Pointe-Claire mural turns heads and creates a celebrity

MONTREAL – In addition to quickly becoming a West Island must-see, a sweeping outdoor mural depicting 300 years of Pointe Claire Village history appears to be making a local celebrity out of a 90-year-old Pointe Claire woman.

Since its unveiling a month ago, the expansive mural on an exterior wall of the village’s grocery store has thrust Madeleine Allard, a diminutive grandmother, into the public spotlight.

Allard is the only living person among dozens of historical and fictional characters depicted in the 60-metre mural.

“Every time I go out now, people stop me and congratulate me,” said the longtime Pointe Claire Village resident.

“It’s such an honour,” she said, after making a special trek to the mural where she is painted – fittingly sitting on a bench in front of the village grocery store.

The mural is on the western wall of the building on Lakeshore Rd. that, until last spring, housed Les Marchés Traditions.

The closing left merchants and residents fearing for the village’s welfare.

There had been a grocery store in the village since the 1750s.

The new mural was conceived as a way to revitalize the village after the grocery store closed.

The project has been spearheaded by Roger Simard, a pharmacist who co-owns a Familiprix in the village and is now in the final stages of renovating the building where the mural is located in order to open a new grocery store. L’Épicerie du Village.

It is expected to open in March.

Simard said he couldn’t be happier with how the mural has turned out and he is especially pleased with the panel in which Mme. Allard appears.

It represents the people and the services that make up the heart of the village, he said.

Nedia El Khouri, a Pointe Claire Village art gallery owner and president of the Pointe Claire Village Associaton, a group formed last year to bolster the village, said the mural and the grocery store are ushering in a positive new era for the village.

Claude Arsenault, president of the Société pour la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine de Pointe Claire, a local heritage group, said he has received so many calls from heritage advocates across Montreal Island that he has started giving historical talks at the mural on the weekends.

“People are fascinated,” he said.

Donations to help pay for the mural, which cost $200,000, are being collected by Roasters Foundation, 1 Place Ville Marie, bureau 2221, Montreal, H3B 3M4.