My upcoming masterpiece Montreal: 375 Tales contains a description of Ridgewood, a steep, zig-zaggy, undulating forest road up Mount Royal, born around 1945.Canada's first condos were built on the street thanks to developer David Bloom, who sold a 30 unit building for $10,500 per unit and less in 1947.
The street was built hastily to deal with the postwar housing crunch and although it's not architecturally spectacular, it's has considerable density.
Some of the structures look like crosses from above, although it's unclear whether that was an architectural design to please God or just functional.
You'll note that it's not connected to Oakland Ave. in Westmount, just 40 metres away, so the riff raff can't enter the posh area.
The splashiest crime took place in January 1956 when William James Callaghan, aka John Cameron, aka Lyle Campbell, 23, killed a Swiss watch importer, then sold one of the pricey watches on Craig Street for $1 before fleeing to the states where he lived for many years before getting paranoid and eventually coming forward and confessing.Other residents included Mrs. Massey, who was Premier Maurice Duplessis' Montreal girlfriend, Stafford Harriman, a mystic one-armed stock swindler, Colin Gravenor, a local scandal sheet pioneer and poet Irving Layton.
***
It's the craziest, funniest, scariest and most insightful book ever written about Montreal. Absolute must-reading! Kristian Gravenor's Montreal: 375 Tales of Eating, Drinking, Living and Loving, order your paper copy here now.
***
If you understand French please listen to my podcast, which recounts these stories and many more. 
irving layton is good company
ReplyDeleteAnother anomaly of Ridgewood is that it is one of the very few dead-end streets in Montreal that has bus service: route 11.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders who in City Hall back in the day promoted and established that service and who opposed it?
Did Duplessis' girlfriend whisper the idea in his ear because her presumed limo service was only sporadic?
At the end of the 1950s, the predecessor 11 streetcar service along Camillien Houde/Remembrance terminated at Cote des Neiges Road.
Rather than looping around a dead-end with a limited amount of passengers, I suggest extending the 11 bus to terminate further west at the Cote des Neiges Metro which would be more practical and generate more revenue for the STM/MTC.
Incidentally, the "riff-raff" do indeed have access from Ridgewood to Westmount via a few handy footpaths often frequented by dog-owners (some illegally unleashed).
Your suggestion that service of Bus 11 be terminated on Ridgewood Avenue would be deemed insensitive to the needs of residents who live on this steep street. See also http://lesactualites.ca/index.php/2018/02/26/sue-montgomery-est-a-cote-de-la-plaque/
DeleteI just met a woman still living on Ridgewood who claims to have been responsible for getting bus 11 service on Ridgewood.
DeleteLived there from 1964 - 1987. Met the wrestler Edward Carpentier, and hung out with Clarence Epstein, Montreal architectural historian as well as a variety of characters like the eccentric Mr. Greening who shaved half his face and blasted stereo music in the middle of the night to the dismay of widow O'Donnell one flight below. There were drunken writers with big dogs, a woman who used to overdose on pills and paint her face white before asking my mother to take her to the hospital, numerous swingers, religious fanatics, hermits, and Jehovah's Witness janitors who absconded with the rent money in a midnight move.
ReplyDeleteI want to hear more!
ReplyDeleteBeen doing research on Ridgewood’s history. Never heard of David Bloom. Would you happen to know address of building he sold?
ReplyDeleteArchitecture-batiment-construction magazine Feb. 1949 pgs. 23-24.
DeleteThanks Kristian!
DeleteAccording to the STM's webpage, bus route 11 has recently been extended further west of (but still including the length of Ridgewood) as far as Gatineau and Queen Mary Road, but the service exists only after 9 p.m. Not much of an improvement. As I suggested earlier, the route would be more efficient and profitable if it reached Metro Cote des Neiges. As an aside, the mostly-empty busses on route 17 Decarie could easily be filled if its eastern terminus was at Lionel-Grouch and not at forlorn Metro St. Henri which has always been a pretty dead spot for passenger traffic--not to mention it being a crime-prone neighbourhood! Creating a stop at Metro Villa Maria would also fill the fare box. Emails to the STM have thus far fallen on deaf ears. Could it be that some bus routes are deliberately diminished to handle low-volume passenger traffic for the purpose of training new drivers?
ReplyDelete