Rich past, uncertain future
ONE DAY AFTER a section of the dilapidated building that once housed the Negro Community Centre in Little Burgundy collapsed, members of the community and city officials were examining their dwindling options to restore the heritage site. René Bruemmer re
In its heyday in the mid-1960s, the Negro Community Centre in Little Burgundy saw as many as 65,000 visits a year. Residents from the neighbourhood and beyond — black, white and from across the cultural spectrum — flowed into the former Methodist church for its fourthfloor gymnasium, dance classes, adult programming and social programs.
Founded in 1927 “to alleviate the social and economic conditions among blacks in Montreal,” the NCC evolved over the years to supply health and welfare services along with youth programs to the multi-ethnic community.
But members of the black community started moving away, and the back fieldstone wall began crumbling in the late 1980s, causing programs to be cancelled and membership to dwindle.
The centre closed its doors in 1989, but for a quarter of a century the dream remained that renovations would see the heritage building restored, buoyed by a 2007 promise of $2.5 million from the city of Montreal.
On Sunday, those dreams took another hit when a three-storey section of the church’s west wall collapsed, forcing 38 residents of a nearby building to be evacuated. Squatters had been cleared out just the day before. Water infiltration weakened the foundation, causing the collapse, firefighters said.
Shirley Gyles, president of the NCC’s board of directors for the last 10 years, remembers taking ballet classes there, performing her debut on the NCC stage. Standing outside her crumbling building of graffitied walls and boarded-over windows, she was at a loss about what to do next.
She would like to see the plan developed over the last decade fulfilled — fix the building, restore the com- munity centre, add a library and documentation centre and display a presentation of true black history in Montreal.
“It’s not only to teach black people — it’s to teach everyone,” she said. “A lot of people are new to this neighbourhood; they have no idea of the contributions blacks made to this city.
“We were not all slaves,” she said, a hint of anger in her tone. “There were a lot of educated blacks who came here and did good things. Not just musicians and tap dancing.”
After 10 years of struggle and little progress on amassing the $6.5 million needed for restoration, hope is fading. Deemed a heritage property, the NCC is not allowed to demolish the building. A civil servant from the Sud-Ouest borough called Gyles to tell her she had to preserve the stones lying in a heap beside her building, because they’re “historic.” “I’m in shock,” she said. The property is zoned for community use, which means condo developers could have a hard time, although that didn’t stop some from offering the NCC $500,000 for the property a few months ago.
Seven years ago, the city of Montreal gave the NCC half a million dollars, and said it
“A lot of people … have no idea of the contributions blacks made to
this city.” SHIRLEY GYLES
would provide the other $2 million promised once the federal and provincial governments agreed to pony up equivalent amounts. The NCC said it presented numerous proposals but heard nothing.
Sud-Ouest borough mayor Benoit Dorais said part of the problem lay with the fact the community could not agree on what kind of project it wanted. For instance, many were calling for a social-housing component, which did not conform to grant requirements or municipal zoning.
“There have been many different versions of what people want for this project,” Dorais said. “Each new version creates a delay. The community must create a project that has unanimity, and that is not the case.”
In the meantime, he said, the borough has the responsibility to ensure the building remains secure. Last year, he said, it gave the NCC a warning notice saying work needed to be done, and paid for engineering studies.
(Montreal’s fire department maintains a list of abandoned buildings and monitors their stability. The owners are responsible for their upkeep, officials with the city of Montreal said.)
A security perimeter was erected two months ago, and the vehicles belonging to the Communauto car sharing service were moved out of the parking lot — fortunately for Communauto.
Dorais said the borough was “fairly sure” the NCC could use some of the $500,000 given by the city previously to carry out repairs. The first step was properly barricading the building, which the NCC did promptly, although Gyles noted that squatters are resourceful, using crowbars, saws and even metal-cutting torches to break in.
In the next phase, the NCC was supposed to come with a contractor and a plan of action to do the work in steps, but the wall crumbled first.
Now it remains to be seen what will come of the building. Engineering tests were carried out Monday, and the borough will have to decide if part or all of it will have to come down.
“Is (the restoration) going to happen?” Gyles asks. “I don’t want to be a pessimist, but I’m a realist. It’s been 10 years of struggle. I’ve had enough.”
An NCC member who gave her name as Heather noted one must be optimistic, but resourceful, too.
“It takes a village, a whole community, to do these things,” she said. “It can’t just be one man.”