News
May 2, 2008
The Heritage Canada Foundation released its fourth annual
Top Ten Most Endangered Places List on April 30, 2008.
BENS Deli Restaurant 990 De Maisonneuve Boulevard, Montréal
LANDMARK EATERY DESTINED FOR THE DUMP
BENS Delicatessen, a Montréal Art Deco landmark with its famous wrap-around illuminated corner sign, is facing the wrecking ball. Situated on prime real estate, the building has been sold to a developer who has submitted plans to the city for a new 14-storey hotel with a restaurant on the new building’s ground floor.
In spite of consistent efforts by Héritage Montréal and the Art Deco Society of Montréal to designate the building, it remains unprotected.
Background
On April 3rd, the City of Montréal posted an intention to demolish notice on the building’s façade. During a public meeting of the Ville-Marie borough demolition committee held on April 21st, the City, while acknowledging the architectural significance of BENS, nonetheless approved the demolition request. The approval stipulated that the restaurant be commemorated in the new structure.
“If the developer had any sense he would just preserve it and build around it. The proposed design has a restaurant on the ground floor anyway,” says Ms. Sandra Cohen Rose of Art Deco Montréal.
The public has until May 21st to contest the committee’s decision to their municipal elected officials.
Ben and Franny Kravitz opened BENS Delicatessen after their arrival from Lithuania in 1908. It moved to its current building designed by Charles Davis Goodman in 1950, where it remained open until 2006.
Visited by thousands of tourists, BENS became the meeting place favoured by luminaries such as Leonard Cohen, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, René Levesque and the Montreal Canadians hockey team. Until 2007, Ben’s headed the National Geographic Society’s 10 best delicatessens list. Autographed celebrity photos that decorated the yellow Formica and chrome deli, were a significant part of the restaurant’s appeal. While the McCord Museum has agreed to preserve the famous restaurant’s memorabilia, the Art Deco Society insists this is not enough.
“BENS must be preserved in its entirety, within the framework of any proposed new development,” Ms. Cohen Rose states. “Whether used as a restaurant, or any other number of innovative uses, it is an asset to Montréal in history and in revenue as a tourist attraction and movie set.”
Montréal’s famous deli remains a classic example of Streamlined Modern design as it retains most of its original interior finishes, from the stainless steel coat racks to the sleek deli counter and stools.
“The real estate tycoon who bought it has no idea of what Ben’s means to the city,” says Pop Montréal’s Dan Seligman. “They’re just hoping to go in there, destroy it, and that nobody will care. But if people actually do something, we can prevent this from happening. It would be a shame if it is demolished.” Montréal is the first North American city to join the UNESCO City of Design network. Reducing this Art Deco landmark to a few commemorative photos in a replacement building brings into question the city’s commitment to urban design values.
Ironically, the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies will be holding their 2009 World Congress in Montréal, May 24-30.
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Bens makes Top 10 list of endangered heritage sites
Our architectural history is threatened, group says in report
What do Bens delicatessen and the Alexander Bridge House in Bonavista – the oldest standing house in Newfoundland – have in common?
Both are among the Top 10 endangered places in Canada, according to a new list issued by the Ottawa-based Heritage Canada Foundation yesterday.
Built between 1811 and 1814, the Newfoundland house has been a sinkhole for money as preservationists have wrestled to keep the structure from collapsing from years of neglect and damage.
It’s just one piece of Canada’s threatened architectural history.
Other historic buildings facing a date with a demolition crew range from the Winter Street Prison in Sherbrooke and Old St. Patrick’s Church in Calgary, to the railroad roundhouse in Biggar, Sask.
Some of the buildings are far from being widely recognized as heritage structures. Bens is described as a “cultural icon” and the Winnipeg International Airport is referred to as a fine example of mid-century modern architecture, according to the foundation.
“I think a lot of people still think of heritage as the Victorian or Edwardian house with a lot of decorative treatment on the outside and a front porch,” said Carolyn Quinn, a spokesperson with the heritage foundation.
Now, though, many industrial and commercial buildings erected since the Second World War have taken on a distinction of their own. Quinn said many people don’t appreciate more recent architecture.
“So what’s heritage about that?” is a question that often arises, she said. “But in fact, they’re just as important as those Victorian buildings that we’re trying to keep alive as examples of our culture and social history.”
Quinn estimates that 20 per cent of Canada’s historic structures have been demolished, something she said is equivalent in many places to the type of destruction that follows a war.
Certainly, few would dispute that the fight for old buildings can often erupt into major battles.
In early April, for instance, the Montreal gave notice it intended to demolish Bens, a much-loved art deco delicatessen operating at its last location since 1950 and a hangout for the likes of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Leonard Cohen.
The developer of the valuable building site has been ordered to “commemorate” the deli in the new building that replaces it.
The public has until May 21 to fight the demolition order.
While it’s often far cheaper to pull a building down than maintain it, preservation is vital, historians contend.
“One of the questions is: when one of the significant historic buildings comes down, what replaces it?” said Nina Chapple, a heritage planner in Dundas, Ont. “These buildings that have been selected by Heritage Canada and the various communities, they contribute to the identity of a place.”
Maintaining the unique identity of communities isn’t easy though.
The heritage foundation also listed the worst losses of 2007, detailing ripped-down historic buildings from coast to coast.
Lost to the wrecking ball are such pieces of history as Edmonton’s Central Pentecostal Tabernacle. Designed by architect Peter Hemingway, the mid-century modernist temple was razed to make way for condos.
Another award-winning architect’s work, a 1963 Vancouver house Arthur Erickson designed, came down because of a lack of maintenance.
Other distinguished buildings in Windsor, Toronto and Saskatoon, among other places, were also torn down.
Quinn said another reason to save older buildings is because it’s the most environmental option.
She argues it’s better to reuse the buildings than consign them to a landfill.
“I think with the stresses in our environment that we have now, it’s more urgent that people recognize that the greenest building is the one that already exists.”
Our architectural history is threatened, group says in report
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April 25, 2008
We tried hard to save BENS intact but at least we got a change in design of the project and a ruling that BENS must be prominently commemorated in the new structure. If the developer had any sense he would just preserve it and build around it. The proposed design had a restaurant on the ground floor anyway.
