"If it was 1988, I would buy it every week"

Stop, we're blushing!

Terry DiMonte and Ted Bird have been fixtures of Montreal radio for decades. Now, on their podcast Standing By, the duo took a moment to talk about something they've both been reading lately: The Main.

"I got no vested interest in The Main, I really don't. I just read it every week," DiMonte said on this week's episode. "I put my money where my mouth is and I subscribed. If it was 1988 and this magazine came out, I would buy it every week. It's beautifully put together, it has some really fascinating stories."

The hosts discussed two recent articles that caught their attention. The first was our piece on Operation Fish, the little-known Second World War mission that saw Britain's entire gold reserve secretly transported across the Atlantic and stored in vaults beneath Montreal's Sun Life Building. That story prompted a listener named Enzo Corelli to write in with a tip: Sun Life offers public tours that take visitors down to those very vaults (we're going to add that factoid, thanks Enzo!).

"Sun Life Building, if you've never been, even if you're not going for the tour, just go in the building," DiMonte said. "It's my favourite building in the city. It's, in my opinion, the most beautiful building in the city."

But it was The Main's deep-dive into the history of Schwartz's Deli that really got them talking. DiMonte walked through the story's highlights—founder Reuben Schwartz's arrival from Romania in 1921, his reputation for enjoying a drink and the company of women, and the Ukraine-born violinist and composer Maurice Zbriger who stepped in to save the deli from ruin in 1931.

"It's a fascinating story about a Montreal icon," DiMonte said. "I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Montrealer and I had no idea of any of this."

Bird agreed, adding that he'd also become a subscriber. "They even sent me a book," he said. "I think we should get one of their heavy hitters in on the podcast one of these weeks and get the history of it."

Spoiler: We're gonna reach out. But we digress.

DiMonte wrapped up the segment with a pitch for listeners tuning in from outside the city: "If you're listening to the podcast outside of Montreal and you want to stay in touch, reconnect—I know everybody does the Gazette—but you can go to The Main and get a lot of connection of what's going on in the city. They cover culture and nightlife and restaurants and history. I think it's really well put together."

Standing By: The Terry and Ted Podcast releases new episodes weekly. Terry DiMonte spent 37 years as a Montreal radio broadcaster, most notably as the longtime morning host on CHOM 97.7, before retiring in 2021. Ted Bird was his on-air partner for nearly two decades across multiple stations.