Torrance Street - Demolished one block-downtown street was home to plenty of thrills

 

 Torrance Street, now a single. denuded block, was - until about 1960, a dynamic, bustling, crowded 350-foot stretch that packed more thrills per-square-foot than any other piece of downtown land. 

 

   Torrance a single block between Mountain and Aqueduct, (now known as Lucien Lallier) began its slow evolution as the lane near the back door to shipping magnate John Torrance's mansion, St. Antoine Hall. 

   Torrance had previously built a mansion at Sherbrooke and St. Lawrence, which he sold to the Molsons before building the new digs for his 10 kids in 1818.

   There is no word on when the magnificent structure was demolished. It was apparently turned into working class housing on the Torrance Street side, as a 1960 article noted, it was "much altered and much crowded."

   Torrance was a celebrated gardener and his grounds were said to be of the highest calibre. The area was transformed after 1877 with the addition of the nearby Bonaventure Train Station and the Windsor Train Station slightly further off. 

   Adjacent Mountain Street became an important thoroughfare as it, along with Guy and Atwater had the only crossings to the other side of the tracks at Notre Dame. 

 Some headlines demonstrate the surprising magnitude of action on the street.

   

31 March 69 Cabbie Henri Levesque, 52, was robbed and tossed in is own trunk by thieves who then

Henri Levesque

proceeded to rob a local office. The car was parked on Torrance when cops came and freed him from his trunk with a crowbar at 4:30 a.m.

8 May 1968.  James G. Desmond 63, of 1360 Torrance was sentenced to two years for hitting a man with a bottle on the head. He got a long sentence because he already had six criminal convictions. Desmond was likely related to the larger clan which included sometimes-incarcerated former boxer George Desmond who was later shot dead in a bar on St. Antoine. 

20 July 1967 Ruth Miller of 1553 Torrance, working at the nearby Harlem Paradise at 772 Mountain, was charged with violating the newly-passed anti-mingling bylaw that forbade employees from chatting with bar patrons.

18 August 1965 400 counterfeit $20 bills were found in a house on Torrance. 

17 July 1963 An unidentified man, about 25, was found strangled to death in an abandoned house at 1348 Torrance. 

22 November 1962  Arthur Morgan, 43, was found dead and strangled, semi-naked, in a home on Torrance. 

 21 November 1962  Victor Symond was sentenced to a pair of years in prison after assaulting janitor Georges Guy at a Halloween party a year earlier at 1353 Torrance. Symond, a convicted pimp in jail for beating women, set his attack dog against Guy who had asked that the music be turned down. The dog failed to attack him, leading people to laugh at Symond, who then beat Guy with a chain. "He wrapped the heavy chain around his fist and suddenly struck me across the face with the dangling end. He stamped on my face with his foot," said the victim. 

20 June 1962 - David O'Reid of 1353 witnessed a brutal assault in the nearby Harlem Paradise and testified in court.

17 may 1962 Alfred Robinson, 36, hauled a cab on Torrance and then robbed the driver of $15 

21 October 1961 Police arrested four at a blind pig (illegal after hours bar) at 1334 Torrance blind pigs. 

1 May 1961 Three women and 22 men fined $25 pleaded guilty to being found in a blind pig at 1360 Torrance at 5 a.m. 

9 February 1961  Gordon Griffith, 29, of 809 Guy, went to court after shooting his old friend Gerald Mcintyre, 33, of 1324 Torrance in the leg outside a party on nearby Aqueduct. Griffith was irked when McIntyre danced with one of the two women he came to the party. He survived. The shooting occurred on 17 October 1959. 

9 July 1960 Michael O'Ree, 24, of 1326 Torrance was treated for a bullet wound to the back. Police arrested three US airmen from Plattsburgh.

6 June 1960 Newspaper publishes ad for a bachelor apartment at 1353 Torrance for $15-18 per week.  

5 December 1959 John Thomas, 31, from Chicago, robs Joseph Brady, 41, of Lachine on Torrance Street. Brady had met Winnie Perla of 1374 St. Antoine, in a nightclub. She invited him back to a place on Torrance where Thomas robbed him. Brady had a heart attack and died on the sidewalk at 1331 Torrance. Thomas was charged with manslaughter. 

31 August 1959 Police shot Maurice Lapointe, 24, in the legs after he let loose four bullets in a Torrance Street restaurant. The restaurant is unnamed but it was likely at the corner of Mountain. 

27 January 1959 Police arrested Benjamin Park, 54, of 1329 Torrance, via from Scotland after he stole a $63 business deposit. 

15 October 1958 Police arrested a 45-year-old Detrtoir resident on Torrance Street who was wanted in the USA for violating the White Slavery Act. The suspect, who was not named, also had $900 worth of marijuana in his car. 

20 January 1958 Thomas Donahue, 23, of Albany, was stabbed to death in a quarrel that started at Jim's Smoked Meat restaurant at 792 Mountain. Johnny Williams, 39, of 809 Guy was arrested. Donohue bled to death at 1359 Torrance with onlookers chanting on a warning for him not to talk to police.  "Shut up! Shut up! Don't say anything," they called. 

7 June 1957 George Eckles who had recently moved into an eight room apartment on at 1323 Torrance  with his wife, 48, and seven kids, rushed the kids to the hospital after they became violently ill with food poisoning after eating fried chicken. 

1336 Torrance

16 September 1956  An article in the Petit Journal describes the Torrance Street area as a hotbed for prostitution. "The city's black area, over the last six months, has become the center of a prostitution ring. This organization, whose leaders are blacks (especially from New York) and Montrealers, is home to a blind pig transformed into a house of prostitution.  It moved from 1348 Torrance to 747 Aqueduct. Young black prostitutes, about 20 of them, live in sordid rooms on each of these streets. You can also cross some respectable white people, but in fewer numbers. The blind pig prior to that was in the buildings between 1300 and 1336 Torrance. A prostitute named Betsy from New York offered me sex for $12. The blind pigs, where attractive black women sell their fictional love to Montrealers, moves often. The prostitutes often frequent the Chow Mein House Restaurant on the east side of Mountain.", near St. Antoine has a Chinese restaurant Chow Mein House where prostitutes hang out.  

17 November 1956  Wilfrid Lafferty, 35, and Robert Maloney, 31, were arrested for attempted car thef. They were parked on Torrance and were in the process of negotiating a used car sale. A judge scolded the cops for bringing them in without cause.

17 June 55 Rooming house landlord and truck driver Leon Januszewski, 44, who had moved to Montreal one year earlier, and purchased a rooming house at 1345 Torrance when killed by Lionel Springer, 25, 1352 St Antoine and William Bradshaw, 25.  The landlord had asked the young men to be quiet during their drinking party. Bradshaw got one year in jail as the judge deemed it  "more of an accident than a crime." 

Lise Raymond
and mom

19 March 1955 Cabbie Jacques Rock, 25, picked up Lise Raymond, aged eight, on 28 July 1954 near 1345 Torrance before abandoning her four hours later in Chateauguay village near a church.  Rock told the judge he was disoriented. The judge acquitted Rock with a tongue lashing. It's unknown whether he sexually assaulted the child. 

1 November 1954  Kathleen Nelson, 29, of 1321 Torrance was found dead of of asphyxiation. 

6 April 1954 Leo Crosnik of 1345 Torance was mugged of $1.75 at Mountain and Dorchester. 

13 sept 1951 Edward Byers, 28, was charged with loitering on Torrance Street and fined $100. 

3 February 1948 Carlotta Lopez, a 19-year-old Peurto Rican, disappeared from her home at 1346 Torrance after attending a wedding. She went out to buy a sandwich for her husband and never returned. 

9 March 1946 John Kensella, 64, died in hospital after being struck by a car at Mountain and Torrance. 

13 December 1943. Nicola Moculk, 1363 Torrance, was robbed of $75.

1 February 1943 -Armand Couture, 35,  1353 Torrance apt 34, died of poisoning. 

25 June 1942 Bernard Calgey, 74, of 1347 Torrance was hit by car at Dorch and Mountain.

20 June 1942 John Hill, 1381 Torrance was robbed of $58  by guys with a gun. 

23 September 1941 Mrs M. A. Francoeur of 1337 Torrance gave birth after taxi brought her to the wrong hospital.

 17 April 1941 Paul Seguin, 19, 1359 Torrance was sentenced to a year for car theft.

3 April 1940 Jack Kairumas, arrested for loitering on Torrance and set free after the court coldn't find a Finnish translator. 

2 March 1949 Fred Donnelly, 39, 1337 Torrance, disappeared from his home. He was unemployed with no kids and in bad health. 

8 April 1938 Marth Mettell who grew up at 1354 Torrance was interviewed about her extensive world travels.

26 January 1938 George Seguin, 1359 Torrance was charged with robbery and sentenced to one month after renegging on a promise to rat out his accomplices. 

27 December 1937  Leonard Gall, Cabbie, 1364 Torrance, robbed of  $30 

8 October 1937 Leonard Gal, negro taxi driver delivered a package that turned out to be drugs. 

4 December 1935 Alexander Phoenix 1347 Torrance busted for robbing a restaurant of $35.

10 May 1934 James Kennedy 29, 1337 Torrance, suffers workplace injury falling from a scaffold.

17 March 1934  Annie Agaka, 34, Syrian, of 1377 Torrance, found dead in a yard of Aqueduct street branch of City Ice at 6 am .Originally considered a murder but it was congestion of lungs. 

6 January 1933 John Thompson, 1321 Torrance went missing.  

15 May 1931 Lloyd Pike, 12, of Torrance Street, son of the reverend of Mountain Street United Church went missing. It turned out to be a misunderstanding, as he was found a few days later with a friend at a farm

Milner

24 November 1919 -Alfred Milner, 27, of Torrance Street, died from broken skull after hit by train.