Parc de l'Espoir

At the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Panet, in the heart of the Village, a red ribbon flows through a small plaza — cast in red resin, curving across the ground and rising into a bench. This is Parc de l'Espoir, Montreal's memorial to Quebecers lost to HIV/AIDS. The park's origins are activist. In the early 1990s, ACT UP Montréal held vigils and confrontations here, demanding the city acknowledge the epidemic; the memorial that officially opened in 1997 was wrestled into existence rather than granted. When the city redeveloped the site in 2019-2021, the community's insistence was clear and successful: this must remain a cenotaph, not just another park. The renewed design — reopened in August 2021 — keeps mourning at the centre: the ribbon motif, a newly planted tree as a symbol of continuing life, and space for the community's annual remembrance gatherings. What you see today: an open corner plaza, free and always accessible, midway along the Village's pedestrianised summer stretch of Sainte-Catherine. A ten-minute stop that anchors the neighbourhood's history — the bars and terraces around it are the life the memorial insists on remembering.