Montreal to name downtown plaza for jazz great Oscar Peterson
Posted August 31, 2021 2:54 pm.
Last Updated August 31, 2021 6:59 pm.
MONTREAL — The City of Montreal is naming a downtown plaza after late jazz great Oscar Peterson.
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante says the large square, being created as part of the reconstruction of a downtown street, will include signs and other art installations celebrating Peterson’s life and work.
There have been numerous calls in Montreal for greater public commemoration of the eight-time Grammy winner, who was born in the city in 1925.
#New Place Oscar-Peterson will honour the Montreal jazz great with art & a multi-sensory experience on
McGill College Ave. from Ste-Catherine to De Maisonneuve. This will be part of the McGill College revamp, making the street a pedestrian-only zone.Photo: City of Montreal pic.twitter.com/il7GJe2QKH
— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) August 31, 2021
In 2020, an unsuccessful petition to rename the Lionel-Groulx metro station after Peterson, who grew up in the nearby Little Burgundy neighbourhood, garnered more than 25,000 signatures.
A small park in the area bears his name, as does a concert hall at Montreal’s Concordia University.
Peterson died in 2007, in Mississauga, Ont., after a 60-year career as a jazz pianist.
WATCH: Montreal Black community groups not consulted in honouring Oscar Peterson
