This previously-unpublished photo displays Joseph Brunet and his crew.
Brunet was singlehandedly responsible for making the Cote des Neiges cemetery into one of the top 10 most beautiful in the world.
The photo is from around 1892, it's marked Dominion Marloboro J. Brunet, that was the name of his company, along with his brother. I think it was taken at their workshop at Remembrance and Cote des Neiges. He had a quarry, 200 workers and the top tools. His work is still seen around town, including the stand of the Sir John A. MacDonald monument. He was there during the golden age of headstones, which ended around 1915. He died in 1945 and left the enterprise to his son but it did not fare so well.
Great pic and excellent interview with Mutsumi, Kristian.
ReplyDeleteI second that!
ReplyDeletePeabody
Kristian,
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrific photo. As I recall, there also used to be a monument place right at the corner of Decelles and Queen Mary near that entrance to the cemetery. There was a small house and workshop surrounded by various slabs of stone waiting to be finished as headstones. I seem to recall it also being a Brunet operation. Could that be right? It is long gone now and there is an access to the U of M near the location today.
Incidentally, another fascinating monument place has always been the Berson operation on the west side of St. Lawrence near Schwartz's Deli. It was a most interesting place with an overhead crane, unfinished monuments, various interesting stone-cutting tools, an open-sided workshop, all of which was crammed into a tiny lot that would barely hold a duplex. I've been long gone from Montreal. Is it still there?
Horton
imho, the mount royal cemetery (the non-catholic one) is one of the ten most beautiful, but I don't have this same opinion about the french (catholic) one, which seems to work hard at uglifying itself, i.e. those new columbariums, to say nothing of other grander plans that got shot down before construction could begin and Mt Royal's beauty being ruined forever was averted. And then there's the fact that the part of the catholic cemetery closest to the summit of the "outremont summit" of mt royal) is used as a work yard with a big waste area. Yuck!
ReplyDeleteIMHO, we ought to plan our cemeteries better. I'd close both down in a heart beat and re-locate any plot that still has living relations to somewhere off island.
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrendous waste of space, almost as bad as golf courses. The fact that the cemeteries are private space is an even more egregious affront to the public, and all of it for what? Rows of tombstones? This land couldn't be better used?
Have you ever compared the land dedicated to park use vs the land dedicated to cemetery use? Why is it that the former shrinks while the latter has undeveloped land?
Who in the love of God thought this would be a good idea?
We should move the cemeteries to the Boucherville Islands or somewhere else out of the way, Ile Perrot as an example.
Hey Kristian The headline states photo of the day. The last photo you spoon fed us was Nit's 12AUG.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should change the headline to the Bi-monthly photo of August. Tee-hee. You don't have to post this , just a little joke. Keep up the good work !
A well-known American developer visiting Montreal back in the 1950s caused an uproar after seriously proposing that Mount Royal ought to be built upon; that the park be replaced by streets and housing. He argued that Montrealers should drive to the Laurentians if they needed to see trees. He was laughed out of town.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there will always be some idiot who thinks it would be better to pave over green spaces, install casinos in every shopping mall, dig up historic cemeteries, etc., believing that this would somehow "improve" the quality of life for citizens. Thankfully, these people are in the very low minority.
Imagine for a moment driving along Cote des Neiges Road and Camillien Houde to see layers of favelas up on the hill (just as in Rio) or rows of condos (mostly owned by foreign non-residents). Isn't it bad enough that the University of Montreal had recently gobbled up just about every last inch of space on Northmount right up the fence of the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery to build their seemingly endless and ugly complexes, and that the sector of the Mountain near the Park-Pine interchange district is continually eroded with "development"?
Enough already! Hands off Mount Royal! Burial will inevitably be replaced with cremation and the peace and tranquility of our cemeteries should remain in stark contrast to the concrete jungles of Toronto and Manhattan.