Edward Hillel's new book offers a rare then-and-now look at an iconic Montreal street

In 1976, Edward Hillel rented an abandoned Chinese laundromat on Esplanade and Villeneuve and turned it into a collaborative space he called "the clubhouse". He built a darkroom, invited photographers, and started learning his craft while working as a community organizer on Boulevard Saint-Laurent. He was in his twenties, studying political science and philosophy at McGill, packing a Minolta his father gave him. He was just figuring it out like anyone would be at that time of their life in the Plateau.

Between 1978 and 1985, he took the photographs that would become The Main: Portrait of a Neighbourhood, published in 1987 by a major Toronto house and gone within months. But while the book sold out, it also helped get Saint-Laurent Boulevard designated as a Canadian heritage landmark. Nearly four decades later, Hillel has returned with Holding the Main (Hurtwood Press, 2025), a book that asks "can you go home again?" from the place of leaving a place you love. The answer, it turns out, is both yes and no.