Thursday, March 14, 2013

Abandonment Issues: Incinérateur Dickson

Garbage picker

Having crossed Canada Malt and Geo Klein off of our list the day before, we awoke on a chilly Saturday morning at one of our homes away from home, in Montreal, Quebec, and set our sights on Incinérateur Dickson.

At one time, the citizens of Montreal burned their residential garbage on site. The stench, as one would imagine, was suffocating. To deal with this, Montreal constructed its first two large scale incinerators in 1929-31 and began to collect and burn trash in two centralized locations, one on Atwater Street (since demolished), and the other, Incinérateur Carrières. At this time refuse was collected by horse and buggy.

In 1954, Montreal constructed two more incinerators to accommodate for the waste produced by the rapidly expanding population. One on Mount Royal Avenue (since demolished), and the other, Incinérateur Dickson. By the following year, they were both operational, and transforming massive quantities of garbage into billowing clouds of black smoke and dust that would rise from the sky high chimneys.

Bing aerial map screen shot
Incinérateur Dickson (bing aerial map screenshot)

Incinérateur Dickson

Incinérateur Dickson

For over two decades, Incinérateur Dickson would actively burn garbage and spew pollutants into the air. In the newspaper article below, from The Gazette on Tuesday, November 23rd, 1971, a Dr. Goldbloom addressed the issue of pollution caused by incinerators, and in particular, Incinérateur Dickson.

The Gazette, Tuesday, November 23, 1971

Incinérateur Dickson, as well as the Mount Royal Incinerator, were made redundant and ceased operations in 1978, when a new state of the art incinerator, commonly referred to as Incinérateur 3 was constructed where Incinérateur Carrières once stood.

In 1991, concentrations of dioxins and furans were nine times higher than permitted by Canadian federal standards, and in December of 1993, Incinérateur 3 was shut down, bringing an end to the practice of burning garbage in Montreal.

Now, let us refocus on Incinérateur Dickson. While it ceased operations in 1978, the city never fully abandoned the building, and to this day, while much of it has fallen into disrepair and decay, parts of the building are still used for storage by Montreal's Sanitation and Transportation departments. The building is also still in use as a playground for urban explorers, a canvas for graffiti artists, a home from squatters and a toilet for an array of birds and other critters.

Lets begin with examining the contrast between then and now, by placing similar images from our recent visit, next to two images taken in 2006 by Controleman,

Controleman's Incinerator2 b 2006
2006 Photo courtesy of Controleman. Used with permission.

Incinerated

The garage in 2006
Controleman's Incinerator2 garage pic 2006
2006 Photo courtesy of Controleman. Used with permission.

Here is that same garage today.
A sea of garbage cans fill this massive garage

A sea of garbage cans
A sea of garbage cans

Please recycle
Please recycle

Circle of light
Circle of light

Light it up
Light it up

Burn burn yes you're gonna burn
Burn burn yes you're gonna burn

Arse on fire
Arse on fire

Smoke up
Smoke up

The day the symmetry died
The day the symmetry died

Age against the machine
Age against the machine

She's come undone
She's come undone

Stealth of a Ninja
Stealth of a Ninja

Sunlight of my life
Sunlight of my life

Bolted down
Bolted down

Sprayed out
Sprayed out

Baby balue gahh!
Baby balue gahh!

PASK
PASK

Coming out of the closet
Coming out of the closet

Follow the heaters
Follow the heaters

Hall the way to the end
Hall the way to the end

Stairing context
Stairing context

Pigeon hole
Pigeon hole

Boiler spoiler
Boiler spoiler

I went down on her
I went down on her

Window to the sold out
Window to the sold out

I glove you
I glove you

Sortie sort of
Sortie sort of

Habs suck. Go Leafs!
Habs suck Go Leafs

Tony Montana
Tony Montana

Incinerated
Incinerated

Jerm overboard
Jerm overboard

Now come with me, hop in the car. Lets go check out one of the abandoned incinerators in Toronto, the Wellington Destructor.

2 comments:

Vernon said...

This is cool!

Barry said...

"I went down on her"... hahahaha