Vincent.

He and Noémie-Anaïs take it upon themselves to watch kids' movies so that they know what to recommend to ten-year-olds, or parents. "Part of the job," they say.

They even have a relationship with some of the neighbourhood Hasidim. Really? "They rent kids' movies and comedies," Noémie-Anaïs reveals.

Less surprising than Hasidic Jews renting comedies, are the directors that Vincent and Noémie-Anaïs tell me are the most popular in Mile End: "Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, Almodóvar. " Right. As a typical neighbourhood resident, I've rented films by all of those directors from that store myself.

With all their passion and expertise, Vincent and Noémie-Anaïs will likely move on. They will be missed! But rather than dispensing movies, they'll be making them. They'll move way beyond nametags, and someday, we may find their names in a cinematic Who's Who.




Hors de la boîte
















Il se passe quelque chose de pas ordinaire au club Vidéotron de l’avenue du Parc près de la rue Fairmount.

Ce qui est extraordinaire, ce sont les gens en polos noirs qui travaillent là, derrière le comptoir jaune moutarde.

Ils ont l’air heureux.

Ils ouvrent la porte aux clients encombrés d’une poussette, ils cherchent sans condescendance un titre à moitié oublié et se pressent de vous montrer où exactement le film se trouve dans les rayons.

Ils adorent le cinéma. Et, contrairement aux employés malheureux et aliénés du film Clerks, ou des mordus de musique du long métrage High Fidelity, ils aiment vraiment travailler auprès du public.

« J’adore quand les clients me demandent mon avis », dira Vincent Labrecque, 26 ans, un réalisateur en herbe qui visionne deux ou trois films par jour et qu’on peut entendre au comptoir faire l’éloge d’un film pendant que le client tape son numéro de code.

Le plus agréable dans ce travail, c’est la partie sociale ; parler aux clients, recommander des films… », renchérit Noémie-Anaïs Guichard, 27 ans. Elle travaille au Superclub depuis 6 ans et occupe à présent le poste de directrice adjointe.

















« Si elle s’absente pendant quelques jours, tout s’écroule », nous confie Vincent.

Noémie-Anaïs hausse les épaules avec modestie. Le magasin devra sans doute survivre bientôt sans elle, car elle espère travailler sur un tournage cet été. Son but à long terme est de trouver un boulot comme scripte ou assistante à la caméra. « Cet établissement est un endroit fabuleux pour nouer des contacts. Beaucoup de gens du quartier travaillent dans le cinéma », nous dit-elle.

« L’autre jour, notre liste de retardataires ressemblait à un bottin du cinéma, ajoute Vincent en écho, lui qui a dû téléphoner à Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique, 2009); Isabelle Blais (Les Invasions barbares, 2003); et le comédien Pierre Brassard pour des films en retard.

Mais l’industrie du DVD locatif n’est pas tout glamour, loin s’en faut. Au magasin, ils doivent aussi s’occuper des voleurs à l’étalage et des clients belliqueux prêts à se battre pour se soustraire à une amende. Vincent dit que ça ne le dérange pas, le réalisateur s’intéresse à la psychologie des gens, quand bien même ils deviendraient agressifs. Lui et Noémie-Anaïs ont tous les deux eu affaire à quelques occasions à des types qui se faisaient une branlette dans la section pour adultes. « Nous leur disons de quitter les lieux et d’aller se branler chez eux. » explique calmement Noémie-Anaïs.

Malgré ces incidents, ils aiment leur travail.

Pour s’amuser et peut-être aussi pour élargir l’horizon cinématique de leur clientèle, Noémie-Anaïs et Vincent font jouer des films oubliés ou méconnus et attendent que les clients se piquent de curiosité. Quand un client vient s’enquérir, ils leur expliquent pourquoi tel ou tel film vaut la peine d’être vu. « C’est un classique du cinéma québécois », leur dit-elle tandis que Les Ordres (Michel Brault, 1974) joue sur l’écran.















Un autre jour, Vincent s’exclame : « C’est magnifique ! On peut vraiment constater l’influence de Truffaut et de Godard. C’est étonnant de voir Montréal à cette époque. Voyez simplement les voitures. Et regardez Andrée Lachapelle. Incroyable ! » Il pointe du doigt la blonde en décapotable dans YUL 871 (Jacques Godbout, 1966).

« Le mien s’est loué en 20 minutes ! », dira l’un ou l’autre de ces ex-étudiants en cinéma qui font des concours pour voir combien de temps ça leur prend avant qu’un client tombe sous le charme et qu’il décide de ramener le film à la maison.

On pourrait penser que des cinéphiles comme eux préféreraient travailler dans une boutique comme la Boîte noire.

« Les gens qui vont à la Boîte noire savent déjà ce qu’ils veulent voir. J’aime voir un plus grand éventail d’amateurs. J’aime découvrir ce qui fait réagir les gens », dit Vincent.

Lui et Noémie-Anaïs visionnent même les films pour enfants afin d’être en mesure de faire des recommandations. « Ça fait partie du travail », disent-ils.

Ils ont même créé des liens avec certains membres de la communauté hassidique. Est-ce possible ? « Ils louent des films pour enfants et des comédies », nous révèle Noémie-Anaïs.

Ce qui surprend moins que des Juifs hassidiques amateurs de comédies, c’est le palmarès des réalisateurs les plus populaires du Mile End : « Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant et Almadóvar », ont constaté Vincent et Noémie-Anaïs. Rien pour surprendre, car moi aussi j’ai loué à cet endroit des films réalisés par ces mêmes cinéastes.

Étant donné leur passion et leur expertise, Vincent et Noémie-Anaïs vont probablement se retrouver ailleurs d’ici peu. Ils nous manqueront ! Au lieu de louer des films, ils en réaliseront. On oubliera l’épinglette qui les identifiait. Un jour, c’est plutôt dans un dictionnaire du cinéma qu’on risque de retrouver leurs noms.

Exposure

This time of year, the days are longer and the extra light is surprising.

Winter ends, I go outside, and all of a sudden, I'm surrounded by neighbours. Spring conjures them up on the sidewalk.

I'm in my bathrobe, putting out the bag of dirty diapers, the green box full of wine bottles, or, later in the season, waving a shovel crazy-lady style at a cat defecating in the garden. Oh, hi.

In the winter, the cold makes everyone scurry home where long hours of darkness insulate us. Now, walking down the street is as revealing as taking a shower at the Y. Oh, hi, here we are, completely exposed.

It takes some adjustment.

In the face of all this light, I don't wear my glasses. Instant privacy. If I can't see the neighbourhood, it can't see me! I am regularly proven wrong, when blurry people wave at me and I wave back without knowing who they are.

But this willful myopia keeps the buzzing café across the street in its place, at a fuzzy remove.

That is – until I catch a glimpse of something interesting – like a couple actually getting married on the terrace outside Open da Night, or Thomas Fersen lining up for coffee, or neighbours I didn't even know were pregnant, out in the sun, with a brand new baby.

In that case, I run for my glasses and peer out the window, or better yet, rush right outside to get a good look.

Because, of course, I don't want to miss anything.

February

This time of year, it feels like there is only slush and garbage and plastic bags windsocking in the trees.

Inspiration is hard to come by.

Last week I went to another city, another country. They do things differently there.

I felt like the world's last pedestrian, wandering through webs of parking lots, malls and chain restaurants. The emptiness was huge. No row houses, no stroller jams on sidewalks, no one flying through stop signs on bike.

It just wasn't crowded or dirty or slushy enough, either.

Good to be home. Even in February.

End of an Era

The sign in the window of Maple Leaf Hat and Cap Company reads, "Closing. Everything Must Go."

I can't believe it. I was in here just a month ago. Barry Shinder was sewing caps and telling me that business was slow.

He's being saying that since I first met him a year and a half ago, so it's a scenario I could comfortably imagine repeating itself for years to come. I would go in to buy gift caps and visit my favourite piece of living history (see original blog post) and Barry would be there, sewing away as he's been doing for his entire life.

But he's closing up shop.

The little factory on the first floor of the St.-Laurent triplex is more chaotic than usual. Bolts of fabric are heaped willy-nilly on the cutting tables next to half-sewn caps, boxes of brims and big juice jars full of snaps. Orange For Sale or Sold! stickers dot the old metal shelves and cabinets.

Barry Shinder's manufacturing costs became too high.

Last week his main client, the garment company who contracted him to make their caps, said they couldn't afford his prices anymore.

They offered him a job. So now, instead of sewing caps in the business his father started on the Main 80 years ago, Barry will commute to work in the Chabanel district and get paid a wage. No overhead, no staff (for years he's employed three workers during his busy season).

"I'll be a worker instead of a boss," he says. "I'm losing money here so anything I make will be better. It'll be money with no headaches!"














Barry Shinder doesn't look like a man without headaches. He's losing weight and sleep worrying about how he'll manage to get rid of everything, rent out his 1800 square feet of factory space, pay off his debts and change his life.

"I've never worked anywhere else. This is my whole life." Then he pauses and adds optimistically, "At least I'll get up in the morning knowing I have work. And imagine, an 8-4 job! Instead of seven days a week!"

He'll be bringing his dad's old Singer sewing machine with him to sew caps. "That is one thing I'd never sell," he declares.

While we're talking, the owner of a hat shop in Côte de Neiges comes in to scoop up some stock at reduced prices. Usually, he goes to a wholesaler where all the hats are made in China and sell for a maximum of $5 each. "Five dollars, and that's top quality!" he tells Barry. "A simple cap, like this," he says, picking up a cotton flat cap, "20 cents."

"But the plastic in that brim costs me 45 cents!" Barry objects. He turns to me and sighs. "There you have the whole story."

A triplex in Mile End is valuable real estate these days, yet Barry says he can't imagine selling. So at least there's that. The rows of sewing machines, the stacks of caps and the dust from decades of fabric-cutting will all be gone. And what will become of the shelves of old blocks he used for shaping caps? At least Barry will still be around.

"If I had to move out of this area it'd kill me," he says of the block where he's lived since 1953 when he was six years old. "I could walk around here blindfolded."

As I leave, wet snow is falling and I notice that just north of Barry's place, in what used to be a neighbourhood tavern full of battered wicker chairs, a fancy new bar has opened up. Change is everywhere. Everything must go.


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