Peace Park 2010

It’s 2010 and skating at Peace Park so far this year has been good as always, with enough crew and new tricks popping off.Ain’t nothing changed, well almost. All around Peace there has been significant changes. On the east side of the park Temple seems to have closed its ‘retail’ doors for what seems like forever since they haven’t lifted their metal store front for business yet this year. Sucks for all us skaters who would go there in times of need. However, Andy still has the Temple shop on line.

The SAT (Society for Arts and Technology) situated on the north side of the park is undergoing renovations. They are adding a 3^rd story to their building that will have a huge dome, which will be used for some next level video presentations. The boom crane being used for the construction is interfering with the park a bit do to its size, but all the ledges are still skate able.

Also, Importation Main in front of the park closed down forever succumbing to the pressure of expropriation by the city, along with it’s neighbor the Montréal Pool Room, which fortunately moved across the street after being in the same place for nearly a hundred years. Cool thing is that the Pool Room is still hooking up the skater specials.

In other news… The documentary. Yes, it’s still in progress. Relatively recently we interviewed Joe Buffalo for the videoo via Skype, who at the time was in Vancouver. And with Stack Money from JKR, who is amongst the first graffiti writers in the city. He filled us in on the historical graffiti that took place at Peace Park during its construction days, which is priceless. After those interviews became all said and done, the capturing and logging of footage came to an end, and just yesterday we finished laying out the storyboard.

So, now were placing things in order to start writing the narration to be filmed ASAP, we’re excited and will try to keep you update time permitting. After all, there is barely enough time in a day to skate, party, and sleep, not to mention maintaining a website, and organizing events such as the Montréal City Hall Championships Poser Game, which is coming soon, and put together the best damned documentary the world has ever seen.

The Fall Season Hidden Clips

Fall is here, and to go along with the season change are the new November Hidden Clips in the Peace Park picture on the main page. This month there is a run by Etienne Tanguay and Marc-Andre Daoust,  tri cks from Gab Ekoe and Tyler Maher, a clip with Québec’s Bob Le Chef, a skaters story about Beasley Park, and more.

October Hidden Clip Answers

Today is the last chance to see  Phil Beauséjour preaching the Bible, some skating, and other random park actions in the October’s Hidden Clips. This picture shows the answers to the Hidden Clips from last month in the picture of Peace Park on the main page, which should be replaceb with new clips by tomorrow with a little something extra.

Burglary at Importation Witnessed from Peace Park

Peace Park made blog news again. Check the post titled ‘Big Boi and Burglary ‘ on the Gray Side Projects blog that was posted on October 18th. It basically talks about how someone witnessed Importation Main getting burgled, while drinking beer in Peace Park during the Big Boi show at the SAT. MQC’s Mr. Brooke Walsh found this post, good looking out.

Wikipedia entry on Peace Park (Montreal)

Thanks to Wikipedia user mtl514, PEACE PARK is now apart of Wikipedia, the  free, web-based, collaborative encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The entry covers a brief history of the ‘public place’, the presence of skateboarding in the park, the documentary which is coming in 2010, some good news paper references to back up the information in the entry, a list of the urban events that took place in the park, and some external links. Hopefully, there will soon be a picture of Peace Park.

Flipping Bikes

Montréal’s full of Quick Criminals and you don’t need to be hanging out skating on the streets all day to notice it either. In just about every park in the city is some cracked out dude ready to sell you a stolen bike for a great deal. In fact, I heard Montréal has the highest number of bike thefts in North America, it’s become its own industry. Organized crime started exporting stolen bikes in crates to other countries by the tens of thousands.

Bike thieves will straight hustle bikes out in the open as if they were panhandling. So, if you ever need a bicycle, just walk around downtown and look for any weather worn sketch bag that doesn’t seem to match with his wheels. If he doesn’t approach you first, just ask him how much for the ride. The most I have ever paid for a bike was forty bucks for a brand new Federal cruiser, which I still peddle with today. I could have gotten it for thirty, but while I was in the middle of bargaining someone tried out bidding me. The most common cycles for sale on the streets are Canadian Tire Super Cycles, which I wouldn’t even buy brand new for ten dollars. The average going price for any bike off the streets is 20 bucks, the equivalent to a crack rock.

Anyway, the other day at Peace Park I saw some dude rolling by on a Fieling 2008 bike. Leading by example, I asked him how much for the collapsible bike. During price negotiations, I managed to question him on how he goes about stealing bikes. His response was that he doesn’t just rob bikes he steals everything. While showing me his backpack full of tools for cutting chains, freezing and shattering locks, sawing shit, and prying things open, he added, he’d go as far as to following a person who has a bike with disk breaks, just waiting for the chance to nab their ride so he can sell it on the south shore for two maybe three hundred dollars.

Some people argue that you shouldn’t buy stolen bikes because it promotes bike theft. Well let me tell you, in my opinion after getting several bikes stolen, it doesn’t make sense to purchase a new one just to have it stolen again. Besides, buying new bikes from stores in my opinion only saturates the black market. When people buy new bikes instead of stolen ones to replace their stolen bike, less stolen bikes are sold on the streets. This creates a surplus of stolen bikes, which are accumulated by organized crime and shipped to other countries.

A lot of bike shops refuse to repair or buy stolen bikes, but then there are some that profit from it. Meaning, even if you where to purchase a used non-stolen bike from a store, there’s no way to know for sure whether or not it’s a stolen ride. Hence, you might as well just buy it off the streets and save your self some money.

I ended up buying the brand new red-hot Fieling 2008 collapsible for only twenty bucks, still with its plastic wrapping. After I used it as a skate obstacle and not being able to return the bike to its proper owner, I gave it away to a friend who had their bike stolen. If you do have a bike stolen or not, my advice is to invest in a bike lock that’s guaranteed against bike theft.

Dave Bouthillier Bs Flip

Photo: Dan Stevenson

Phil Beauséjour Preaching the Bible in October’s Hidden Clips!

Yesterday our web master Virginie from Tribx put up the new 15 Hidden Clips for October 2009 on the Peace Park picture on the main page, which includes Phil Beauséjour preaching the Bible before he turned to Satanism, Scott Furkay flying over a car, a fight or two, a crew shot from back in 2005, some nasty shit,  and a bunch of other random acts. Next month we will be enhance the quality of the Hidden Clips and adding some other surprises.

September’s 15 Hidden Clips in the Park

It’s October already, which means that… tomorrow we will have 15 new hidden clips in the Peace Park picture on the home page. Here is the picture of the park with the locations of the hidden clips for September 2009.

Ian St-Aubin Chased By A Transvestite

I meet Ian St-Aubin at Peace Park well over 10 years ago. He was with another guy Chris who was following Ian with a video camera. We ended up skating together for the short time he was visiting Montreal . I remember one day at Peace Park Chris and Ian got chased by a transvestite for having filmed it walking past the park. Anyway today  Ian posted this picture on the Peace Park Facebook profile, which was taken around the same time he meet.

Brian Shannon’s Peace Park Vimeo Post

Here is a video clip that was posted on the Peace Park Facebook profile by Brian Shannon, with Hugo Balek, Charles Rivard, and others.

HUGO 360p from Brian Shannon on Vimeo.

Next Page »