Saint-Michel Flea Market – Montreal

“I know nothing of how the flea market is managed or administered, but it seems to be organized in a way that resists hierarchy. To be sure, the antiques on the second floor are a little fancier and the books up there are more collectible, but the space of the market overall seems to be that of an inclusive and chaotic democracy.  Dingy spaces overflowing with uncatalogued junk sit beside lovingly curated displays of fine china or vintage watches arrayed in glass-covered display cases.

No other part of Montreal’s built environment seems to me to better capture the inexhaustibility of the city.  There is no better museum of old technologies, of household decor, of tools of work, of popular culture both local and transnational.  Few other places serve so efficiently as repositories of feelings. These are preserved and offered for sale on postcards, in personal letters, in the signs of prior use on dishes or furnishings, as dedications in books and in all those items, like vinyl recordings of old Québécois pop music, to which memory has attached itself.

The physical layout of the St. Michel flea market is such that it always feels like a labyrinthian, mildly disorienting territory.  In a space with so many corners, narrow throughfares and alleyways, interactions with others are inevitable.  I know of no other urban space in which conversation seems so constant and lively, or in which it erupts so quickly between people who do not know each other.  And, with no clear vantage points from which the market as a whole may be observed, the St. Michel flea market also feels like one of the most unpoliced and unsurveilled places in Montreal.

Material and expressive culture of Quebec: Although my interests now are primarily in the night, the flea market is a day-time space, the meeting ground of what Hervé Sciardet called “the merchants of dawn” and I wonder where in the world night-time flea markets might be found (Hervé Sciardet, Les marchands de l’aube. Ethnographie et théorie du commerce aux puces de Saint-Ouen, Economica, Paris, 2002, 218 p.)” (Booklet Positive Lived Experiences of Quality in the Built Environment 2023, p.113).

Google map link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Saint+Michel+Flea+Market/@45.5625145,-73.6073017,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x4cc91ecc428f7ba9:0xce9240e7959b5d25!8m2!3d45.5625108!4d-73.6047268!16s%2Fg%2F11b5wffbyg?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxOC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D