Bienvenue! Welcome! Seat yourself at any diner in Montreal, and chances are this is what the placemat in front of you will read—a cheery invitation to the world of poutine and steamés. This chorus of greeting is also emblematic of the dynamic that makes this city so interesting. Montreal’s historic “two solitudes” are just two parts of the city’s ever expanding spectrum of city-dwellers. Diners, known in Quebec as casse-croûtes, are a quintessentially North-American institution. However, their informality, low prices and long business hours invite hungry people from all walks of life, making them a site of cultural exchange. Bienvenue / Welcome wants to explore the individuals, objects and places that make up Montreal and invites all those who encounter it to explore it as well.
Issue 2 was launched at Nouveau Palais on April 5th to the beats of DJ Cadence Weapon and is now available at Patati Patata, The Main , Casse-Croute du Coin, Green Spot and Mademoiselle Jean Talon . Stop by these fine institutions for a good meal and brief exploration of how food defines culture in Quebec.MONTREAL, QC
“Everybody talks at once; everybody orders at once; everybody eats at once; and everybody seems anxious to pay at once” (an observer of the lunch hour scene in New York, 1868)
A neat exhibition at featuring the history of lunch in NYC.
We have a fondness for old signage and lament its steady disappearance. Gone, perhaps, are the days of carefully hand-painted signs, but this gallery in New York’s downtown, Chinatown area has initiated an interesting project. The Bowery Sign Residency invites artists to create an original work of art in the form of a sign to be hung amongst the others belonging to local businesses.
Read all about your friend the dep and why it’s cousin, the Bodega, just isn’t as hospitable.
(Source: maisonneuvemag)
Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942.
Illustration by Victor Kerlow of the same New York diner, for NYT op-ed “Nighthawks State of Mind,” by Vanishing New York blogger Jeremiah Moss.
24 records on the jukebox. They could have any 12 they wanted, but the others were for the customers from the Base. If somebody played a Lefty Frazell record or some other shitkicker they moaned, made motions with their hands (man! what a fuckin square) and walked out to the street."
Knishes and sweet corn! Coney Island, NYC, 1966.
(Photo by James Jowers.)
