Bloom brothers champion St-Henri's emerging micro-neighbourhoods

Ryan Bloom believes that a new neighbourhood starts every 150 feet.

And true to his theory of micro-neighbourhoods, Bloom is nourishing his own stretch of Montreal: the western end ofNotre-Dame Street.

• St-Henri Chronicles: Read the full series

His businesses,Rustique Bakery and Urban Bonfire, are locateddirectly across the street from Tuck Shop, a restaurant owned by his brother, Jon. Just around the block on De Courcelle, he and some partners recently opened Tejano BBQ Burrito.

Last year, athird Bloom brother, David, opened Sumac, a casual Middle Eastern lunch and dinner spot near Rose-de-Lima Street.

Ryan Bloom was oncea vice-president at the real estate development firm Live Work Learn Play, working to revitalize economically depressed downtown districts across the U.S. and Canada.

He returned to Montreal in 2013 and startedhis own business on the strugglingstretch of street. His brother had opened Tuck Shop there three years earlier.

"My partners pushed me to take the spot. At first I was hesitant," JonBloom recalls.

"It was really run down. At night after 10 p.m., there was full-blown prostitution, walking from one bar to the next bar. It was desolate. I had friends very close to me, entrepreneurs, who said, 'Stay away.' And I went with my gut."

Today, Tuck Shop is a destination restaurant with a loyal clientele, some of whom travel from Westmount or Notre-Dame-de-Grace.

"The spark in renewing a neighbourhood is a couple of interesting retail concepts," said Ryan Bloom. He considers brother Jon to be "the incubating pioneer for the micro-neighbourhood."

The debate around gentrification in the Southwest borough is not new, but it's heating up.

Economic contrasts are starkly visible on this section of Notre Dame in ways that were only hints a few years ago.

The Bloom brothers are among the new vanguard of Notre-Dame business owners, along with Tony Campanelli of Caf Campanelli and its neighbouring menswear boutique, and Corey Shapiro, owner of Notorious Barbershop and L'Archive vintage eyewear shop.

I live in the neighbourhood as well, so I see both sides of the coin,- David Bloom

And while local protests have decried the rising rents and rampant condo development in the borough for the past five years, these business owners do not consider themselves part of the problem.

Neighbourhood in flux

To the Bloom brothers, gentrification is a loaded term.

"I live in the neighbourhood as well, so I see both sides of the coin," said David Bloom.

"There's always going to be certain groups who don't want it to change, or who don't want it to change in a certain way. And that's a hard fight.

"I think this is an amazing neighbourhood, it's got a lot of tangiblesthe canal, the market, the proximity to downtownso it was only a matter of time before something happened."

The word "gentrification" seems to leave a bad taste in Jon Bloom's mouth.

"I don't want to be part of pushing anyone anywhere. That's the last thing we're trying to do," he said.

"But as people come in, it's really a game with the landlords, not so much the businesses. The landlords see one person getting some attention, getting customers, so they have this vision that it's possible for all their locations, that this is what the neighbourhood needs. And they start driving rents up."

Jon Bloom estimates that 30 food and beverage storefronts have opened up in the last year between Tuck Shop and Joe Beef, at the easternmost edge of Notre Dame's gentrified zone.

"It's wild," he said. "There's something new every day. And that's part of the landlord game. They're thrilled to get their tenants out, jack the rent, and get some new food and beverage concepts in."

Ryan Bloom's experience with urban renewal has given him a philosophical outlook.

"Change is typically met with fear. The idea of the neighbourhood changing is scary for people."

• See the full multimedia presentation of this story

St-HenriChronicles

St-HenriChronicles is a collaboration between the Department of Journalism at Concordia University, and CBC Montreal.

Students in a graduate-level multimedia course were asked to find and produce original stories onSt-Henrifor their final class project.

They spent the winter term developing these stories, and experimented with sound, pictures, video, infographics and maps to tell them. .

• About the journalists