Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Van Horne and Park Avenue



Coolopolis came across these old photos of M-Town and and tried to figure out where they were shot. After some dithering we realized that Wilson Coal, on the right was, as you will recall, at Van Horne and Park, a corner best known for the Bovril Building which has stood there at least since 1920. So these shots both look north (I think) up Park Avenue around Van Horne. See comments for further details. Glad that's been resolved.

13 comments:

  1. Agreed. That's what it looks like to me too. If you look closely you can see a sign on a shack on the left that says "Old Chum" along with another word less visible, perhaps "Bar Old Chum" or something. Ask yer grandpa if he drank there.

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  2. There are parts of where we live that don't look this good yet.

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  3. Anonymous11:27 pm

    This is Park and Van Horne? What is that church in the distance?

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  4. Good question. I checked and there's no evidence of any church anywhere near there on Park at that time, the closest listing was at St. Viateur, which isn't that close. And my second suspicion, it being at Wellington and Sebastopol fares no better as the 1918 Lovells lists the closest church being at Wellington and Fortune, which also isn't all that close. Perhaps the photo dates from an earlier time and the church burnt down.

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  5. Anonymous8:58 pm

    There was a big church on Bernard/Waverly that has since been replaced by an ugly low-slung elementary school. It looked sort of like the church in the photos, but if this is Park Avenue the angle is all wrong.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. (I just made a comment and removed it because blogger snipped a long URL badly. Here we go again with a shortcut URL)


    The church is probably St. Jean de la Croix Roman Catholic church at 41 Pacific St.

    That's the 1910 address, which I use in keeping with map and listings cited below.

    Evidence:

    Pacific Ave.: To place Pacific as parallel to, and slightly north of Van Horne, crossing Park Ave., see this map:

    http://www2.bnquebec.ca/cargeo/htm/trba0166.htm

    To see the church listing, check out 41 Pacific Ave. in this 1910 Lovell PDF:

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/2acl38

    (N.B., this is a "safe" or "preview" shortcut; when it loads, you can see the Grand Bibliotheque URL. then click: "proceed to the page")

    It doesn't take a tremendous leap of faith, so to speak, to suggest that it's the same church.

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  8. Anonymous9:47 am

    That ugly low-sung school was mine and it is respectable and been there for many many years. Its Edouard-Sept.

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  9. Well, Edouard-VII is neither ugly nor low-slung. It is also located at Jeanne Mance and Van Horne, not Bernard and Waverly.

    I was talking about Lambert-Closse school.

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  10. Hugo and Christopher -- can you provide a little more detail? What's that about Edouard-Sept and Bernard and Waverly? Would you guys place the photo elsewhere? It's entirely possible, but I maintain it's Park, looking north, from Van HOrne.

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  11. Suki Platinum6:31 pm

    Does anyone know what the building across from the Bovril building was/is? it is presently not in use, covered in graffiti with broken windows. Or what the exact address is?

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  12. C'est le viaduc sur Ontario dans l'est entre la rue Lespérance et Moreau et l'église est au coin de Dézery dans HoMa!
    L'église Nativité-de-la-Sainte-Vierge 1855 Dezery et Ont.

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  13. It's not Park anf Van Horne. There was never a church on the east side between Beaubien and Beaumont. It may be a billboard ad for Wilson Coal but their place of business was on Van Horne not Park. I believe they were later bought out by L. H. Quimet

    Chipmunk

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