Rainy Days Are Good For Movies

Raining on and off today, Peace Park wasn’t ideal for skating. So, after a couple manuals where popped in and flipped out of, while Stare continued to paint his piece in the drizzle, it was back researching for the documentary. A new video was found during the search containing great black and white footage of Montreal in the 50’s and 60’s, which is relevant to the Peace Park documentary, helping make the best of a rainy day, which is good for watching movies.

Peace Park Street Festival and Contest Results

Yesterday  was the first day of the Festival D’expression de la Rue. What makes this event great is that the police do not patrol the park during the 3-day festival. This means that people are free to drink, smoke, skate, and basically party in the park. The only incident was a guy getting smacked out for who knows what reason right before the festivals actually got started. A lot of the local lifers were present like Bunny, Mary, C-J, Didi, just to name a few.

The action started at 3pm with a video tent. It had about 10 short films people could watch, which started with the MQC We’re Real video. The comments in the crowd revealed that people loved it, even though they were a little shocked at times.

The skateboard best trick contest started around 4 o’clock.  There wasn’t an enormous amount of contestants, but it was more than fun nonetheless because the whole crowd and park community were into it. Photos of the winners haven’t yet arrived unfortunately that show Phil Lavoie in 3^rd, who did a Nollie shuv nose slide. Mike Roy in second place who landed a Fs board slide 270 out. And, in first place Jason Puliz a skater punk from out of town who did a some kind of boneless 360 hand shuv, and a bunch of other old school tricks.

The festival had lots of other things going on like ceramic painting, T-shirt screening, and even stained glass instead of broken glass. There was something there for everyone to enjoy.

During the games of twister free food was served. Once people got their grub consisting of corn on the cob, salad, and potato salad, they began to sit on the park ledges that were reserved for skating in order to eat.  The food was really good, but it forced the skaters to skate in the street where a disgruntled man was taking a hairy fit. Tomorrow is the last day of festival be sure to check it out, it’s fun and stress free.

 

Read The Signs

SIGN 1 SAYS:

Studio Skateboards Presents “Jammin” Saturday August 29/09

Demo and Best Trick Contest starting at 2pm

Location: Park Prefontaine with Cash & Prize Giveaways

Featuring: Andrew McGraw, Darrel Smith, Jai Ball, Jean May Vincent, Joey La Rock, Kyle McDonald, and the UW Team.

Followed by an After Party starting at 10pm

Location: Bar Les Pas Sages 951 Rachel East $3 Cover

Featuring: DJ Ball, and Dannick B – Funk / Hip Hop and SBC release party.

SIGN 2 SAYS: … IN FRENCH

AVIS FERMETURE DE RUE

La rue Place du Marché sera fermée entre St-Laurent et St-Dominique du 26 août 9h au 29 août 17h.

Lors du FESTIVAL D’EXPRESSION DE LA RUE

INTERDICTION DE STATIONNNER

Le 26 août à partir de 8h00 am **Le Remorquage débutera à l’heure d’interdiction de stationner**

Information au (514) 847-0067 poste 302

… IN ENGLISH

The street Place du Marché will be closed starting August 26th till the 28th of August 2009. No parking !

Peace Park Skate Contest at Festival D’Expression de la Rue

The 13th Edition of Festival D’expression de la Rue,  will be taking place at Peace Park from the 26th to the 28th.

The free event will have kiosks and workshops everyday starting at 3pm, which will include movies such as the MQC video We’re Real, the Middle curb available to skateboarders, dice tournaments, Tattoo- Info, Magicians, Massages, circus workshops, bike repairs, and more until 5pm when there will be free food.

On the 26th at 3pm there will be a best trick skate contest on the middle ledge at Peace, hosted by Dave Bouthillier

On the 27th at 3pm there will be a break dance contest in the middle of the park.

Then at 5:30 every day will be free music shows. On the 26th there will different types and styles of music. On the 27th there will be Hip Hop & Reggae music, and on the 28th it will be punk music.

For more information click PAIRS-AIDANTS

A Stolen Skate from Park Lafontaine

Getting to Peace Park today I was amazed to find that for the first time in 3 weeks there were no one on the ledges or the middle mani pad. The tension in the park was still high though, apparently someone got stabbed early in the morning according to Sergio. Skating today was Phil Lavoie and Charles Rivard chilling doing shit flips, while Darcy and I played a couple games of Poser, during which I was robbed for my open full can of coke. What’s really crazy is that my can of coke was literally right beside my camera at the base of the southeast lamp pole, and they didn’t take it. Whoever stole my coke left my camera, like what the hell? I’m not complaining.

Also in the park today was a bunch of French rappers, doing some kind of battling. It was funny to watch these kids spitting in each other’s face, acting all tough in multi-colored plaid shorts with fluorescent clothes, while being scared of the locals. Their all lucky Phil Beauséjour wasn’t there, he’d a put them in their place for sure. On the other hand, at least they were doing something constructive instead of getting into trouble.

The best part of the day after the skating was buying a complete for real cheap of these two dudes. They were asking for 30 bucks, claiming to have found it in Park Lafontaine by the statue. Who knows, maybe they did find it after some drunken kid left it there, or maybe they stole it from somewhere completely different. Either way, I worked their price down, and now I have some trucks and wheels to hook someone in need up.

Drama Of The Day

When I got to Peace around 6pm the other day, it felt like I went back in time to 2003 when the presence of crack in the park was at an all time high. The park’s been relatively serene this year, but in the last couple weeks some newbies have taken control over the parks operations. They walk around acting all tough trying to assert their power over the local lifers, while attracting an irregular clientele that clashes with the regulars. This results into fights because the locals who have been there for years don’t get pushed around easy. Also, this increase in distribution brings more cracked out people onto the manual pads and ledges, and attracts more police patrol, making it harder to skate than usual.

The only skater at Peace when I arrived was Frenchie, but unfortunately he wasn’t there to skate. He was just passing through on his shredder board gonna pick up a cheque, so I ended up skated alone. The only place available to skate was the South East corner ledge. Usually when I show face, I get the locals to move on the middle mani pad, but that day I wasn’t feeling the hassle. Fortunately there was a new grass gap to skate instead.

Leaving stuff lying around at Peace is not the best idea, but neither is skating with a camera in your pocket. So, I put my camera in my hat on the ledge near the Couche-Tard with my cash in it. The locals know not to mess with my things, however the new sketch bags in the park have yet to be put in their place. Sure enough, as I was skating this scraggly chick tried robbing my shit. Approaching her she was immediately said,”this is your stuff,” as if I didn’t know. While grabbing my hat back, I could see she was attempting to hide 4 bucks of mine in her hand. I shouted at her to give me my money, and the stupid bitch had the nerve to ask me for a dollar. I took my money back I answered that she was lucky I didn’t just slap the shit out of her (being a girl and all) what she just tried to pull.

Literally a minute later this other arshole decide to try and gank my shit. I just about lost it yelling, “what the f@ck you think you doing?.”  He just tried to laugh it off, and that’s when I realized I should have slapped the first teif, because not setting an example let the new crowd think they can try and snatch my shit with out repercussions. So, I yelled out, “the next person to touch my shit is getting knock out,” loud enough for the whole block to hear me.

That’s when Didi, looking in rough shape, came over to see what the commotion was all about. After Didi expressed his concern, and started crying, he told me that his mom had dyed that morning around 7am. I gave him my condolences, as he and sought comfort from the park community.

It that wasn’t enough commotion, shortly after everyone in the park heard a super loud thud. Looking up we saw a taxi committing a hit and run on the corner, of St-Dominique and Rene-Levesque going East. Some dude started chasing after the cab, but the taxi was ghost. That third interruption in my skate session made put me over the edge. I had had enough of the tension/ drama and bounced.

By Dave Bouthillier

Peace Park Got Bigger

St-Laurent Blvd has been under renovation for the past couple years. They’ve been fixing the pipes under the street and make’n the  side walks wider. So now, Peace Park’s main front is about 2 feet wider, make’n for a better landing off the 3 step.

Undercover Cops & Big Mouth

Around 6:30pm August 14, 2009,  there was a cop car lurking at Peace today. Its was spotted driving around the block a couple times. Then it stopped on St-Laurent Blvd near the corner of Marché Street in front of the park. It proceeded to back up about 10 feet then stop, drive up approximately 5 feet then stop, only to back up again several times, as if they were trying to catch a glimpse of someone in the park. The cop car eventually reversed and parked on St-Laurent Blvd just below the corner of Juliette-Béliveau. Knowing that from where the car was parked the cops inside could still see what was going on in the park because the building corner was only made of connecting windows. So, I shouted 5-0 on the corner. All the people in the park looked up making the cop car drove off up St-Laurent. By chance while this was going down, what looked like a transaction was taking place between some individuals. With the cop car gone, it seemed as if the coast was clear, so everyone went back to his or her usual business.

Minutes later one of the individual that looked like he was doing business in the park walked away with a chick into a car parked in front of the Couche-Tard right next to where Devon Menegon and I were playing a game of poser. The man and woman must have been sitting in the car for at least 5 minutes before the police, undercover cops, and cars surged the vehicle, which interrupted the flat ground Poser Game.

As the police searching the parked car, a native man in the park started singing happy birthday to the people getting cuffed, which didn’t go over well. The man was first approached by a park local who threaten to beat him, followed by a cop in uniform, who told the man singing that he had better listen to the guy who was threaten him and stop singing, which he did. But once the cop went back to the arrest the park local smacked the shit out the man, regardless. The cop in uniform only heard the hit. Some of the undercovers actually saw it happen, but they let it slide. Later when the cops and undercovers were gone, the man got smacked around some more for running his big mouth.

By: Dave Bouthillier

Under Pressure

Under Pressure which is an International Graffitti Convention is taken place at Peace Park again.

Saturday August 8th 2009, Peace Park

There will be graffiti crews painting the Society  for the Arts and Technology’s walls with and Outdoor Stage in Peace Park.

The event will be Hosted by Obie_1nder

DJ’s: Kid  PQ (MTL) DJ Irate (MTL) Scott C (MTL) DJ Abel (VAN) Vilify & Construct (MTL) Somsay (MTL) Milton Clarke (MTL)

MCs: More Or Les (TOR) Sound Improvement (TOR) Alex Dimez (TOR) Spesh K (HFX) Flip Kuma, Flight Distance, & Homebased (OTT) Styro Foam Ones & Time Neue Roman (TOR)

For More Information: Under Pressure

Peace Park On Am Getting Paid Poster

Peace Park appeared in 2 out of 4 pictures on the AM Getting Paid Contest Poster for the opening party, with Felix Faucher’s photo exhibit.

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