26 Replies to “It’s Still Standing?”

  1. Just guessing but about half the concrete that was supposed to be in the Big Owe wound up as apartment buildings on the South Shore.

  2. I’d be surprised if it had been built properly. Bridges, Expos stadium, Expo 67 structures etc. etc. have a sordid history.

  4. Dear andycanuck at 3:35 … ah, but there are. Montreal’s actually on a major earthquake zone. I guess the planet’s just biding it’s time.

  5. I remember when the big Owe was being built. Mysteriously, over a weekend, all the newly-installed washroom fixtures were smashed. Of course, they all had to be replaced by the same contractors and union workers that had installed the originals. I don’t recall them ever having attached blame. Big surprise, huh?

  6. Of course it’s weak. Every engineering handbook I’ve read says NEVER put a dead body into a pre-stressed concrete beam.

  7. You have to have read Nick Auf der Maur’s book “The Billion Dollar Game to appreciate the corruption and incompetence displayed in this monstrosity. Cement trucks would drive in one entrance and out through another without delivery the concrete and would then return after driving around the block to repeat same.
    The Victoria Bridge, opened in 1859, is doing quite well as is the Jacques Cartier Bridge, opened in 1930. Then again, I expect they were built by the Anglos before the Quiet Revolution of the ’60’s. Once a great city.

  8. I have worked with a few construction workers who were employed on the “Big O” project.Their stories of corruption were quite amazing.
    And 35 years later, someone is suggesting there is corruption in the construction industry in Quebec!
    Drapeau’s famous statement,” the Olympics could no more go over budget than a man could have a baby” still ranks as one of my all-time favorites quotes by a corrupt politician.

  9. From place ville Marie and the underground city rolling into expo 67 and the metro and then into the Olympics and mirabel the unions and government contractors had a glorious, deliciously corrupt couple of decades…
    One of the most vivid memories of my first visit to the Owe circa 1978 was walking along the mezzanine level and having to walk over bolted-down sheets of plywood with gaps that showed the four inch wide gap in the concrete floor that showed the floor seats some fifty feet below.
    The Owe is a giant tombstone and was the millstone that killed my beloved expos to boot.
    As for who is the greater criminal – the contractors or the architect – it’s a tie IMO.

  10. And that was the olympics whereby Canada achieved a ‘Silver’ – yes that’s right ONE silver medal (maybe some brozes but who cares..) I was patriotic kid at the time and was staggered with the embarrasment.
    Yeah, the Libs were so rigourous with the training progr…zzzzzzzz

  11. And that was the olympics whereby Canada achieved a ‘Silver’ – yes that’s right ONE silver medal (maybe some brozes but who cares..) I was a patriotic kid at the time and was staggered with the embarrasment.
    Yeah, the Libs were so rigourous with the training progr…zzzzzzzz

  14. It must have been all the DBs from cheering Expo fans that weakened the structure.

  16. During the construction of the “O”, I knew a fellow who’s son delivered gravel to the stadium.
    He told me that when the fully loaded trucks went over the weigh scales, there was an opening in the boarded wall of the site where the trucks could then exit. His son told him that most trucks would leave through the opening, go for a 10 minute drive around a couple of blocks, and then return to weigh the same load. This would be done at least 3 and sometimes 4 times with the same load.
    Each truck was paid each time it was weighed!
    This gentleman said at that time, “Do you wonder why this thing is costing so much?”
    The same “ethics” that delivered the building material went into the actual building itself. No wonder it’s unsafe.
    One other thing. Don’t forget, it was under the Commie Trudeau that an architect from France, not Canada, was chosen.
    That explains it, right there.

  17. Send in the Canadian Combat Engineers…there is nothing that can’t be fixed by the proper application of explosives.
    These guys are seriously stupid, you don’t remove steel rods from pre-stressed concrete, it defeats the whole purpose of giving strength under load.
    Looks like a job for Dywidag Systems International:
    http://www.dywidag-systems.com/
    In Underground Mining and Tunneling, we offer a comprehensive range of roof support products.
    We support our customers in reaching a higher level of safety Underground.
    When the roof support caves and drives the building upside down…I’m sure they’ll get a call.
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  19. I say let it fall. Just make sure no innocent souls are inside when it comes down. (Innocent does not include politicians or bureaucrats, or Mafiosi)

  20. I’m glad I got to visit it last summer, but I didn’t realize what daredevils we were going up into that tower.

  22. The Seattle Kingdome will be paid off in 2016, coincidentally 16 years after it was demolished. Goes to show there are stupid people everywhere. Edmonton is spending half a $ billion so millionaires can play a kid’s game for a billionaire while 20,000 people watch who consist of a high portion of millionaires.

  25. Not to mention Scots. Lots of Scottish stonemasons (one of them was the second PM of Canada).
    Aside from building good buildings, they built good institutions. I think in particular of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Montreal General Hospital, which were considered among the best hospitals in the world. Then came the Quiet Revolution, as you say.

  26. To think that the majority of Canadians actually think the cost of Quebec to Canada is limited to Equalization Payments. That only scratches the surface.

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