No café or bakery in Montreal and its surrounding boroughs has ever rivalled the mouthwatering smell of strong, black coffee that once floated in the tiny, rustic cafeteria inside Lasalle’s Octogone Public Library. It’s found just a quick, five-minute walk from Dollard Avenue’s 113 bus stop, near the intersection heading towards Boulevard de la Vérendrye that every Lasalle driving school student learns to navigate.
In my childhood memories, though, it was only a five-second walk from my parents’ old gray Honda, left in the center of the library’s parking lot. Surrounded by towering trees, I distinctly remember thinking it looked strikingly similar to the forest in Disney’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland live-action film.
Before its reconstruction, which began in 2021 and ended in 2024, the smell of freshly-brewed espresso greeted visitors – students, parents, children – before the automatic doors even slid open, revealing the Library’s innovative architectural design.
As its name suggests, the original 1984 building was composed of two octagons; the larger stored the adult collection, and the smaller was reserved for the children’s collection. In the narrow corridor between both sections, parents would separate from their children, settling at white plastic tables with open laptops, while their children disappeared between low wooden shelves in search of DVDs or the second book in a famous series, because the first was always already checked out. Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Hunger Games… all the elementary school classics.
If I’m being honest, there is nothing that objectively makes L’Octogone Library stand out among other libraries. Comparing it to Berri-UQAM’s Grande Bibliothèque would feel almost unfair. And yet, the second I step inside, a wave of nostalgia crashes over me so powerfully that it may as well be one of the seven wonders of the world.
It’s where I tasted my very first coffee, reading across from my mother as she studied for an upcoming university test. It’s where I frantically crammed research on The Catcher in the Rye the night before my secondary four English test, a last-minute assignment that somehow led me to my favourite novel of all time. It’s where I spent hours sketching in a notebook I haven’t picked up in ages, while my sister stacked every Pokémon manga she could find beside me like trophies.
Even now, if one really pays attention and listens, the library remains alive with the same routine of strangers’ lives unfolding.
At one table, a young couple can be seen working in tandem on their respective homework, Apple Pencils in hand, their iPads leaning over their open, yet blank notebooks. Their voices are hushed, but loud enough to be heard from the table behind them. “You see, here – there are two. You need three,” the boy says, pointing to an equation on her iPad, as she pushes her glasses up to hold her hair up like a makeshift headband.
A few feet away, two women have gathered up all the Italy travel guides they could find within the library’s extensive collection, the glossy covers showing off the Amalfi Coast and Roman ruins. They bicker with strong French accents about destination choices: “Personally, I don’t like that – We have to see the Trevi Fountain!” They disagree, one inclined towards a culturally enlightening trip, while the other hopes for a relaxing holiday. “I want two days in Capri! I heard it’s beautiful!”
Voices blend with the sound of turning pages and tapping keyboards, the same soundtrack which has followed me through childhood, adolescence and, soon, adulthood. L’Octogone has changed, with a renovated structure, modern furniture and brighter spaces adorned with plants of all kinds. Yet, it somehow remains exactly the same as the first time I walked in.
