http://www.sitebits.com/slavito/ Slavito en Copyright &copy; 1999-2009 Gromco, Inc. Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:32:56 EST Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:30:00 EDT info@sitebits.com info@sitebits.com Almost 30 years in the making, not even exactly finished, actually, and drawing out not much more than a collective yawn from the local press for its architectural qualities, the new Montreal Symphony Hall (<i>la Maison symphonique de Montréal</i>) nevertheless opened its doors to a select group of invitees and hosted the inaugural concert on Wednesday... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2011/montreal-symphony-hall-89156031.html Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:30:00 EDT As we have previously mentioned on these pages, the city of Paris is readying a car equivalent of the hugely popular bike rental service, Vélib'. The new service, predictably named Autolib', will allow renting small 4-seat electric cars for short trips in the city and environs. The vehicles can be dropped off at the most convenient docking station (not necessarily where they were picked up). Pricing is by the minute (a 20-minute minimum), with the rate beyond one hour increasing to encourage customers to take shorter trips. Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2011/autolib-coming-18352451.html Wed, 17 Aug 2011 03:00:00 EDT Last year we <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/2008/new-plaza-in-2009.html">wrote</a> about the massive reconstruction project in the <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/canada/montreal/districts/montreal-quartier-des-spectacles.html">Quartier des Spectacles</a> - namely, a new plaza for the yearly Jazz Festival and similar events. One year has passed and the project bore its first visible (or, rather, walkable) fruit. <br><br> The $40-million Place des Festivals plaza was unveiled last month with an inaugural show featuring fluttering multi-colored water jets (a rather expensive spectacle, opined some local journalists) and packs of awe-stricken tourists enjoying the last warm days of Montreal's short summer. <br><br> Having snubbed the inauguration festivities, I went by with my camera to take a look a few days later... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2009/place-des-festivals-opens-37277202.html Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:40:00 EDT With only a minimal delay, Le Westin Montréal by Starwood opened this month in the Quartier International, right next to the Palais des Congrès. The hotel appears to be a solid, reasonably stylish choice for business visitors, although some PR claims do seem a bit exaggerated... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2009/westin-montreal-opens-53626726.html Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:45:00 EDT A bewildered American tourist who vacationed in <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/canada/montreal/">Montreal</a> this summer recently wrote a letter to the Gazette, the local anglophone daily, wondering why announcements on the métro are delivered only in <a href="http://french.gromco.com/" target="_new">French</a>. <br/><br/> The newspaper's response and the quotes it extracted from various officials highlighted an interesting contrast in policies between Montreal and Paris public transportation services. While in <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/france/paris/">Paris</a>, announcements are routinely delivered in three languages (French, English and a rotating third major language), Montreal metro will only play a pre-recorded bilingual tape in an emergency situation ("fire! get out!"). "Routine" messages such as announcements of delays are delivered only in <a href="http://french.gromco.com/" target="_new">French</a> as a matter of policy... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/metro-passengers-lost-with-no-translation-7914177.html Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:30:00 EDT The voting process for the name of Montreal's citywide bike rental program is over and the winner is chosen. The system is going to be called "BIXI". <br/><br/> Over the next month, demo bikes will be wheeled around the city and public demonstrations will be held. According to the city's mayor, <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/people/gerald_tremblay.html">Gérald Tremblay</a>, by next spring Montreal will count 2,400 bikes at more than 300 solar-powered stations... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/bixi-bike-taxi-montreal-7408304.html Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:30:00 EDT Construction crews are still crawling over the central tower of the new <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/canada/montreal/hotels/mtl-hilton_garden_inn.html">Hilton Garden Inn</a> on Rue Sherbrooke, but the hotel is already open for business, as made evident not only by the banner that says as much, but also by a quasi-permanent line of cabs picking up departing guests... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/new-hilton-garden-inn-centreville-5610323.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:45:00 EDT Don't know about you, but I've always thought Italy was a bit of a scam as far as food is concerned, in a roundabout sort of way. You go there, you eat, you get exited - ecstatic even, you scribble the names of your new favorite dishes on any and every scrap of paper, you bring the scraps home, you go to your local Italian restaurant, order and then.. you realize it's really not the same. At all. <br/><br/> While I can't offer a real solution to this, I might be able to point you to somebody who can, at least when it comes to pasta dishes and Cucina bolognese in general. This is not one person but rather a group of individuals who run a small tourist-friendly cooking school called "La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese" (Bologna's Old School)... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/vecchia_scuola_bolognese.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:30:00 EDT Back in July, Apple opened a flagship store in Montreal of which yours truly has already had an opportunity to be a customer. <br/><br/> The store is ninth in the list of Apple's flagship stores world-wide (the others are in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, London, Tokyo, Osaka and New York) and the first of the kind in Canada... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/apple_opens_montreal_flagship_store.html Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:45:00 EDT Flying high on the success of Vélib, a bike-rental program that turned one year old in July, Paris is thinking about launching another effort, dubbed Autolib. According to a report by the Associated Press, this program will launch by early 2010 with a fleet of 4,000 electric cars (half of them reserved for areas outside the Périphérique) and will allow anybody to quickly rent a car from one of 700 planned stations and drop them off at any other... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/liked_velib_love_auotlib.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:33:00 EDT Montreal will soon get its own city-wide bike-rental system clearly modeled after Paris' Vélib. It will work almost exactly the same way as Vélib: you pick up your bike from any of the stations, pay at the station or simply swipe a card, use your bike and return it to any station you deem convenient. </p><p> The only (minor) problem is, the system is still to be named. So, the city is asking everyone's opinion. Here are the options: BIXI, Bycik, MontVélo, VélO2 and VillaVélo... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/montreal_bike_system_looking_for_name.html Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:13:00 EDT Groupe Moniteur is a French company which helps establish links between the construction & development industries and the communities in which they work. They are also the owner of Librairie Le Moniteur - a highly specialized bookstore a stone's throw away from the <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/france/paris/places/par-jardin-du-luxembourg.html">Jardin du Luxembourg</a> and Théâtre du Odeon. <br/><br/> Filled with books on architecture, urbanism, landscaping and interior design, Librairie Le Moniteur is one the largest specialized bookstores in Paris (and certainly the largest bookstore on the topic that I've seen)... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/librairie_le_moniteur.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:40:00 EDT The Montreal Jazz Festival 2008 has just finished and the city is already fevereshly preparing for the 2009 edition. You might think this is an overstatement - after all, there's almost a year left! But in fact, in this short year, one of the most important concert spaces, the plaza between Place des Arts and Rue de Bleury will have to be completely redone. The models and renderings for the new Place des Festivals were made public a few days ago and the city's mayor took the opportunity to assure everybody the project is "on schedule, on budget"... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/new-plaza-in-2009.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:30:00 EDT Few makeover projects have been handled with such a degree of architectural audacity as the recent transformation of a disused electric station in Madrid's Las Huertas district into a cultural center La Caixa Forum - Madrid. <br/><br/> The Swiss architects <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/people/jacques_herzog.html">Herzog</a> & <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/people/pierre_de_meuron.html">de Meuron</a> not only gutted the building, removing most of its interiors and changing its shape and size by conspicuously adding a layer of several floors, they also literally lifted it from its foundation, giving the whole structure a tense “suspended” look. <br/><br/> The resulting space now houses a cultural center with its own exhibition space, a large auditorium, a bookstore and a top-floor café... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/caixa_forum_madrid.html Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:30:00 EDT Retractable roofs have been architects' <i>idée fixe</i> for decades. <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/people/moshe_safdie.html">Moshe Safdie</a> once wrote up an idea for entire neighborhoods shielded by such roofs during the harsh season and open to the elements when it's nice outside. <br/><br/> The path to these dreams' realization has been fraught with difficulties, from budget overruns to full-blown engineering disasters like Montreal's Olympic Stadium (after a decade of efforts to fix it, the city finally gave up and installed a fixed roof in its place. It won't be moving any time soon). <br/><br/> Nevertheless, projects like that pop up again and again. And so do the difficulties. The latest example is <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/people/santiago_calatrava.html">Santiago Calatrava</a>'s project for the Lower Manhattan Transportation Hub. Among the project's many innovative features was a retractable roof. But will there be one in the final implementation? Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/calatrava_transit_hub_roof_gets_stuck.html Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:22:00 EDT I generally dislike articles that sound like advertising, especially when they are written about foreign cities. You know the type? Like, how everything is good in XYZ and people are nicer and girls/boys are prettier and things are cheaper and nobody works and everybody's happy. A couple of years back I felt it was appropriate to <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/2006/buenos_aires_dreaming.html">comment on the much promoted virtues of Buenos Aires</a></i>. Right now, I feel the same way about Berlin, except I can not claim to have lived there myself, so I only have my scepticism to go by... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/try_it_again_in_berlin.html Thu, 22 May 2008 13:50:00 EDT The writers' strike may be over, but not everything is going well in Hollywood, I read in yesterday's <i>Corriere della Sera</i> (Milan). The latest trend of shows and movies abandoning the city for cheaper locales leaves the film industry capital increasingly isolated. And if things continue down the same path, soon nobody will be filming there (that prediction is courtesy of Carsten Lorenz who made it in an interview with the Financial Times)... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/frankie_goes_to_new_york.html Thu, 22 May 2008 01:00:00 EDT One of the most frequently photographed sights in <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/spain/madrid/">Madrid</a> that's nevertheless completely ignored in the city guidebooks is the Tío Pepe sign in Puerta del Sol. Given the number of tourists taking pictures in front of the sign (with many opting for a silly trick where they pretend to be "holding" the giant bottle behind them... very creative, guys, but it's been done before) and consequently, given the sign's status as the city's <i>de facto</i> second emblem (at least in tourists' minds... the first still being the bear, of course), it seems almost unbelievable that no guidebook provides at least a cursory look at the sign's story. Allow me to take the onerous task upon myself.. Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/tio-pepe-sign.html Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:00:00 EST There are many restaurants in this town proving their worth by hiring the right chef, PR agency or interior designer, attracting the "in" crowd or serving the most "creative" (sometimes absurdly creative) <i>nouvelle cuisine</i> dishes. <br><br> And then there are restaurants that don't need to prove anything: as long as they stay true to their mission and character, they will be deservedly popular. <br><br> L'Express at 3927 rue St-Denis belongs to the second category. In the 20-odd years that the place has existed, it slowly transformed its status from that of a "cool new thing" to that of a Montreal institution... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/l-express-way.html Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:25:00 EST If there's one place that symbolizes the quirkiness of <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/spain/madrid/">Madrid</a>'s history for me, it is the Sabatini Gardens next to the Palacio Real. <br><br> Of course, it's not the quirkiness that draws hundreds of people here every day - the gardens are beautiful and for anybody who's tired of the city's heat (in summer), or crowds (all year round) it's a perfect place to chill, relax a little bit, read or just people-watch. And did I mention the location? Quite literally in the shadow of the Palacio Real, perhaps <a href="http://www.sitebits.com/spain/madrid/">Madrid</a>'s most famous landmark: it just doesn't get more central than that. <br><br> But still, that's not the whole story. The whole story would need to mention a few quirky facts. Here's one, for example: the Sabatini Gardens are named after Italian architect Francesco Sabatini who... had nothing to do with them... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/sabatini_gardens_chilling_with_kings.html Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:30:00 EST <img ALT="Strand" class="fullill" src="http://www.sitebits.com/images/2008/strand-inside-1.jpg"> <span class="attribution">photo by <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/newyork808/">newyork8080</a></span> <br><br> I have a love and hate relationship with Strand. The "hate" part, for those interested, will be explained at the end of this posting, but let me start with the "love" one. For a hardcover-loving bibliophile rat I am, Strand is simply a great place - one of the best in the world. It's big, cavernous (they claim to offer "18 miles of books") and full of surprises... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/stranded-on-broadway.html Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:00:00 EST I am not exactly a frequent visitor at tea salons - a fact pretty much ensured by the very presence of the Y chromosome in my DNA. </p><p> Yet, since about a year ago, I regularly find myself at a place that ranks suspiciously well on the tea connoisseurs' list of Montreal cafés and restaurants. And what do I order there? Tea. And cookies... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/tea-at-nocochi.html Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:15:00 EST Chicago native Daniel Rose (who originally came to France intending to study philosophy) runs his 16-seat restaurant called "Spring" almost as some sort of a one-man show... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2008/spring-in-paris.html Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:20:00 EST Located a stone's throw away from the Arts & Metiers station, on Rue Turbigo, this little bistro/brasserie offers a relatively simple menu based on French and North African cuisine Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2007/absinthe_cafe_paris_2007.html Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST I am here to clear up the confusion and defend the merits of Habitat 67... Slavito http://www.sitebits.com/2007/habitat-67-2007.html Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:20:00 EST