Leonard Cohen Mural
Twenty-storey portrait of a beloved songwriter, hand over heart, painted across a downtown high-rise wall.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Leonard Cohen Mural in Montreal follows a mix-up at its 2017 unveiling, when the mayor announced the wrong size on camera, and the quieter fight behind it: a nonprofit that had spent years planning a Cohen tribute on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the street he grew up on, before the mayor unveiled this wall instead. You'll hear about the festival's own smaller mural, painted nearby without a cent of city money, and the photograph the towering portrait's pose is copied from. Look for both murals on the same visit to see how the city told two versions of the same tribute.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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