Richler gazebo vandalized
Police presence will be stepped up after structure defaced by graffiti
It hasn’t been officially inaugurated yet, but the Mordecai Richler gazebo was already vandalized.
In recent days, the bottom of the structure was defaced by spray paint. On Monday, there was still a faded illegible trace of the graffiti, which had been sanded away from the wooden base of the structure.
There were also several beer cans, and wine bottles strewn around the gazebo on the lawn of Mount Royal facing Parc. Ave., not far from the Georges-Étienne-Cartier statue.
Plagued by cost overruns and delays, the gazebo was first announced by then-mayor Gérald Tremblay in 2011, and was expected to be completed by the end of 2013. When he took office, Mayor Denis Coderre pledged he would complete the project to pay homage to a renowned, if not controversial, Montreal icon. The price also ballooned to three times the original estimate due to the complexity of the work.
“You’re always going to have people there with graffiti,” Coderre said, adding that the gazebo will be cleaned up and police presence will be stepped up in hopes of preventing a repeat occurrence. “We have a plan already to clean that. We want to protect all public infrastructure.”
Coderre said there will be an official inauguration “when the time is right,” and he defended the final price tag.
“To rebuild it as is takes a lot of work,” he said. “It’s not just a gazebo. It’s a kiosk from the 1920s. If we had not completed it, some people would have complained that we spent money for nothing, so we were damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Coderre said the city is considering revitalizing another similar gazebo in a nearby park, and that price tag will likely be similar.
“Just for the record, there is another gazebo like that in Beaubien Park, and they want to revitalize that. They were talking about a minimum of $650,000.”