a meeting about a field
(Thanks to Sara Finley for forwarding all the photos!)
Last Friday night between 7 and 9:30pm about 25-30 Mile-Enders (and other assorted Montrealers) got together at the YMCA to talk about the future of the Maguire Meadow (otherwise known as the abandoned field behind the big buildings on De Gaspé).
The word on the street is that the City has taken over the field with the understanding that it will have to be decontaminated and given a new life. Given the incredible importance the field holds for so many people, it should come as no surprise that so many people turned up to talk about its future.
But we were surprised nonetheless! I mean, really…a Friday night in late June, with a hundred other interesting places to be…and these folks show up to lend their time, energy and knowledge to their community! How incredibly inspiring.
A very quick summary of the meeting:
1. Folks who have already been working in and with the field for a while gave some brief overviews of their work and/or their thinking on the space. Susan Bronson and Justin Burr gave a bit of historical perspective on what the field was originally. Roger Latour gave a botantist’s account of how the field could fit into the city’s green space network. Sara Finley talked about green engineering and how it could be applied to this space she has been speaking up for over the last year or so. And Emily Rose Michaud talked about her Roerich Garden art project, which quickly has become a community project that has had the capacity to move many local residents.
2. The idea was thrown out that we need to find a way to ensure the field remains “open”…in the sense that it can be many different things to many different people. The three big functions vying for a space in this field seem to be:
a) Servicing the people who work and live in the neighbourhood. Specifically, providing spaces where they will feel welcome to come and have lunch, or take a break. This means adding some formalized elements, such as some benches, tables and other services (like garbage cans and recycling containers);
b) An open space where the artists and residents feel they have the right to intervene on the landscape, get their hands dirty (preferably in decontaminated, clean soil), and otherwise interact with their environment. This space has long been a creative one, and there is a strong desire to keep ensure that a feeling “doing” is still alive here; and,
c) Providing some wilderness or nature to Mile-End. This field is currently the most biodiverse chunk of real estate in Mile-End, and maybe all of the Plateau (well, other vacant lots and CP corridors are equally diverse, but that is the whole point). Roger Latour’s idea of connecting these biodiversity zones across Montreal would include this field as an integral part of a larger green space initiative, which would value the good things these wild places bring to Montreal and her residents.
So, there you go…3 big tasks for one medium-sized field!
The current idea on the table, thrown forward by the folks at this blog, is to keep the southern part of the field the more “formalized space” with tables and/or benches, and as one walks towards the tracks the space becomes increasingly open (in the sense of open to intervention) and wild. The wildest part would be next to the tracks, and serve as a sort of natural barrier to keep people from straying onto the tracks (to please CP…).
The other big question of the night was “how to move forward with a steering committee of 25-30 people!!?
No clear answer was given, but we are in the process of creating a new citizen movement here, so we aren’t too preoccupied with the fact that simple answers aren’t always handy…
…we’re fine to keep working through it, together, because we are confident the people who live here have a great amount of knowledge and skill to share in re-imagining their community.
