The Urban Legend

In Montreal, where the art of people-watching is elevated—literally—to new heights, the three-story apartment buildings reign supreme. There’s nothing quite like parking yourself on one of those iconic, curling metal staircases or balconies with a coffee from the café that you always stop at with smeared glitter on your eyes from the night before, a friend that you met on someone’s rooftop that was definitely not safe to stand on, or just a good dose of gossip from one of the innumerable very cool bars around the Mile-End that you went to last night before inevitably ducking out early to hit La Belle Province for a proper greasy poutine. Especially when the sun comes out, however briefly, one feels an animalistic need to soak up a singular ray, no matter how many layers and warm beverages required. 

Basking in some early spring sunshine on my rooftop in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.

Montreal’s triple-decker apartments serve as neighborhood meet-and-greet meets architectural daredevilry. They come with spiraling staircases that look like they might just spit you out onto the sidewalk if you don’t hold on tight – and they will, before your 8 am. You’ll be covered in bruises, and your parents will ask if you got them when you were drunk. Add in six months of winter that goes down to -40 C, and it’s hard to imagine a more inconvenient and treacherous form of stairs. And if you’ve ever tried moving a couch up one of those metal corkscrews of doom, you know that Montreal’s architects are not here for your convenience. They are here for the aesthetic. But the view from that second- or third-story stoop? Worth the hassle every time.

These balconies and stoops are public-private spaces, a place where you can catch up with a neighbor or just sit and look judgmentally at everyone rushing by—bonus points if you’re doing it with a potted plant at your feet to literally photosynthesize as you figuratively photosynthesize and a book you’re never actually reading. And at night, if you’re not feeling up to spending $15 plus tip on a weakly poured tequila soda or a Moosehead beer that the Quebecois bartender will glare at you for ordering, all it takes is a stoop to turn your inexplicably strangely-laid-out apartment shared with too many roommates into a dynamic people-watching perch. 

An aperol margarita and a book that I never actually finished.

The best part is the variety – in the morning, a mix of spandex-clad yuppies and students heading to the gym to sweat out last night’s gin, folks with glitter on all parts of their faces and bodies making their way home on the 55 bus that stopped right in front of my apartment, young families filling up the coffee shop that has that really good sandwich that you make your parents buy you when they’re in town. In the afternoon, business-looking people wearing suits, paired with the dorkiest snow boots known to man during the winters; students walking away from university looking like they’ve seen a ghost; people toting a 12 pack of unibroue home from the dépanneur (Québec for corner store); a chain of preschoolers in adorably oversized snowsuits (even when the weather breaks 20 degrees). In the evening, especially on a weekend, you’re bound to see groups of American college students taking advantage of the lowered drinking age; people coming and going from themed parties wearing everything from a mouse costume to a rutabaga costume (both personal anecdotes, from a rodent and a vegetable themed party); put-together 30-somethings in small groups going to bars with small plates; the more masochistic runners. 

Especially in tight-knit student neighborhoods like Milton-Parc and Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, there’s a constant stream of familiarity, whether from classes, the latest very cool bar, the circle of Europeans that are always smoking outside the business school building, whichever dating app is in vogue, or one of the five student “bars” that are really just basements. Nothing makes you feel more tightly woven into a community of people than to sit outside on a sunny day, having a beer, laughing about nothing with friends, and exchanging random commentary with whomever happens to pass by your little corner of the city, as marked by the brown compost bin that, so help you, if someone else tries to steal…. 

A good balcony might as well be a status symbol – it has to look like it’s on the verge of falling off the building, and contain no more than two chairs that cannot match, a rickety railing with peeling paint, and neighbors that are always families that resent the Steely Dan you blast at nearly all times when the temperature surpasses 25 degrees. My own balcony of two years on Avenue Coloniale was the site of many an overly strong margarita, marveling at a warm and sunny February day, and even the start of several of my closest friendships – stemming from the previously mentioned overly strong margaritas. 

Leaving Montreal for Paris was a shock to the system in infinite ways, but the lack of these outside urban spaces to bring together friends and random people who came into your apartment when they heard you blasting 2000s R&B at a party was among the biggest shocks. 

Without intentionally seeking out communal space and neighborhood cohesion, Montrealers just know: these apartments were made for stooping. With a few creaky steps, maybe a squeaky railing that doesn’t fully connect to the stairs, and always a spiral staircase that defies physics and reason, Montreal’s three-story apartments are the unofficial headquarters of the city’s street life.