Weeeee're back!

Ever since I came on board as editor (almost 8 months now – time flies when you're having fun!), I've received countless of e-mails from readers bemoaning the fact that Transcontinental ever decided to change the paper's name in 2001.

It appears that long-time readers were emotionally attached to The Monitor and I can certainly see why. I could sit here and wax poetically about how The Monitor is "rising like a Phoenix again" or how "a rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet", yada, yada, yada… but in all honesty, in 8 months' time, I became attached to The Chronicle and I'll now have to get reacquainted with The Monitor.

But countless of you can't be wrong! The Monitor is a name that served this community well for the past 75 years; it's a name that's associated with many of your early memories of Montreal's West End; a name you've come to know and trust and we're happy to be taking a step back in order to leap forward into the future.

Along with the name change, you'll undoubtedly have noticed the brand new visual format and there's more to come. While our trusted reporters (the always reliable Martin C. Barry), our multi-talented freelancers and our insightful columnists, Bram Eisenthal (Briefly Bram) and Noah Sidel (Off-Sidel) will continue to share their observations about the West End with you and "Toula's Take" will continue to entertain, inform and occasionally raise eyebrows on a weekly basis, there's much more in the works.

Mix 96's radio DJ Nat Lauzon (and NDG resident) will soon be joining us with her own unique and quirky insights into West End life, as her bi-weekly column "Natterings" will soon begin and a wine column may also be in the works, soon to be informing our readers of what to sample and what to sample it with. These are exciting times at The Chronicle… err... The Monitor!

With the dynamic –and, might I add, delightful-- Newspaper Director on board (Nancy Macdonald – who actually started her Transcontinental career right here with The Monitor years ago), distribution problems are being tackled and we've added additional depots all over the West End.

Monkland Avenue, Sherbrooke St. West, Westminster, Somerled, Upper Lachine, Cavendish, Cote St. Luc, Queen Mary… We're everywhere (and if we're not or if you're having problems getting the paper, call us or e-mail us because we want to know).

As always, and, I hope, as clearly as has been the case ever since I came on board as editor, we're focusing on local, local, LOCAL! A community newspaper's "raison d'etre" is community coverage: local politics, local policy making, local kids, local artists, local musicians, local productions, local businesses, local residents and their universal concerns, preoccupations, grievances and dreams. With so much going on right here in the West End, why even bother to go beyond our territory?

Do you have comments, suggestions, questions? E-mail them to me at toula.foscolos@transcontinental.ca. And don't forget: from now on, when you're looking for all your West End news online, log onto: www.themonitor.ca