St Jacques is one of the oldest streets in Montreal. Sky scrapers began popping up on St Jacques, St James to the English-speaking Montrealers of the time, at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Many banks and financial institutions would open their head offices on this street making it the financial centre of Canada at the time.

The building with the large columns on the left was the main Montreal branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, now CIBC. Built between 1907 and 1909, its architecture is very representative of the times, it tried to give the message of solidity. Most of the businessmen getting to work when this picture was taken traveled by street car. In the recent picture you can see that the main method of transportation to and from this sector of the city is now by car.

Source: The McCord Museum

Alright, so I know I’ve already used she pictures in the image gallery section. But there was so much more I wanted to say about them that didn’t fit in the Image Gallery section.

These pictures above were the reason I started this site. I was sifting through the McCord Museum website and chatting online with a friend. I told my friend that I was thinking of doing a project involving the museum’s online gallery. A few minutes later my friend messaged me back with a link to the 1866 des Seigneurs picture and said, “Isn’t that your street corner?”

It was my street corner! I live on des Seigneurs just below where this picture was taken. Later that day I went out and snapped a photo (the one of the left) and compared it with the McCord Museum picture. The differences and the similarities in these pictures were so interesting, my neighbourhood when it was first constructed and my neighbourhood today!

It was the two pictures above that gave me the idea to create this website.

I already know a lot about my neighbourhood of Little Burgundy by speaking to people. They told me how much this neighbourhood has changed in the last decade. My roommate grew up here and said that the neighbourhood has definitely mellowed out a lot since he was a kid. My sister told me that when she lived Montreal back in the 70s she would not have gotten off the bus in my neighbourhood.

Although my neighbourhood still isn’t the safest in Montreal (a jeweler who’s store and appartment can be seen above was murdered in his home just last month) it has improved much since then. It offers a diverse array of people, a lot of community spirit, interesting shops and restaurants and some beautiful old buildings. The old industrial and commercial architecture has found new life as lofts, stores, galleries, restaurants, barbershops and a variety of things.

It’s a nice neighbourhood to live in, rich history, low rent and close to downtown.

Map of Montreal 1888

Wow, what a difference a blog server makes. I was originally making it using an HTML generator, which was fun none the less but annoying and tedious. WordPress has been a great help so far, it keeps everything organized and easy to navigate. I started this photoblog as a class project for my History and Digital Media class. I decided to use WordPress because I want to make this photoblog an on going thing, it’s too good of an idea to waste on a one shot class project. Nothing against the class project, I just want to keep it going.

There were so many things that I could not do on the original HTML page. All the pictures comparing the two eras were accessed through a thumbnail gallery instead of easily scrolling down the page, and there wouldn’t have been a blog section to allow me to make comments or to post random pictures and quotes.

My friend suggested that I should add a link for every image and comparison, but as I intend this to be an on going thing it would eventually become too cluttered. In the mean time there’s the handy search function. I may develop more specific categories as the photoblog fills relating to neighbourhoods or themes. I would definitely like to have a section for old buildings that have found new uses (i.e. all the old post offices that are now commercial buildings).

I am definitely going to keep this site active. It’s fun, easy and, interesting. I’ve been meaning to do something like this for a while. All my attempts at blogs have failed before, but a photoblog; this is fun!

Unfortunately, I probably won’t get a chance to update it much after this until the new year. I need to get my camera fixed at the moment, I’ve had to use a friend’s camera for the pictures so far.

Image source: The McCord Museum

The history of this street corner in the burough of Little Burgundy is one of boom, bust and a slow recovery. During the second half of the the 19th Century this street would be transformed its residential, and even religious buildings, to give way for “progress” as Notre Dame would becoming one of Montreal’s leading commercial streets. Buildings became more ornate to represent their new commercial status.

In the 20th Century this neighbourhood would see some hard times. The economy suffered and Little Burgundy became infamous as a center of crime. This would continue until the Lachine Canal closed to commercial shipping, and the neighbourhood’s industrial and commercial past would give way to condos, posh shops and other forms of gentrification.

Little Burgundy now dually takes on both aspects of its past. Side by side elaborate condos and government assisted housing, prestigious antique shops line Notre Dame yet empty lots and dilapidated builds are not hard to come by.

Source: The McCord Museum and from personal and anecdotal experience (see Host it All Began in the blog section).

During the Victorian Era public squares began popping up all throughout the Commonwealth. Dominion Square was Montreal’s most prestigious public upon its construction, it was a place to be visited by distinguished visitors. The square was designed as a place to relax in the shade and admire Montreal’s burgeoning skyline. It was built in one of the “poshest” neighbourhoods of Montreal, even snagging the Sun Life Tower which was the tallest building in the British Empire at the time. By 1895 Dominion Square began to become the heart of the new downtown sector.

Dominion Square still remains flanked by many prestigious buildings, both the new and the old. Although the square itself seems all but forgotten by Montrealers except for memorial services held there every Remembrance Day. At times the square seems poorly maintained, littered with garbage, unshoveled paths and in the summer large spots bare ground where the grass has eroded away.

Source: The McCord Museum and personal experience.

Whoops! I got the date backwards on these pictures, too late to fix it now!

Not only did Montreal’s port make it an important transportation hub but it was also a vital rail junction. Both the Grand Trunk Railway, serving Quebec and Ontario, and the Canadian Pacific Railway established their headquarters in Montreal. Along with the corporate brass came their main rolling-stock manufacturing and maintenance shops.

Today the main train station has moved further down the block and passengers are serviced by Via Rail. The old CPR Windsor Station is still connected underground to the new station but is not used by trains at the moment. Heritage Canada has named the CPR station as a national historic site. Recently the CPR has expressed interest in selling the old station, although it may be tedious due to its historic stature.

Source: The McCord Musuem and I interviewed the CPR and Heritage Canada this summer while working as a researcher for CTV Montreal when the CPR announced they wanted to sell the building.

Montreal has a tradition of promoting cultural institutions, much of this funding comes from philanthropic donations from individuals and organizations. This was the case in 1912 when the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was built and is largely the case today. An art association was formed in 1860 to organize the growing number of Montreal art exhibitions. This resulted in the establishment of a gallery in Phillips square in 1877. By 1912 the gallery spaces were quickly filling, a larger art gallery (seen above) was built to house all of the artwork. The construction of the museum was funded entirely through private donations.

In 1991 the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opened another building facing the original 1912 structure on the South side of Sherbrooke . The architect Moshe Safdie (designer of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée de la Civilisation in Ottawa and Hull) wanted to give the new building a monumental appearance that would match the original museum, and at the same time show a completely different concept for the new structure.

Source: the McCord Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Montreal was flourishing economically at the beginning of the 20th Century. Banking and industry leaders flocked to Montreal. The shift of smaller enterprises to larger corporations like Montreal Heat, Light and Power, Bell Telephone, and Dominion Textile lead Montreal to be Canada’s undisputed economic capital of the time.

The building you see is of Montreal’s first Stock Exchange. In 1969 the stock exchange was converted to the Centaur Theatre. The Centaur went on to become one of Canada’s lead theatre companies, producing such classic Montreal plays as David Fennario’s Balconville.

Source: The McCord Museum and the Centaur Theatre

You can see the Youtube video I made for the site here.

Find the locations listed on this site through this google map.