Rectangle Triangle

A RECTANGLE TRIANGLE SERIES

A ten-part history of Montréal nightlife, written from inside a building that used to be part of it. Three clubs at our own address, the sound system that set the bar at Stereo, the six a.m. permit that started it all at Limelight — and next, the club that brought Chicago house to this city.

Episode 5 of 10
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The original Parking sign, now in the shop.

The original Parking sign, now in the shop.

EPISODE 01

Three Clubs, One Building

  • 1994–2011
  • 1288–1296 Atateken
  • 9 min read

Playground, Groove Society and Parking — the three clubs that ran, one after another, in the building we now sell records out of at 1288–1296 Atateken. The piece that started this series.

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Rue Amherst looking north from Ontario, 1937. Archives de la Ville de Montréal.

Rue Amherst looking north from Ontario, 1937. Archives de la Ville de Montréal.

EPISODE 02

Brothers and Sisters: How Rue Amherst Became Rue Atateken

  • 2019
  • ex-rue Amherst
  • 10 min read

Our address changed in 2019 and nobody moved. A British general, a postscript about smallpox blankets, eleven months in 1964 when this street was called Christophe-Colomb, and a Kanien'kéha word for brothers and sisters.

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One of the six stacks. Photo: Craig “Shorty” Bernabeu / SBS Designs.

One of the six stacks. Photo: Craig “Shorty” Bernabeu / SBS Designs.

EPISODE 03

Nineteen Thousand Watts, No Limiter: The Sound System at Stereo

  • 1998
  • 858 Sainte-Catherine Est
  • 15 min read

Six fourteen-foot stacks, a horn named after Larry Levan, and a deliberate refusal to put a limiter on any of it. The room that set the bar for Montréal sound.

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EPISODE 04

The Six A.M. Permit: How Limelight Invented Montréal After-Hours

  • 1973–1990
  • 1254 rue Stanley
  • 7 min read

Montréal's after-hours scene has a start date, a founder and a specific piece of paper: a 1973 liquor permit that ran three hours past last call — and the sunrise basement under our own floor is downstream of it.

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Berliner Gramophone Company, Montréal, 1910. Public domain.

Berliner Gramophone Company, Montréal, 1910. Public domain.

Quebec's First Record

  • 1900–1908
  • 138A Peel Street
  • 5 min read

Berliner's Montréal gramophone plant, brown wax records, and the Montréal baritone who made the first recording actually captured on Quebec soil — a little record-shop trivia detour. Two honest answers, four years apart, and one of them you can still hear.

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Still to come in the series

  • 05 Business, 3500 Saint-Laurent — the club that brought Chicago house to Montréal

Danced in one of these rooms, or worked the booth? Tell us about it.