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.

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.

The Truth

Yesterday I called Monique Savoie the founder and president of the Society for Arts and Technology concerning the rumor of the city selling Peace Park to the SAT, which was started by city worker Eric. The truth is that no, the SAT is not putting a fence around Peace Park, and that despite what the vacuum cleaner guy said about the city no longer being responsible for maintaining park, Monique ensured that the SAT is only responsible for cleaning up after their events.

May Out of Jail for International Day of Peace

May a long time Peace Park local lifer got out of jail on Friday. She was in for 4 months, she and we are happy to have her back. After talking about the inside with May and CJ, Phil Knechtel, Paul the Russian, and I played a game of POSER while we waiting for Bunny to give Head Band Mary a gift before she and her friends cleared of the middle curb.

Speaking of the curbs… on both side of the upper 3 steps are spray-painted stencils. One of the stencils says, ‘Respect the architect as we begin to build’, and the other says ‘Punch Line’. Not understanding what the stencils were about I looked around. I found a sign attached to a parking post notifying of an event for the ‘International Day of Peace’, organized by the Circle of Peace. Therefore, I don’t believe the stencils have anything to do with the rumor Peace Park being purchasing by the SAT, which really doesn’t seem plausible. I don’t see why they spray painted the granite thought, and I couldn’t figure out what Punchline is.

Anyway, once the game was done Phil jetted. Paul and I manualed it up for bit before we started shooting dice. If was Paul’s first time playing and my first time using these nice casino dice I picked up at a flee market the other day. I’m not sure if the dice just are lucky or if it was Paul’s beginners luck,  but once I lost enough money, we hopped in his ride and venture off finding a new bump, which was fun to skate.

For the International Day of Peace on Monday the 21 of September 2009, the Circle of Peace has planned for a flash mob; Give Peace a Second Chance, starting at 11:45 AM, in front of the Society of Arts and Technology. All details on the unfolding of the flash mob will be revealed. Immediately after the flash mob, Circle of Peace will award the Pacifist prize posthumously to Mrs. Muriel Duckworth, a long time peace activist. Her son, film director Martin Duckworth, will accept the prize in her name. The event is free and is in collaboration with Artmistice, SAT, and the City of Montreal.

Pending Peace Park Rumor

After hearing the rumor that Peace Park is being sold to the Society for the Arts and Technology on Thrusday from Eric the Street Cleaner, on Friday I called to Monique Savoie the founder of the SAT. I was unable to reach her, and left a message late in the afternoon. I’ll know early next week, whether or not this rumor could in fact be real.