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The gazebo rebuilt in honour of Mordecai Richler opened last week with a marked lack of fanfare, five years after the city first pledged to restore it and hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget.

In the end, the city of Montreal spent $771,223 for the restoration. The city’s initial estimate was $350,000.

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While a ceremony inaugurating a new mural of Richler on Laurier Ave. was well attended by local politicians Monday, as was the renaming of the Mile End Public Library in Richler’s honour last March, the opening of the gazebo on the eastern edge of Mount Royal was a decidedly low-key affair, in that nobody said anything. It took the city four days this week to respond to questions as to whether the gazebo was, in fact, completed.

On Friday, the city confirmed workers had removed the protective fences surrounding the structure the previous week, and the pavilion was open to the public. As to whether there will be an official inauguration ceremony, a member of the city’s public relations department wrote in an email: “That aspect has not been determined yet.”