Avenue Van Horne

 

 

 

 When I cross on the Rosemont/Van Horne overpass to Outremont, I always feel like I'm entering a different world. Down below, on one's bike during better weather, the change is less dramatic but still significant. The Mile End, with its boutiques and restos and young energy, is in the midst of gentrification. But this part of Outremont, close to the more industrial end of Van Horne, which then becomes a shopping street, is an enclave of Hasidic Jews. When I drive or bike on these streets I feel like time has gone backward, and that behind the hurried steps of the black-clad men and the women in black skirts and wigs with headbands or hats, often pushing old-fashioned baby carriages, lies a life about which I know almost nothing. I stop at Cheskies and buy a loaf of challah or some rugelach, but it is a commercial exchange, nothing more: ours are separate solitudes and will remain that way.

Comments

[Julia]

I recall feeling like a real alien in Mea Shearim when I visited Jerusalem.
It was my fault, I was the intruder, but goodness, did I feel uneasy, even though I had dressed conservatively and was trying very hard to be invisible.
I suppose we all have our habitats...

[Roderick Robinson]

Challah, rugelach. Ho-hum. Would you settle for Piper Maris here in Hereford? Or asparagus from Peru.

[Rubye Jack]

Always, I've been curious about lifestyles different from mine but some you cannot even break into.

[Duchesse]

I have often been in Outremount (it's close to my neighbourhood) and marveled that, on a street like St. Viateur, I see young women in very abbreviated outfits that are even sometimes transparent, strolling past Hasidic men and women in their distinctive garb. Though there is no intermingling, but there is room on the sidewalk for both.