One of the side-effects of building the Queensway was a series of terrifically ugly underpasses strung east-west across the city like vertebrae. These concrete tunnels would serve as ideal film locations for scenes from slasher movies or horror flick portals to hell, but in real life, not reel life, they are the very definition of banal.

Most neighbourhoods ignore them, while the graffiti artists, the knights of bright, use them as concrete canvases. But in Little Italy they have used theirs as a sort of Bayeux tapestry of Preston Street's history. The artist Karole Marois in 2007 created a tableaux of Italian-ness that makes walking through a reasonable pleasure, not to say an education. En passant we learn that between 1945 and 1965, 250,000 Italians immigrated to Canada, most of them arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax. There are silhouettes of hatted men and skirted women bearing luggage toward a better future at street level, and running above are portraits of the more well-known businesses and families of Little Italy. It almost succeeds in making the underpass attractive. I'd suggest large screens showing works of art or webcams of famous global landmarks or upcoming cultural events and no advertising as a solution in other tunnels. Any one got a better idea?