The family of renowned piano teacher Daisy Peterson Sweeney is upset Montreal is reneging on a promise to name a street for her.
The city has now changed course, and plans to honour her with a tiny park at the corner of Guy and Paxton Sts. in the Southwest borough.
Celine Peterson, Peterson Sweeney’s niece, is not impressed.
“It really isn’t a park. That’s a very generous word for it. It looks like a dog run, this very small patch of grass,” she said. “It just shows you how the City of Montreal continues to treat their women and people of colour. That seems to be a pattern in terms of these prominent people with a very diverse background just being disregarded.”
The city said it promises to upgrade the park, which currently is named Guy-Paxton St. – after the intersection – and is used mostly by dog walkers. It also has two compost bins on site.
Mayor Valerie Plante said she doesn’t want to rename streets and parks.
“Streets already have names and to me this is not a political decision, it’s about (how) you don’t unname a street to rename a street. This is a very serious process,” she said.
What she really is saying is that you don’t rename a street unless it has an English name as in Dorchester, University, and had we not fought with a grass roots opposition, they would have renamed Park Avenue. They also had no problem renaming DeVimy Park.
Valerie Plante won the election only because the public had enough of Coderre. Anything seemed to be a better option. But this won’t win her a re-election. Not if we are lucky.
