The reasoning was that the street was originally called that name as evidenced by an ancient city map,which showed a path roughly along the same route somewhere above Sherbrooke that bore the de la Montagne moniker. It was only extended below Sherbrooke in 1817, and down to Notre Dame the next year.
It had long been believed that the street was named after Bishop Mountain, who was a big name in Montreal in the 1830s when all of those streets, Bishop, Drummond, Stanley and Peel were named.
The de la Montagne argument got a boost when Andrew Collard sided with the old map view and the city insists this to be the case.
 |
| Map from 1843 with Mountain Street listed |
You'll note in the previous link that Massicote says St. James St should be St. Jacques, as it's named after Jacques Olier, but he says that Pine Ave. was not as some believe, named after a Soeur Despins as that particular sister was of another religious sect unrelated to that area. So the renaming of Pine was not entirely legit.
"there was a proper administration in place in 1830" Uh, an organised municipal administration would not appear for a while, and certainly not one with a Toponymie department!
ReplyDeleteI remember this "debate" some time ago when Mountain St. was renamed de la Montagne, although it never became as much as an issue as the stupid "Stop"-"Arret" fiasco.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should put BOTH names on the street signs to please everyone, but of course it will be a cold day in Hell before we ever see that.
Rest assured that at every opportunity some hardnosed politician or nationalist group with nothing better to do with their time will try to have all English streets renamed into a French ones--including Wellington into Napoleon, no doubt.
Next thing you know, they'll even try to rewrite the history books.
The city also quietly changed University St. to Universite in around 1992, those glorious Dore years, but some young keener pointed out that it was not the proper name so they had to switch it back.
ReplyDeleteThere must be plenty of street names of historical persons which have been incorrectly translated into French.
ReplyDeleteCristophe Colomb is not correct, nor is Pie IX.
University/Université: I was told that the Université de Montréal objected to Université because it really referred to McGill and should stay in English...
ReplyDeletewell at least bishop mountain house at Bishop's University is still named after the religious poobah.
ReplyDeleteMountain st in Westmount is still Mountain...
ReplyDeleteTheir is a Bishop Mountain Hall in Montreal - part of the McGill student residence complex just above Molson Stadium.
ReplyDeleteThe new superhospital is the St. James Infirmary in my books.
ReplyDeletePeabody
Mountain or de la Montagne, I know not which. All I do know is that my generation called it McCord and so it stays in my mind.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie "The Score", Robert de Niro/Nero Deniro/Denero, uses a mouthful when he tells the buddy that they'll come out at Ottawa and de la Montagne. I always knew there were secret passages to Gleason's store at the corner of Ottawa & McCORD.
GrifBorn
It's McCord, for goodness sakes
ReplyDeleteGrif Born
My father had on office at 1045 Mountain Street in the 40's and 50's as it was then known.
ReplyDeleteIt will always be Mountain to me. It will always be Dorchester to me. It will always be Pine to me...
ReplyDeleteWhen did De La Montagne go from a 2 way street to a one way street downtown
ReplyDelete