Hersh Klein had everything he needed to cope with political protest: two cell phones, a hands-free headset, a tape measure and the sheepish grin of a man who's a bit embarrassed to be making money off the misfortune of others.
Klein is a glazier. He began his work week yesterday with a big job: all the windows of the Gap store at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Mountain Sts. will have to be replaced.
But maybe not right away.
"I was talking to the manager," Klein said, "and we're going to put in plywood for the next three days."
Good move. Until the World Trade Organization leaves town tomorrow evening, Gap is best off displaying the latest look in flooring materials.
As Klein's assistant shook glass fragments out of a mannequin's beige chinos, the owner of HK Glass surveyed the damage anti-WTO demonstrators had wrought: nine 8x6 windows smashed and most of their metal frames dented. Cost of replacement: north of $6,000.
That doesn't include scrubbing graffiti off the sidewalk. Like several banks in the downtown core, Gap was identified as a "fier partenaire d'une planète pillée (proud partner of a looted planet)."
The clothing chain's role as a pillager of the planet was not clear to a trio of American tourists out for a morning walk. Approaching the Gap, the boy noticed the mess and exclaimed: "Oh, my God, what happened?"
He was about 6 years old, just tall enough that his chin rested on the yellow hazard tape that Klein's crew had strung to keep passers-by a safe distance from tumbling glass. The boy wanted a good look at the fresh evidence of destruction: paint smears, broken glass - like a real-life video game, minus the heavily armed superhero.
He was as fascinated by the smashed Gap windows as children will be on the other side of the street in December, when Ogilvy's sets up its Christmas display. His mother, chewing gum with the ferocity of someone who didn't want to deal with this on her vacation, had to call twice before the lad reluctantly followed.
He's got a vacation highlight to tell the kids at school in September: "I went to this cool city where people speak French and someone smashed the !@#$ out of a Gap store."
The Gap was at the centre of a kristallmorgen triangle. Demonstrators broke windows at Jacob, one block east at the corner of Drummond St., and a block west at the Crescent St. Burger King, which bore the graffito "F--- le junk food."
It remains to be seen whether the sight of broken glass and, for the next few days, plywood raises anyone's political consciousness beyond the gee-whiz level of a pre-adolescent who probably can't spell WTO. During the half hour I spent surveying the wreckage at the Gap, comments included "They won't do all this to fight racism" (from downtown activist/boulevardier Bobby White) to "they should throw them all in jail."
Leigh Herbert may have been fearing imminent mass incarceration when he asked me if I was an undercover cop. Must be my strong physical resemblance to Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco. After I produced my Gazette ID card, on which I resemble Jerry Garcia in his declining years, Herbert talked about what motivated him to travel here by bus from Cape Breton.
Herbert, who's 23, works for a multinational. L'Arche, founded in France by a Canadian, Jean Vanier in 1964, is a federation of communities - 100 in 29 countries - that are populated by men and women with developmental disabilities and those, like Herbert, who live and work with them.
Herbert works 14 hours a day for room, board and $400 a month. The soft-spoken Maritimer is not a squeegee punk playing at anarchy. And he asked me not to represent him as a spokesperson for the anti-globalization movement.
"To me, it's a question of what each individual can do," Herbert said. "I'm not in a position to change the world economic order. But I can exercise my constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly.
"This is an education for me," he added. "I'm here to experience what's going on and think about the issues."
mboone@thegazette.canwest.com
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.