jermalism: Abandonment Issues: Incinérateur Dickson

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)

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.

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,