Crowley, a tiny east-west street just south of Demaisonneuve and Decarie. I had theorized that it would eventually be widened as a compromise around the nutty idea of cutting the St. Raymond's area of NDG off from the big intersection at DeMaisonneuve and Decarie. The cute little daycare has been demolished and replaced with this. (The daycare, called Petits Chenilles, moved to the old MOSD building on Upper Lachine.) The previous structure stood far back from the sidewalk, unlike this thing, so goodbye to the little lawn. Every new building in NDG seems to be right on the sidewalk these days. There's not much chance of a road widening here now. So the serious problem of future diminished access to lower NDG looks like it will go unresolved.
Near Oxford and St. James West.
Upper Lachine, slippery sidewalks, not a pinch of road salt anywhere.
Incipient tent city set up on Dorchester, south side, just east of Bleury. Funny guy has a little sign saying something like Institute for the Research of Marijuana in front. Bad photo, but you get the idea.
St. James near Oxford, south side. They could market this town as the world capital of slush. Put us back on the tourist map.
Sad little red victim of impact at Dorchester near University.
I love that you still call it Dorchester... keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThe bashed up Bell phone booth...the icy sidewalks...slush....this city needs to worry about a lot more important things than whether we get EuroTrash Grand Prix fans here or not. This is a city in decay and Marcel le Frere sits and plays his fiddle for Tommy and reads from The Book of Excuses, as told by Gerald, a tome that is held to the highest extreme by the other slackers and excusers of this town, such as Joel Gauthier.
ReplyDeleteYears Ago, before the mess they call Decarie Expressway and the Turcot Interchange, you used to be able to descend Decarie from Western, South under the CPR tracks, turn right/West on Crowley, travel West a block on Crowley, then turn right/North a half a block on Prud Homme, then a quick Left/West on-then Western.
ReplyDeleteYou crossed Minto and arrived at Girouard where there were traffic lights.
You then crossed Girouard and travelled West on then-Western to where it met Upper Lachine Road at Hingston.
The fancy interchange at Hingston was built around 1956?
First Western became Upper Lachine Road, and old Upper Lachine became St Jacques thru to Avon in Montreal West.
A very slick way to get from Decarie to Western if you knew it was there!
As I recall De Maisonneuve was named Western for a short while after it was opened West to Coffee in 1961.
Coffee was built in 1957.
If you look inside the little underpass at Melrose you can see where the ceiling changes as the underpass was lengthened to the North for the construction of Western.
Girouard underpass was widened North also to accomidate Western.
There was once a pedestrian underpass beneath Sherbrooke at King Edward to access the park south of Sherbrooke between Park Rows East and West.
Before Western was extended thru to Coffee it ended at Decarie and you had to turn South to Upper Lachine or North to Sherbrooke.
To get thru to Western and Girouard you could take Crowley below the tracks, as said.
Sorda shaped like a Z.
Cavendish was extended South from Sherbrooke to then-Upper Lachine at Rose Bowl in 1956.
The underpass at Cote St Luc and West Broadway under the CPR near the Robbie Burns Taverne, which has become even more of a hole since the lady was murdered there downstairs 20 or so years ago, was built c. 1963?
A temporary grade crossing over the CPR was built from the end of Robert Burns South across the tracks to Connaught just West of the Patricia Building.
We watched them drive piles for the Patricia Building c 1954 with a crane and a steam hammer with a vertical coal fired boiler for steam.
There used to be a railway spur along where the slumplexes are now West on Connaught to serve H.J. Bridges Coal Company South of the CPR at Westminster.
HJB had a truck scale where movers, etc. could weigh their trucks, and where the coal and coke trucks were weighed going out with customers' fuel.
At the CPR Cote St Luc crossing there were three 3 tracks, and pedestrians in a hurry would walk out behind the caboose on one train and get hit by a fast passenger or Dayliner on the next track over, the gates still down for it's approach.
They put up a sign which said, more or less; '4 have died at this crossing , will YOU be next???"
The underpass under the CPR on Westminster North of Cote St Luc Road was built in 1960, another temporary grade crossing being constructed to the West on Wolseley.
Before 1960 there were farms on the North of Cote St Luc between Westmister and Robert Burns.
The properties had a farm house facing CSL and the properties extended North across the first set of CPR tracks between Ballantyne Junction at the Wentworth Golf Course and St Luc Jct. at Rosedale.
( The curved CPR track around to CSL road was built c. 1950 with the opening of the CPR's new St Luc Yards at the North end of Westminster. )
Those farm properties facing CSL extended right up to where the CPR Yard/roundhouse is/was.
A tributary of Riviere St Pierre cut thru there about where Kildare is now from over Blue Bonnets Raceway on Pare.
Thank You.