As you can see in the suggestions, many seem to think the tell is these buildings, which sit just east of Westmount High. If you look, however, they don't look much like what sits there today.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Quiz - err..not really..cuz we don't know the answer
As you can see in the suggestions, many seem to think the tell is these buildings, which sit just east of Westmount High. If you look, however, they don't look much like what sits there today.
The Dozois Farm was located between Ste. Catherine and Western (deMaisonneuve) and Clarke and Redfern. I'm told (I wasn't around then) this shot looks like the south-west portion of that property. the row of buildings with the tram in front would be today's Westmount High.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the 1948 tramway map, the tramway was either on Greene or Victoria. I'm guessing Victoria, there's a row of buildings that looks like the one on the picture.
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.google.ca/maps?q=greene+avenue+montreal&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&ll=45.477707,-73.592477&spn=0.014956,0.029268&num=100&fb=1&gl=ca&hq=greene+avenue&hnear=0x4cc91a541c64b70d:0x654e3138211fefef,Montr%C3%A9al,+QC&cid=0,0,6295007224595785174&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=45.477914,-73.60108&panoid=Ftg3d-tx-b-VaL6rdewDuQ&cbp=12,40.68,,0,-14.48
I wonder if they grew those famous Montreal melons on that farm.
ReplyDeleteWasn't someone going to resurrect the growing of them somewhere and re-introduce them after so many generations?
Well, I do NOT have a clew where the Garden Photo was taken.
ReplyDeleteIt 'feels' like it is between the POM Bakery Building at The Glen and Guy, but I do not remember this location at all.
Many, Many changes as the big buildings march West, East, North, South and so on, obliterating their smaller brethren, and so much of the past.
Thank You.
It definitely looks like Victoria Avenue, as the row of buildings in the centre is still on Victoria today.
ReplyDeleteThe building on the right looks like a streetcar garage or other type of municipal building. Reminds me of the old Craig St. terminus. It may not necessarily be also on Victoria. It might be on a parallel street like Claremont.
My grandmother lived in one of those row houses which ran along the south side of St Catherine from Hallowell on the east to that larger building at the right of the photo. It was the entrance to the Westmount Athletic Grounds which had started out as the MAAA Athletic Grounds in 1887. When I was visiting her in the forties, the military were using the facility. Although I haven't seen it, my understanding is that became the site of the new Westmount High School.There's more information at www.westmount.org.
ReplyDeleteIf you were there today you would be standing probably in the middle of the 4300 apartment building looking south, at the east end of Westmount High School. The building with the arcade is the entry shelter for what used to be called the Westmount Athletic Grounds, happily still present behind the school. Nice photo...
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity does anyone know anything about the tiles that someone took the time to adhere to the retaining wall of the Grey Nun's Motherhouse on Rene-Levesque? At one time they had what looked like random photos on them, but have now faded.Thanks.
ReplyDeletehttp://dcmontreal.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/bits-pieces-featuring-a-message-in-a-bottle-montreal-oddities-including-mystery-tiles-toe-blake-simon-bolivar-and-jose-de-san-martin/
I remember the empty lot at the northwest corner of Clarke and St. Catherine when I was a kid in the early 60s. There was a diagonal short cut through the weeds from that corner to the north-west over what is now the footprint of the "Royal Westmount" and the eastern (newer) half of the "4300" on Western (de Maisonn.). Back then my mother, who had returned to Montreal in 1947 told me the lot was still a cultivated corn field when she first arrived here.
ReplyDeleteOf course Clarke just ended at St. Catherine then, and there was no swooping Dorchester to meet it at St. Catherine. Dorchester ran straight west and came to an end at Hallowell. If you came down Clarke and wanted to go east on Dorchester you had to go west for a bit along St. Catherine, south on Hallowell, then east on Dorchester. Interesting greystones and the odd large detached house, such as the one belonging to John Gaunt lined narrow Dorchester to Atwater.
But the wrecking ball took care of that and we have the ridiculous Dorchester "boulevard" as a result. Victorian houses on the south side, nothing but the hideous slabs of RCMP and Royal Bank concrete on the north. Oh, and parking lots of course.
The reason I hesitate to embrace the sorta obvious idea that it is just east of Westmount High is that the row of buildings appear to be somewhat different than what stands there now, according to my cursory glance at Google Street View, although it is also possible that the buildings were modified. Have a peek yourself.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Fish on this one. Our elementary school used to travel every year for a Field Day (Track and Field) at the Athletic Grounds. Building had a memorable architecture.
ReplyDeleteMr. Fish is correct. Those densely-packed Victorian houses stood on the south side of St. Catherine and are long gone. Very few pictures of them evidently exist and they create confusion. For confirmation look at the 1913 Goad Atlas and compare Sections 213 and 214. Those houses were duplexes and had civic numbers from 4300 at Hallowell to 4364. The arched facade of the MAAA club stood close to the west end of the row of duplexes which didn't go all the way to Hillside Lane. If you look at secton 214 you can see the houses on Dorchester, all single-occupancy, with the same civic numbers as they bear today. Interestingly another segment of the Atlas gives the name of Kitchener Ave. as Oxford Ave. World War I was yet to bring its crop of Big Names to be honoured.
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