Jean-Roch Boivin died Feb. 19 at 79. He suffered a heart attack just weeks after moving out of his Montreal home. He'd finally settled with his building's new owner, following an anguished fight to stay.
Jean-Roch Boivin was described as brilliant and fiery by his friend of 41 years, author Anne Dandurand. They spoke on the phone for about an hour every day.
"It was very hard for him," said Wasim Osman, sitting on a small couch in his studio apartment tucked against the wall he shared with Boivin. "To remember that he has all these memories, carrying them with him to a new place, having to start a new life." Osman, a 34-year-old former Syrian refugee , moved into the building shortly after arriving in Canada in 2016, then into the top-floor unit next to Boivin's in 2018. For the first year or so, Osman and Boivin exchangedOne day during the pandemic, Osman heard intense coughing next door and checked on his neighbour. The two grew close after that. They watched movies on Monday nights — classics by Elia Kazan and Sydney Pollack that Boivin wanted to show Osman.
The apartment building at 255 Square Saint-Louis Street is undergoing major renovations, despite one tenant still living on the top floor. The building's new owner has repeatedly attempted to convince him to leave. "It's the silver lining of this whole thing, the solidarity that came out of it," Dandurand said over the phone.The tenants' troubles started soon after a company represented by a man named Tristan Desautels purchased the four-storey building on July 6.
Living there has been frightening, he said. He worries about the structure holding up his apartment now that so much of the building — built around 1885 — has been torn apart. The cold seeps in so easily.In a rapidly changing city, the homes of Square Saint-Louis are frozen in time. Most of the Painted Ladies-style buildings lining the park have preserved their original Victorian and Edwardian features — colourful gables, short and ornate wooden doors, painted tiles, parapets and turrets.
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