Montreal to name downtown plaza for jazz great Oscar Peterson

By The Canadian Press

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.

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

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