3757

Somewhere up McTavish street, on an intersection I no longer remember, there is an old wooden door with generous brass bolts and a little limestone Martlet engraved on its keystone. A green rusted copper roof, exquisitely adorned with two beavers and a lys flower on each side of the door finish in what used to be a rain pipe. Nothing in the aspect of this maroon door distinguishes it from the those of the surrounding victorian houses silently clinging to the side of Mont-Royal. It is just another door from the Golden Mile.

All of this would be true if it weren’t for the fact that this door has no house of its own. It has a doorknob and a keyhole, but it vanishes discreetly inside the mountain between two contiguous houses. The house to the left belongs to the McGill Graduate Student Society. It hosts galas, formal receptions and has the commemorative plate for the students and staff who perished during the great war of 1914. The mansion to the right was the founding place and former quarters of the Liberal Party of Canada by Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Only used for storage purposes nowadays.

As such, student, staff and the occasional pedestrian simply assume the door leads to the basement of either of the contiguous houses, or something along those lines.