In 2009, after more than 100 years near the corner of Décarie and Jean-Talon, the Montreal Hippodrome (formerly known as Blue Bonnets) closed its doors. The site comprised mainly a huge race track for horses, with on one side a main building including bleachers, betting rooms, bars and restaurants, and on the other side, various stables and sheds.

It didn’t take very long following the closing of the Hippodrome for graffers and other artists to hit the abandoned buildings. While the stables and some of the sheds were immediately taken over, the main building remained off-limits. Although there was security on site, it was generally lax in the supervision of the abandoned stables. This was not the case for the main building; it was impossible to approach it without security showing up. It remained off-limits until the beginning of 2018 when, a few months away from a planned demolition to make space for a complex of condos and commercial buildings, security appears to have been dropped.

As it had become the holy grail of abandoned buildings in Montreal, following the disappearance of security it wasn’t long before graffers finally made it inside the main building. The first ones appear to have been Shok, Sewk and Arek, in early March 2018. Through social media the word quickly spread and within a few weeks the spot was completely taken over. The party lasted for about three weeks until late March when a fence was put up around the whole site and everything, including most the stables this time, became off-limits again. The city supplied security from the SPVM, so very few writers and explorers tried to make it inside after that.

The photos of graffiti and other artistic pieces from the Hippodrome are split over three posts:

• the main building
• the 2 saddling stables (to be published soon)
  (where the horses are brought for preparation before racing)
• the 6 regular stables (to be published soon)
  (where the horses are kept in stable boxes when not racing)

Puisque cet édifice principal était devenu le spot le plus convoité par les graffeurs à Montréal, suite à l’interruption des services de sécurité ceux-ci ont pris l’endroit d’assaut. Les premiers à y avoir accédé semblent avoir été Shok, Sewk et Arek, en mars 2018. Via les médias sociaux la nouvelle s’est rapidement répandue et en l’espace de quelques semaines plusieurs douzaines d’artistes y ont laissé leur marque. La fête a duré environ 3 semaines, jusqu’à la fin de mars quand une cloture a été installée autour du site. L’édifice principal ainsi qu’une partie des écuries sont alors redevenues inaccessibles. La sécurité étant assurée cette fois par le SPVM, très peu de graffeurs et d’explorateurs urbains ont tenté d’y pénétrer par la suite.