Montreal's Time Square

[Mondo_Grosso]

4 hours ago, job said:

A few thoughts ...

1. A while ago I had heard that someone wanted to turn Phillips Square into a sort of Times Square but they could not get permits ... nevertheless, this was 15 years ago and things have changed ... the east wall of PS would be a good candidate for screens;

2. Also a good idea would be the Rogers building on McGill college .. it has a solid column down the center that could be screens;

3. Lastly, the building to be built on the Domtar Park space ... a perfect place where Maisonneuve and President Kennedy split ... would integrate nicely into place des festivals.

I think some screens are overdue and they add a certain dynamism when properly thought out.

Does anyone here know what the legality of such giant screens downtown are?

[job]

On February 26, 2018 at 12:17 AM, Mondo_Grosso said:

I know that many of you are against Montreal having it's own version of Time Square, but the point of this post is not to debate that. Rather, it's to look at potential locations if we had to chose one.

Based on examples like Time Square in New York, Shibuya District in Tokyo,  Piccadilly Circus in London, Dundas Square in Toronto, I defined my own criteria as:

• Must be by an open area
• Must be close to commercial sector
• Must be accessible by metro

At that, I have come up with Square Concordia, this is the area today:

Here is why I think that this is the ideal area:

• There are 3 large blind walls for the screens
• High density of 24/hour restaurants and bars
• High levels of foot traffic at all times
• Proximity to various festivals

There are already renovated squares on each side of the street. The pedestrian area could be expanded to the parking lot on the right. There's a back lane in the lower right corner where food trucks could enter by and park in the square. A stage could also be setup there for events like Crescent Street Grand Prix Festival, Fantasia Film Festival, etc.

Highlighted in green are areas where a screen could go, solid green are screens on top of buildings, the yellow is where I would put food trucks or a stage:

These type of squares a great tourist attractions, both Toronto and New York list them at the top of tourist attractions. I also think that having a second public area in the west of downtown for smaller festivals would be a great compliment to the bigger festivals east at Place Des Festivals.

Let me know what you think, if you have another suggestion, please share. Thank you for reading!

 

 

 

 

Looks great ... only thing is that they are demolishing the building in the bottom-right picture and putting a 22-story I believe ...