As we spend September eating hot dogs on the Lower Field and strolling Montreal’s pedestrianized streets, we experience a city very different from the one it becomes in the winter. In November, when temperatures drop sharply and the first snow hits the ground the entire population retreats indoors. Bike paths become snowbanks, sidewalks narrow, and streets become deserted.
Once the summer and fall festivities wind down, we realize how integral outdoor spaces are to Montreal’s social fabric. Throughout the summer, the city puts on some of its most notable free and low-cost events and activities: movie nights, music festivals, and splash pads in the park. These ‘third spaces,’ locations outside of the home and the workplace with low financial barriers to entry, serve as informal gathering places. Once activities shift indoors, however, spending often becomes central to participation.
With a thriving cafe culture and vibrant nightlife, social life during the Montreal winter hinges on purchasing coffee or drinks. Malls in Montreal’s famous “Underground City” further encourage pedestrians to spend their money indoors.
While nearly half of Canadians report the rising cost of living impacting their ability to afford day-to- day expenses, spending money has become necessary for participation in social life. For young people, going into a store ‘just to look’ is the new way of socializing indoors. Even without spending a dollar, using these spaces in this way centres social life around commercial activity rather than community.
Montreal has been called one of the best cities in the world to be a student. Yet finding the energy to prioritize social interactions is especially hard to do when the heavy winter snow and harsh winds make going outside so challenging. When your view alternates exclusively between the glow of your laptop screen and the barren, grey landscape outside, it can feel easier to stay indoors. If there are no free and easy means of socializing available, making the effort to see friends can feel exhausting. In the time of year when it is easiest to miss human connection, the lack of third spaces leaves us the most alone — an experience many of us are much too familiar with. That’s why third spaces are so important: they provide easily accessible means of seeing old friends and making new ones, and Montreal’s residents deserve more of them all year round.
Below you’ll find a list of financially accessible third spaces available to McGill students in Montreal. These spaces recognize that leisure is a right, not a commodity reserved for those who can afford it.
McGill affiliated:
SSMU Lounge (3480 Rue McTavish, Room 106-A)
QPIRG Alternative Library (3516 Av. du Parc)
Redpath Museum (859 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
James Square (3537 Rue University)
Non-McGill affiliated:
Co-op Bar Milton Parc (3714 Av. du Parc)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1380 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Le Frigo Vert (2238 Rue Guy)
Westmount Public Library (4574 Rue Sherbrooke W.)
Esplanade Tranquille (1442 Rue Clarke)