Cleaning blitz mixes with art to spruce up St-Laurent Boulevard

It’s starting to look like summer in Montreal.

The Main was getting its annual sprucing up Sunday in preparation for the upcoming summer season.

The cleaning blitz is an initiative of the Business Association of St-Laurent Boulevard and got its start three years ago.

“We figured that at the beginning of summer, it was really important just to give a new look to the boulevard,” Tasha Morizio, the general manager of the association, said.

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About 100 people — including residents, merchants, and at-risk youth working with TAPAJ — were hard at work scrubbing the sidewalks, urban furniture and surrounding side streets on St-Laurent Boulevard, between Sherbrooke Street and Mont-Royal Avenue.

“We’re just putting love into the street,” Morizio said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We're just putting love into the street," Morizio said.

But she admitted the timing was ideal.

“We’re making sure it is spic-and-span for the fifth edition of the Mural Festival, which is coming June 8,” she said.

The festival is billed as the largest urban art festival in North America with 20 artists scheduled to take part in the 2017 edition, which runs until June 18.

Last year, an estimated 1.3 million festival-goers watched as painters wielding their brushes, transformed the urban landscape.

As Morizio explained, the cleaning initiative is as much about cleaning as it is the arts.

“Every year, we work with a different artist,” she said.

This year, the association teamed up with Cheryl Voisine who took over the artistic direction.

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“She decided to pay homage to Leonard Cohen,” Morizio said, adding the beloved Montreal troubadour was not only part of our culture but part of the Boulevard itself.

Voisine designed a series of decals inspired by Cohen‘s lyrics and songs.

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The decals are used to cover the windows of empty businesses giving them a little “pizzazz,” Morizio said.

Local artist Jason Wasserman was also busy working his magic, enlivening the sidewalks with his paintings.