In looks like the south end of Macdonald Park in Snowdon. In one photo, St. Malachy's Church can be seen in the background with Isabella Avenue on the left. The other appears to have been taken from Isabella and Clanranald looking northeast toward Earnscliffe. I'm not sure what that old-style brick duplex looking building is in the left of photo 2, but it appears to be in the middle of the park. I'd like to know more about it...what it was and when it was demolished.
I'm gonna make a wild guess....Westmount Park the building in the first picture (the baseball game) kinda looks like the Westmount Park Church looking west.
Looking closer at the photo 2, I'm now more inclined to think it is the same angle as photo 1 but looking slightly more to the northwest. The old brick building with the porch that I originally assumed to be in the park, would then be on Clanranald roughly where St. Malachy's School would eventually be built.
The late winter or early spring photo brings back many memories. You can see the posts that used to hold the boards of the skating rink. That was an annual ritual. The city workers would install the posts and boards and when it was cold enough, they would flood the rink. At the rend of the season, they would come back to remove it all. I haven't lived in Montreal for years so I don't know if they still do that. I grew up in Snowdon and spent time at Macdonald Park. In later years, I worked for a city contractor doing snow removal in the same neighbourhood. As I recall, there was a small memorial to Isabella on the south side of the park along Isabella Avenue. Was this to honour Isabella, Queen of Castile? Or was the street named for some other Isabella?
Yes, the outdoor hockey rinks are still installed in the same way, although fewer parks than previously have rinks today. However, there are now more indoor rinks in certain parks--as well as more indoor swimming pools and community centres.
McDonald Park's Queen Isabella monument has been moved to the Southeast corner. The playground equipment had also been upgraded several years ago. See Google maps.
Yes, the outdoor hockey rinks are still installed in the same way, although fewer parks than previously have rinks today. However, there are now more indoor rinks in certain parks--as well as more indoor swimming pools and community centres.
McDonald Park's Queen Isabella monument has been moved to the Southeast corner. The playground equipment had also been upgraded several years ago. See Google maps.
Its western half was previously owned by Thomas Francis O'Brien and the eastern half belonged to William Comrie Snowdon.
O'Brien's property extended from Cote St. Luc Rd. to a stream approximately near where Vezina Ave. is today.
O'Brien put his property up for sale on Sept. 12, 1873, and vigorously promoted it in the newspapers as ..."splendid lots delightfully situated on Mount Royal Vale...a proposed suburban city".
The south-to-north road proposed to run through the centre of Mount Royal Vale was to be named Molson Ave. (but later renamed Clanranald). The proposed parallel road to its west was to be Monklands Ave. (later renamed McDonald). At that time, Dufferin Avenue was also part of this property long before it was acquired by the Town of Hampstead.
To the east and north of Fourth Street (later renamed Isabella) was McLynn Avenue--as it is still called today. This was also part of Mount Royal Vale.
At the intersection of where McLynn hit Fourth Ave., the property lines diverged slightly which is why today McLynn and the later-to-be-built Earnscliffe Ave. do not continue in a straight line--mystery solved for those who may have wondered! Earnscliffe was within the property boundaries of Mr. W.C. Snowdon. Coolbrook Avenue--evidently built much later--was actually part of another property owner: John Snowdon.
O'Brien's Mount Royal Vale lots 73-107 comprise the western half of what became McDonald Park. The lots comprising the eastern half owned by W.C. Snowdon eventually became the eastern half.
Real estate advertisements for O'Brien's lots from 1873 onwards were persistent and descriptive--even going so far as to promote the area as "Victoria City".
Unfortunately, Mr. O'Brien was arrested for forgery on Dec. 19, 1880. The details about this are as yet not clear to me since the Gazette edition for the following date is not available in the Google newspaper archives. Further research would be needed to determine what drove him to commit this crime, or whether it had anything to do with his desire to sell his property. One can only speculate about possible gambling debts, etc.
Following O'Brien's troubles, the fate of Mount Royal Vale was evidently determined; the land eventually sold and subdivided into what it has become--a pleasant NDG neighbourhood comprising mostly duplexes on tree-lined streets and avenues.
An interesting map of 1873 shows the proposed names of Mount Royal Vale's streets and avenues, most of which would be renamed to what they are today.
The northern limit of Mount Royal Vale ended at Henri Gervais Decarie's property--today that tiny part of Cote St. Luc comprising today's Decarie Square. H.G. Decarie's property ended just south of where the CPR railway tracks would later run through at approximately 1880. From what is today Isabella Ave. and all the way to H.G. Gervais' property was the large tract owned by John Snowdon.
West of Molson Ave., at the end of a tree-lined driveway just north of Cote St. Luc Rd. had been a large farmhouse or mansion called Kinkora Place approximately located where the southeast corner of today's Clanranald and the now-reconfigured Avonmore Ave. intersected. What may be barns and other buildings are shown to the east of Kinkora Place. Perhaps even Mr. O'Brien himself lived there. Again, more research is needed.
Molson Avenue (now Clanranald) was even tentatively planned to become a major route running all the way north across "Cote de Vertu" and then continuing on as "A Bord a Plouffe Road", presumably meaning all the way to what is today Laval!
Members of the Molson family were early owners of the first and perhaps second buildings situated on Queen Mary at the northwest corner of Clanranald.
Thank you Urban Legend. Fascinating material! Although you mention the area as "a pleasant NDG neighbourhood" most people who lived there always referred to it as Snowdon and never NDG. NDG was a different place to Snowdon residents.
One Hector Durand developed many of the properties on the west side of Clanranald from St. Malachy's to Dupuis and also along Mclynn from Dupuis to Van Horne (or Vanutelli as it was earlier known) and built those attached duplexes in the late 1930s. He was still alive in the early 1970s and still owned most of the buildings. To see him, you would think he was an eccentric maintenance man, not the very wealthy property owner he was. Dressed in multiple layers of work clothes even in summertime, Hector drove an old car with cement stains on it, paint buckets and other construction material in it. With close ties to the Catholic Church, he built several seminaries locally and even one in Peru. When Hector died, most of his assets were willed to the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly, his funeral was attended by the top hierarchy of the Church and he was apparently made a "Knight" of the Church by the Pope of the day.
Your research certainly explains the origin of names like Royal Vale School and the Luck family's Royal Vale Nursery on Macdonald.
Real estate in the area became far more valuable when the Montreal Park & Island built their streetcar line through Snowdon in the late 1890s. John Snowdon donated a portion of his land to the MP&I to establish Snowdon Junction at the future intersection of Queen Mary and Decarie, which was to become the neighbourhood's epicentre.
Your mention of the Molsons doesn't surprise me. I'm sure the Snowdons, Decaries and Molsons were all interested in increasing the value of their holdings in the area and an electric streetcar line connecting it to the then faraway centre of Montreal would certainly do that.
The well established large landowners often had influence or even sat on many company boards of directors. Hampstead too was developed by people who sat on the boards of important local companies like the Montreal Light Heat & Power Company and the Montreal Tramways Company which eventually bought out the MP&I.
Having an influential voice in the affairs of utility and transportation companies would be a huge help for a would-be developer.
The boundaries between Montreal, Hampstead and the "isolated" sections of the City of Cote St. Luc in that area of Snowdon were intriguing.
The western limit of our city snow removal contract was Macdonald. We only did the east side because depending where you were, the other side belonged to either Cote St. Luc or Hamptead. At the very southwestern corner of the contract, it was a little confusing as Snowdon made several jogs as it intersected Clanranald and passed the north end of Macdonald before ending at Dufferin. As I recall, we did a short stretch of one of those streets belonging to another municipality and in return they did the Montreal portion. It was easier for our crews due to street configurations and for not having to turn large machines for a very short stretch. I just can't remember who did what.
Boy that sure did look kinda familiar, but I didn't think it could actually be McDonald Park until everyone signed in saying that it was. Those trees in the first photo really stood out. They were always where the batter stood when we played what we called "American baseball", which was basically just fielding batted balls. "Real" baseball games were played on the diamonds which were down the hill towards Dupuis. That end of the park was quite a battleground: Us kids who went to Royal Vale (the PSBGM elementary school on Dupuis between Clanranald and MacDonald) got out at 3:15, while the Catholic kids at St. Malachy's got out at 3:30, just in time to meet those of us who lived towards Queen Mary, given a few minutes playing on the swings, monkey bars or seesaws. As we met, of course, the war was on. After a fight or two, it was along Isabella, then up Coolbrook. By now it was 4:00, and the French kids were heading north from St.Antoinin's on the corner of Coolbrook and Queen Mary. There were at least a couple of kids rolling around and pounding each other out on every lawn of that block. The only time I ever got bitten by a dog was in one of those fights, when a French kid sicced the thing on me. More than 50 years later and I still don't trust dalmatians... One of my favorite fights (a very short one) took place in that park. Billy T, who lived in one of the apartments along Decarie between Isabella and Queen Mary, had just gotten out of the hospital after an appendix operation, and I saw Arnie E, a real creep, knee him! Outraged, I ran across Earnscliffe, and, in the only flying tackle I ever accomplished, nailed Arnie face down into a pile of dog turds. Then I threw up on him and we all went home. Ah, McDonald Park: A fight a day, every day, for seven years. Until I was in high school (West Hill) I never had a pair of pants that didn't have rips in them. West Hill, once on Somerled and Draper, is now called Royal Vale. Funny how that name keeps popping up. When my kids got their Royal Vale High school letters (RVHS) for some sports achievement, they'd always get annoyed when I called RV "Winnebago High". Funny how a memory can be triggered: I remember playing baseball in McDonald park (Royal Vale against some other school) on May 2nd or 3rd 1960, when the principal, a nasty old bird named Miss MacLeod, came across the street and announced to us that the world was now a safer place because that "horrible Chessman person had just been executed. At the time, I had no idea who Caryl Chessman was, or why his execution was a big deal. The incongruously triumphant tone of MacLeod's announcement made it memorable. In the unlikely event that she's still around today, no doubt Miss MacLeod is a centenarian Ann Coulter fan.
While it is certainly true that the Snowdon area was distinct from the rest of NDG, nevertheless it was officially part of it according to "Les Cartiers Municipaux de Montreal Depuis 1832"--a book handed to me by none other than the late alderman Gerry Snyder himself some decades ago.
Snowdon is now officially an electoral district, which it had never been back in the day. Gerrymandering to be sure!
The tract of land from Hampstead on the west to what became Westbury Avenue on the east (bordering on Cote des Neiges), and from Cote St. Luc Rd. on the south to Athol Place (now Vezina Ave.) on the north was, as we all know, eventually split in two by the Decarie Expressway. Members of the Snowdon family were big landowners around there, as were the Decaries, of course.
The streets which had their duplexes connected together in an unbroken "strip" never appealed to me. I always preferred the ones which were independently built with lanes between them, many of which had garages in the rear. The "strip" duplexes often had no garages at all and look run-down today.
AstroPaul...
You must have been all black and blue when you were a kid. Don't tell me you finally ended up at Shawbridge...lol! All of those fights must have come to the attention of your schools which surely meted out punishments?
Yes, I read about the Chessman case, which was indeed a sordid affair (certain details weren't fit for publication back then). A TV-movie was made about it, in fact.
The Caryl Chessman execution also became a big deal around Elizabeth Ballantyne school in Montreal West, when I was in grade 6. We all began referring to the school as "San Quentin" (the prison where Chessman was executed - actually, a stay of execution was received (too late) just as deadly gas was forming in the gas chamber).
Regarding the playground equipment in the photos: notice how high and steep those slides are! They would never be permitted today, what with all the paranoia about injuries and insurance claims! Even our baseball diamonds have for the most part been relegated to fewer parks than previously, and under-used soccer nets installed in their place.
I also remember those scary "standing up see-saws": which were a sort of "ladder" pivoting in the centre over a frame.
Kids would walk up to each end, grad the end of that "ladder" and try to pull each other off the ground.
The downside was that if one kid let go too soon, the other could get a very nasty crack on the head! Furthermore, if someone walking by casually flipped one side of the "ladder" upwards, it could easily come dowm onto someone on the other side. Needless to say, they were eventually phased out from every park.
I remember too that drinking fountains were of the old-fashioned type that had no flip-type or push-button on-off valve. The water just came pouring out 24/7. I guess some genius in the city water department finally figured out what a waste of water that was!
You're quite right about Snowdon being a part of NDG, Urban Legend. To us though, Snowdon was the centre of civilization. While NDGers shopped on the commercial stretches of Monkland and Sherbrooke, even they would come to Snowdon for larger purchases. We were always told Snowdon was the second most important shopping area after downtown. The streetcar loop at Queen Mary and Decarie with its routes from all directions was always the reason for Snowdon's development.
Your comments on the playground equipment made me smile. Those "ladder" seesaws were particularly dangerous. There was always someone who would let the ladder go when the other person was at the top. Likewise on the seesaws. Kids could be nasty jumping off a seesaw when the other kid was up in the air, letting him crash to the ground. Or trying to get the other kid airborne by letting your end drop to the ground. I'm sure many teeth were lost as faces crashed into the steel and wood handholds. In those days you didn't file suit against the city. Instead you went home where your parents would scold you for being careless.
Considering the foolish things we did, it's a wonder there weren't more serious injuries.
In the winter, we would grab the rear bumper of a car when it stopped at an intersection and then slide behind it unseen by the driver.
As a 10-year-old, I worked as a milkman's helper standing in the open side doorway of his Divco delivery truck as we travelled his route. No company would allow that today because of safety and insurance rules.
That's why fire fighters are now inside their trucks and not hanging on the back. I'm surprised garbage collectors still stand on the back of their trucks. I'm sure it won't last long as many cities now use a mechanized arm to pick up trash cans.
Snowdon and Macdonald Park were great places to grow up and they have many memories for me.
Thank you Harold, Kristian and Urban Legend for bringing them back.
At least we "Snowdonites" (hmmm...does that sound perverse?) weren't as "territorial", protecting our "turf" as in places like the Bronx where you dared not cross the street!
Another thing about those "ladder see-saws": I imagine some less-than-bright kids would actually climb the ladder from one side, only to flip over the top and then finding themselves face down on the other side, holding on for dear life. A really dumb piece of equipment. I wonder who invented it. It probably even has an official name.
Another phenomenon back then was stray dogs! I remember seeing packs of them from time to time. Never did I see dog catchers (did they even exist back then?) nor the SPCA picking them up. Nowadays I do see a stray on occasion, but never packs of them. I'm sure more than a few children got bitten.
Remember on Victoria Day where almost every corner store sold firecrackers in 5 cent and ten cents packs in those colourfully-labelled, red paper packages marked "Made in Macau".
The guilty-faced store owners would give us a little brown bag for them and say, "Don't put them in your pocket.", presumably because they might ignite "accidently"? Then, with the booty in hand, we kids would roam the streets looking for various places to toss them, rarely lighting them all at once in multiple bangs, but preferring to carefully separate them and set them off individually.
Ant-hill entrances were a favourite spot, as were metal garbage cans, etc. Even the Black and White on Queen Mary near Westbury used to sell firecrackers and Brock's fireworks; roman candles, sparklers, and the like. Not for kids to fool with, so I never bought those!
One time, I foolishly dropped a firecracker into an empty metal, unlabelled cannister which had been dumped in a forest. Not realizing there would be some residue left over, a huge immediately flame shot through the hole missing my head by inches!
One hapless resident (who we didn't know personally, of course) lived in a basement apartment down a few steps from street level bewteen buildings and sometimes we just couldn't resist lighting a whole bunch (not often with matches, but with the smouldering tip of a piece of string) and throwing it at the foot of his steps. Then, before the actually explosions took place, we would run like hell, laughing as the multiple bangs resounded behind us. The poor guy must have fallen off his chair! One time, though, he was lying in wait for us, leaping out of his door and giving chase. Boy, did we run! We never bothered him again.
Oddly enough, very few neighbours would confront or reprimand us for making all that noise in the neighbourhood. Even our parents tolerated it. After all, it WAS Victoria Day, and they had probably done the same thing when they were kids. I definitely can't imagine parents putting up with it today, though, can you?!
The last time I remember buying firecrackers was around 1964 from a hardware store called Beaucage near the southwest corner of Jean Talon and Cote des Neiges Rd. Long gone.
Such pranksterism, however, was nothing compared to what would regularly occur in the poorer districts like Pointe St. Charles and St. Henri where on "Mat Night" (the night before Halloween), it was an annual ritual for the older kids (mostly delinquent-types) to collect neighbours' garbage, break off pieces of fencing, etc., and light bonfires in the middle of intersections--the police and firemen kept busy all night long trying to put a stop to it. Finally, around 1960, the city passed a law banning firecracker and fireworks sales from corner stores, and coming down hard on "Mat Night" hooligans.
There were, of course, instances where people would be seriously injured and fires would break out elsewhere other than in the middle of the street. Nowadays, you can only buy firecrackers in Chinatown during the Moon Festival and perhaps Chinese New Year, but this isn't publicized in the general media.
Trenholme Park also had those "ladder" see-saws. I kept away from them.
Another popular playground item was the "merry-go-round". You stood (or sat) on the side of a circular wooden structure about 10 feet in diameter, and about 3 feet high, and someone would spin it. There were handles to hold onto, but it would be challenging to be "spun" without holding on. There was lots of sand nearby to break your falls.
There was one of these in Patricis (aka Bowie) Park in NDG. Some of the original playground equipment is still there.
Yes, I remember those merry-go-rounds. Some parks even place old sections of sewer pipe for kids to crawl through.
There were also shuffleboard facilities and croquet courts which we took addvantage of in the mid-60s, but when the city no longer staffed the park shacks, these facilities became rarely used and nearby residents couldn't be bothered to bring their own mallets, balls, etc.
Finally, in 1995 I watched the city begin to rip out the croquet and shuffleboard areas, replacing them in some parks with picnic tables and charcoal refuse containers for the recent immigrants who flocked to hold their cookouts.
I still wonder why some parks keep their brilliant klieg lights on at night when no teams are using the baseball or soccer fields.
I remember those merry-go-rounds very well. I think there were also metal ones that flared out at an upward angle from a central hub from which they spun around. After throwing up a couple of times on those merry-go-rounds, I stopped playing on them.
I remember the tall slide at MacDonald Park. All of us fell off the top at least once and then learned to hold on.
I also remember the wading pool at the north end of the park. The chlorine smell at the pool and in the dressing room was quite evident.
Regarding the naming of streets in the various districts of Montreal...
When landowners put their properties up for sale to be subdivided into lots, they drew up tentative plans for streets and avenues to intersect within the tract. Numbered streets were a neutral, non-committal choice--essentially place-holders--and one would imagine that the city of Montreal had the final say after a committee meeting on such matters in order to avoid confusing duplications. Presumably as well, once people began to move in to their brand new neighbourhoods, they would be averse to living on faceless, numbered streets like they ended up doing in parts of Rosemount, Lachine, and elsewhere.
Therefore, the 1873 real estate map of Mount Royal Vale was similarly laid out with numbered streets running east to west and avenues north to south. McLynn Ave. and Dufferin Ave. were on that early map and exist today, while others like Molson Ave. became Clanranald and Monklands became MacDonald.
First Street became Avonmore, Second Street became Aumont, Third became Queen Mary Rd., and so on all the way up to Eighth Street which became Plamondon.
It is interesting that Molson Avenue was in this instance was chosen to be the main road; the central focal-point beginning at Cote St. Luc and running all the way through St. Laurent and on into present day Laval (then known as "Abord a Plouffe"); clearly one of Montreal's very early "master plans" which never materialized as envisaged!
If you read this fascinating link, you will see many familiar names used as a source for Montreal's streets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Macdonald_of_Clanranald
Odd that Molson's fine name was eventually relegated to the non-descript street in the east end it is today, as well as within the boondocks of Chateauguay! Then, perhaps the Molson family wasn't as vain as one might imagine and really could have cared less about such things, otherwise they might very well have insisted that Molson be the name of the main road passing in front of their brewery and not Notre Dame.
In any event, in my opinion, there are today way too many "de l'Eglise" and "Boulevard Industriel" in the metropolitan area and its environs to create enough confusion for out-of-town truckers and tourists! But at least they have GPS to assist them. Check your handy MapArt or Perly's directory to see the names redundancies.
Newspaper articles going back decades often referred to various "Metropolitan Boulevards" and "Trans-Island" expressways in their preliminary descriptions of long-promised, overdue road works and political footballs such as the Cavendish fiasco, but at least now every time you drive up Clanranald Avenue, just imagine for a moment how it might have been: that mystic "Molson Avenue" wending its way north through fields and streams (and many acres of snow) into the hinterlands of "Abord a Plouffe"!
"The guilty-faced store owners would give us a little brown bag for them and say, "Don't put them in your pocket.", presumably because they might ignite "accidently"? Then, with the booty in hand, we kids would roam the streets looking for various places to toss them, rarely lighting them all at once in multiple bangs, but preferring to carefully separate them and set them off individually."
I'll never forget the night "Big Harold" tossed a lit firecracker in neighbour Calvin's pocketful of firecrackers. The resulting cacophony was followed by Calvin running up the (Dalou) street, his pants leg smouldering, screaming in pain. He still carries the scars on his leg from that evening.
The perpetrator was called "Big" Harold to differentiate between himself and me. Quite rare to find two Harolds living on the same short dead-end street.
Mount Royal Vale - sale article, The Gazette, Sept. 27, 1873 [an edited description and promotion points. Notes in brackets [ ] are mine].
"Perfect title and commuted [sic?]. Freedom from noise, dust, and impure air of the city.
Convenience of access at all times and all seasons. Approaches to the city through the most inviting suburbs. Its elevation and fine views.
Appearance of a beautiful park, shaded by forest, trees, orchards, and hedges. Main avenue [Molson, later renamed Clanranald] fenced throughout connects without turn, the macadamized road direct to the Back River. No hills to mount or descend. Wide avenues and streets."
* * * * * * *
Mount Royal Vale - sale article, Montreal Daily Witness, Sept. 29, 1874
"Mount Royal Vale. Cheap and healthy homes for the people.
As those cottages are nearly all disposed of, or leased for al long term of years, the proprietor is now prepared to erect any style of respectable residences to suit tenants or purchasers with any quantity or ground that may be required on very liberal terms. The situation is most inviting.
With charming scenery, pure air, pure water, superior schools and churches, fine roads, and no taxes worth mention, commanding all the advantages of the city with none of its expenses , impurities, or immoralities. Just such a place as God and nature intended that men should live in. A garden surrounded by fruits and flowers!
Apply to Thomas F. O'Brien, 532 St. Mary St."
* * * * * *
Similar articles can be found by typing "Mount Royal Vale" into the Google Archive webpage. Unfortunately, many editions of the Montreal Gazette are infuriatingly missing! The 1873 article was sourced by myself from library microfilm. Apparently, the Gazette also possesses the defunct Montreal Star archives but will not make them available. Why?
Although Macdonald (Monklands), Clanranald (Molson) and McLynn were laid out in 1873, not much was built there. I looked at a 1940 fire insurance map of the area and it's amazing how empty the area on Clanranald was. Of course it would very quickly fill up with housing especially in the second half of thew 1940s and the 1950s.
It took up to 80 years for the Mount Royal Vale and its adjoining subdivisions in NDG Ward 3 (later popularly known as the Snowdon area) to become fully built upon; one of the main reasons being that the other NDG Wards 2 to 7 beginning from Westmount's western border to what became Montreal West were more vigourously promoted by developers and government officials of the time, Sherbrooke Street being the focal point for builders. Montreal West in fact seceded from the Town of NDG in 1897, as had St. Pierre earlier in 1893.
Understandably, econonomic downturns, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II interrupted NDG's steady growth, as indeed they did elsewhere in Canada.
A comprehensive analysis of how NDG developed and was finally annexed by the City of Montreal on June 4, 1910 is outlined in the excellent publication "Urban History Review", Vol. XIII, No. 2, October 1984 (ISSN 0703-0428), presumably still to be found in major Montreal Libraries. Fascinating detailed maps are also included. A "must read" for serious researchers.
To make a very long story short, it was essentially the powerful NDG farmer land-owners who brokered a deal for lower taxes in order to allow subdivisions on their properties to occur, and later, in return for annexation, for Montreal to provide waterworks, sewers, sidewalks, and tramways. Furthermore, Key NDG players such as Georges Marcil and T. A. Trenholme were at loggerheads regarding annexation.
The type of houses to be permitted were, with a few rare exceptions, strictly enforced as well (no outdoor staircases and no cheap, wooden structures would be allowed such as the shack-towns of the old Turcot Village of Ward 1), and needless to say, there were the inevitable political conflicts of interest with members of the Quebec government involved in the process--not to forget Westmount's historic paranoia at the prospect of being surrounded and then gobbled up by Montreal.
"At the intersection of where McLynn hit Fourth Ave., the property lines diverged slightly which is why today McLynn and the later-to-be-built Earnscliffe Ave. do not continue in a straight line --mystery solved for those who may have wondered!".
Should read: "...where McLynn hit Fifth Avenue (now Dupuis)., the property lines diverged slightly..."
Earnscliffe Avenue eventually ran south from Dupuis to Cote St. Luc Rd. through the property of W. C. Snowdon.
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Top picture shows McDonald Park looking west at St. Malachi's Church on Clanranald on the northwest corner of Isabella.
ReplyDeletePlayground apparatus long gone and replaced several times over the decades.
The second photo is looking at the southeast corner of the same park.
ReplyDeleteThe square-shaped building in the background is no longer there; replaced by a fenced-in, paved yard for St. Malachi's School directly behind it.
Must be a Spring shot. Notice the dirty piles of snow, perhaps dumped there by snowblowers?
In looks like the south end of Macdonald Park in Snowdon. In one photo, St. Malachy's Church can be seen in the background with Isabella Avenue on the left. The other appears to have been taken from Isabella and Clanranald looking northeast toward Earnscliffe. I'm not sure what that old-style brick duplex looking building is in the left of photo 2, but it appears to be in the middle of the park. I'd like to know more about it...what it was and when it was demolished.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna make a wild guess....Westmount Park the building in the first picture (the baseball game) kinda looks like the Westmount Park Church looking west.
ReplyDeleteWhat's my prize??
Looking closer at the photo 2, I'm now more inclined to think it is the same angle as photo 1 but looking slightly more to the northwest. The old brick building with the porch that I originally assumed to be in the park, would then be on Clanranald roughly where St. Malachy's School would eventually be built.
ReplyDeleteThe late winter or early spring photo brings back many memories. You can see the posts that used to hold the boards of the skating rink. That was an annual ritual. The city workers would install the posts and boards and when it was cold enough, they would flood the rink. At the rend of the season, they would come back to remove it all. I haven't lived in Montreal for years so I don't know if they still do that. I grew up in Snowdon and spent time at Macdonald Park. In later years, I worked for a city contractor doing snow removal in the same neighbourhood. As I recall, there was a small memorial to Isabella on the south side of the park along Isabella Avenue. Was this to honour Isabella, Queen of Castile? Or was the street named for some other Isabella?
ReplyDeleteYes, the outdoor hockey rinks are still installed in the same way, although fewer parks than previously have rinks today. However, there are now more indoor rinks in certain parks--as well as more indoor swimming pools and community centres.
ReplyDeleteMcDonald Park's Queen Isabella monument has been moved to the Southeast corner. The playground equipment had also been upgraded several years ago. See Google maps.
Yes, the outdoor hockey rinks are still installed in the same way, although fewer parks than previously have rinks today. However, there are now more indoor rinks in certain parks--as well as more indoor swimming pools and community centres.
ReplyDeleteMcDonald Park's Queen Isabella monument has been moved to the Southeast corner. The playground equipment had also been upgraded several years ago. See Google maps.
McDonald Park first appears on a 1914 map.
ReplyDeleteIts western half was previously owned by Thomas Francis O'Brien and the eastern half belonged to William Comrie Snowdon.
O'Brien's property extended from Cote St. Luc Rd. to a stream approximately near where Vezina Ave. is today.
O'Brien put his property up for sale on Sept. 12, 1873, and vigorously promoted it in the newspapers as ..."splendid lots delightfully situated on Mount Royal Vale...a proposed suburban city".
The south-to-north road proposed to run through the centre of Mount Royal Vale was to be named Molson Ave. (but later renamed Clanranald). The proposed parallel road to its west was to be Monklands Ave. (later renamed McDonald). At that time, Dufferin Avenue was also part of this property long before it was acquired by the Town of Hampstead.
To the east and north of Fourth Street (later renamed Isabella) was McLynn Avenue--as it is still called today. This was also part of Mount Royal Vale.
At the intersection of where McLynn hit Fourth Ave., the property lines diverged slightly which is why today McLynn and the later-to-be-built Earnscliffe Ave. do not continue in a straight line--mystery solved for those who may have wondered! Earnscliffe was within the property boundaries of Mr. W.C. Snowdon. Coolbrook Avenue--evidently built much later--was actually part of another property owner: John Snowdon.
O'Brien's Mount Royal Vale lots 73-107 comprise the western half of what became McDonald Park. The lots comprising the eastern half owned by W.C. Snowdon eventually became the eastern half.
Real estate advertisements for O'Brien's lots from 1873 onwards were persistent and descriptive--even going so far as to promote the area as "Victoria City".
Unfortunately, Mr. O'Brien was arrested for forgery on Dec. 19, 1880. The details about this are as yet not clear to me since the Gazette edition for the following date is not available in the Google newspaper archives. Further research would be needed to determine what drove him to commit this crime, or whether it had anything to do with his desire to sell his property. One can only speculate about possible gambling debts, etc.
Following O'Brien's troubles, the fate of Mount Royal Vale was evidently determined; the land eventually sold and subdivided into what it has become--a pleasant NDG neighbourhood comprising mostly duplexes on tree-lined streets and avenues.
An interesting map of 1873 shows the proposed names of Mount Royal Vale's streets and avenues, most of which would be renamed to what they are today.
The northern limit of Mount Royal Vale ended at Henri Gervais Decarie's property--today that tiny part of Cote St. Luc comprising today's Decarie Square. H.G. Decarie's property ended just south of where the CPR railway tracks would later run through at approximately 1880. From what is today Isabella Ave. and all the way to H.G. Gervais' property was the large tract owned by John Snowdon.
West of Molson Ave., at the end of a tree-lined driveway just north of Cote St. Luc Rd. had been a large farmhouse or mansion called Kinkora Place approximately located where the southeast corner of today's Clanranald and the now-reconfigured Avonmore Ave. intersected. What may be barns and other buildings are shown to the east of Kinkora Place. Perhaps even Mr. O'Brien himself lived there. Again, more research is needed.
Molson Avenue (now Clanranald) was even tentatively planned to become a major route running all the way north across "Cote de Vertu" and then continuing on as "A Bord a Plouffe Road", presumably meaning all the way to what is today Laval!
Members of the Molson family were early owners of the first and perhaps second buildings situated on Queen Mary at the northwest corner of Clanranald.
Thank you Urban Legend. Fascinating material! Although you mention the area as "a pleasant NDG neighbourhood" most people who lived there always referred to it as Snowdon and never NDG. NDG was a different place to Snowdon residents.
ReplyDeleteOne Hector Durand developed many of the properties on the west side of Clanranald from St. Malachy's to Dupuis and also along Mclynn from Dupuis to Van Horne (or Vanutelli as it was earlier known) and built those attached duplexes in the late 1930s. He was still alive in the early 1970s and still owned most of the buildings. To see him, you would think he was an eccentric maintenance man, not the very wealthy property owner he was. Dressed in multiple layers of work clothes even in summertime, Hector drove an old car with cement stains on it, paint buckets and other construction material in it. With close ties to the Catholic Church, he built several seminaries locally and even one in Peru. When Hector died, most of his assets were willed to the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly, his funeral was attended by the top hierarchy of the Church and he was apparently made a "Knight" of the Church by the Pope of the day.
Your research certainly explains the origin of names like Royal Vale School and the Luck family's Royal Vale Nursery on Macdonald.
Real estate in the area became far more valuable when the Montreal Park & Island built their streetcar line through Snowdon in the late 1890s. John Snowdon donated a portion of his land to the MP&I to establish Snowdon Junction at the future intersection of Queen Mary and Decarie, which was to become the neighbourhood's epicentre.
Your mention of the Molsons doesn't surprise me. I'm sure the Snowdons, Decaries and Molsons were all interested in increasing the value of their holdings in the area and an electric streetcar line connecting it to the then faraway centre of Montreal would certainly do that.
The well established large landowners often had influence or even sat on many company boards of directors. Hampstead too was developed by people who sat on the boards of important local companies like the Montreal Light Heat & Power Company and the Montreal Tramways Company which eventually bought out the MP&I.
Having an influential voice in the affairs of utility and transportation companies would be a huge help for a would-be developer.
The boundaries between Montreal, Hampstead and the "isolated" sections of the City of Cote St. Luc in that area of Snowdon were intriguing.
The western limit of our city snow removal contract was Macdonald. We only did the east side because depending where you were, the other side belonged to either Cote St. Luc or Hamptead. At the very southwestern corner of the contract, it was a little confusing as Snowdon made several jogs as it intersected Clanranald and passed the north end of Macdonald before ending at Dufferin. As I recall, we did a short stretch of one of those streets belonging to another municipality and in return they did the Montreal portion. It was easier for our crews due to street configurations and for not having to turn large machines for a very short stretch. I just can't remember who did what.
Boy that sure did look kinda familiar, but I didn't think it could actually be McDonald Park until everyone signed in saying that it was. Those trees in the first photo really stood out. They were always where the batter stood when we played what we called "American baseball", which was basically just fielding batted balls. "Real" baseball games were played on the diamonds which were down the hill towards Dupuis.
ReplyDeleteThat end of the park was quite a battleground: Us kids who went to Royal Vale (the PSBGM elementary school on Dupuis between Clanranald and MacDonald) got out at 3:15, while the Catholic kids at St. Malachy's got out at 3:30, just in time to meet those of us who lived towards Queen Mary, given a few minutes playing on the swings, monkey bars or seesaws. As we met, of course, the war was on. After a fight or two, it was along Isabella, then up Coolbrook. By now it was 4:00, and the French kids were heading north from St.Antoinin's on the corner of Coolbrook and Queen Mary. There were at least a couple of kids rolling around and pounding each other out on every lawn of that block. The only time I ever got bitten by a dog was in one of those fights, when a French kid sicced the thing on me. More than 50 years later and I still don't trust dalmatians...
One of my favorite fights (a very short one) took place in that park. Billy T, who lived in one of the apartments along Decarie between Isabella and Queen Mary, had just gotten out of the hospital after an appendix operation, and I saw Arnie E, a real creep, knee him! Outraged, I ran across Earnscliffe, and, in the only flying tackle I ever accomplished, nailed Arnie face down into a pile of dog turds. Then I threw up on him and we all went home.
Ah, McDonald Park: A fight a day, every day, for seven years. Until I was in high school (West Hill) I never had a pair of pants that didn't have rips in them. West Hill, once on Somerled and Draper, is now called Royal Vale. Funny how that name keeps popping up.
When my kids got their Royal Vale High school letters (RVHS) for some sports achievement, they'd always get annoyed when I called RV "Winnebago High".
Funny how a memory can be triggered: I remember playing baseball in McDonald park (Royal Vale against some other school) on May 2nd or 3rd 1960, when the principal, a nasty old bird named Miss MacLeod, came across the street and announced to us that the world was now a safer place because that "horrible Chessman person had just been executed. At the time, I had no idea who Caryl Chessman was, or why his execution was a big deal. The incongruously triumphant tone of MacLeod's announcement made it memorable. In the unlikely event that she's still around today, no doubt Miss MacLeod is a centenarian Ann Coulter fan.
JM...
ReplyDeleteWhile it is certainly true that the Snowdon area was distinct from the rest of NDG, nevertheless it was officially part of it according to "Les Cartiers Municipaux de Montreal Depuis 1832"--a book handed to me by none other than the late alderman Gerry Snyder himself some decades ago.
Snowdon is now officially an electoral district, which it had never been back in the day. Gerrymandering to be sure!
The tract of land from Hampstead on the west to what became Westbury Avenue on the east (bordering on Cote des Neiges), and from Cote St. Luc Rd. on the south to Athol Place (now Vezina Ave.) on the north was, as we all know, eventually split in two by the Decarie Expressway. Members of the Snowdon family were big landowners around there, as were the Decaries, of course.
The streets which had their duplexes connected together in an unbroken "strip" never appealed to me. I always preferred the ones which were independently built with lanes between them, many of which had garages in the rear. The "strip" duplexes often had no garages at all and look run-down today.
AstroPaul...
You must have been all black and blue when you were a kid. Don't tell me you finally ended up at Shawbridge...lol!
All of those fights must have come to the attention of your schools which surely meted out punishments?
Yes, I read about the Chessman case, which was indeed a sordid affair (certain details weren't fit for publication back then). A TV-movie was made about it, in fact.
The Caryl Chessman execution also became a big deal around Elizabeth Ballantyne school in Montreal West, when I was in grade 6. We all began referring to the school as "San Quentin" (the prison where Chessman was executed - actually, a stay of execution was received (too late) just as deadly gas was forming in the gas chamber).
ReplyDeleteI guess this is getting a little off-topic.
Regarding the playground equipment in the photos: notice how high and steep those slides are! They would never be permitted today, what with all the paranoia about injuries and insurance claims! Even our baseball diamonds have for the most part been relegated to fewer parks than previously, and under-used soccer nets installed in their place.
ReplyDeleteI also remember those scary "standing up see-saws": which were a sort of "ladder" pivoting in the centre over a frame.
Kids would walk up to each end, grad the end of that "ladder" and try to pull each other off the ground.
The downside was that if one kid let go too soon, the other could get a very nasty crack on the head!
Furthermore, if someone walking by casually flipped one side of the "ladder" upwards, it could easily come dowm onto someone on the other side. Needless to say, they were eventually phased out from every park.
I remember too that drinking fountains were of the old-fashioned type that had no flip-type or push-button on-off valve. The water just came pouring out 24/7. I guess some genius in the city water department finally figured out what a waste of water that was!
You're quite right about Snowdon being a part of NDG, Urban Legend. To us though, Snowdon was the centre of civilization. While NDGers shopped on the commercial stretches of Monkland and Sherbrooke, even they would come to Snowdon for larger purchases. We were always told Snowdon was the second most important shopping area after downtown. The streetcar loop at Queen Mary and Decarie with its routes from all directions was always the reason for Snowdon's development.
ReplyDeleteYour comments on the playground equipment made me smile. Those "ladder" seesaws were particularly dangerous. There was always someone who would let the ladder go when the other person was at the top. Likewise on the seesaws. Kids could be nasty jumping off a seesaw when the other kid was up in the air, letting him crash to the ground. Or trying to get the other kid airborne by letting your end drop to the ground. I'm sure many teeth were lost as faces crashed into the steel and wood handholds. In those days you didn't file suit against the city. Instead you went home where your parents would scold you for being careless.
Considering the foolish things we did, it's a wonder there weren't more serious injuries.
In the winter, we would grab the rear bumper of a car when it stopped at an intersection and then slide behind it unseen by the driver.
As a 10-year-old, I worked as a milkman's helper standing in the open side doorway of his Divco delivery truck as we travelled his route. No company would allow that today because of safety and insurance rules.
That's why fire fighters are now inside their trucks and not hanging on the back. I'm surprised garbage collectors still stand on the back of their trucks. I'm sure it won't last long as many cities now use a mechanized arm to pick up trash cans.
Snowdon and Macdonald Park were great places to grow up and they have many memories for me.
Thank you Harold, Kristian and Urban Legend for bringing them back.
At least we "Snowdonites" (hmmm...does that sound perverse?) weren't as "territorial", protecting our "turf" as in places like the Bronx where you dared not cross the street!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing about those "ladder see-saws": I imagine some less-than-bright kids would actually climb the ladder from one side, only to flip over the top and then finding themselves face down on the other side, holding on for dear life. A really dumb piece of equipment. I wonder who invented it. It probably even has an official name.
Another phenomenon back then was stray dogs! I remember seeing packs of them from time to time. Never did I see dog catchers (did they even exist back then?) nor the SPCA picking them up. Nowadays I do see a stray on occasion, but never packs of them. I'm sure more than a few children got bitten.
Remember on Victoria Day where almost every corner store sold firecrackers in 5 cent and ten cents packs in those colourfully-labelled, red paper packages marked "Made in Macau".
The guilty-faced store owners would give us a little brown bag for them and say, "Don't put them in your pocket.", presumably because they might ignite "accidently"? Then, with the booty in hand, we kids would roam the streets looking for various places to toss them, rarely lighting them all at once in multiple bangs, but preferring to carefully separate them and set them off individually.
Ant-hill entrances were a favourite spot, as were metal garbage cans, etc. Even the Black and White on Queen Mary near Westbury used to sell firecrackers and Brock's fireworks; roman candles, sparklers, and the like. Not for kids to fool with, so I never bought those!
One time, I foolishly dropped a firecracker into an empty metal, unlabelled cannister which had been dumped in a forest. Not realizing there would be some residue left over, a huge immediately flame shot through the hole missing my head by inches!
One hapless resident (who we didn't know personally, of course) lived in a basement apartment down a few steps from street level bewteen buildings and sometimes we just couldn't resist lighting a whole bunch (not often with matches, but with the smouldering tip of a piece of string) and throwing it at the foot of his steps. Then, before the actually explosions took place, we would run like hell, laughing as the multiple bangs resounded behind us. The poor guy must have fallen off his chair! One time, though, he was lying in wait for us, leaping out of his door and giving chase. Boy, did we run! We never bothered him again.
Oddly enough, very few neighbours would confront or reprimand us for making all that noise in the neighbourhood. Even our parents tolerated it. After all, it WAS Victoria Day, and they had probably done the same thing when they were kids. I definitely can't imagine parents putting up with it today, though, can you?!
The last time I remember buying firecrackers was around 1964 from a hardware store called Beaucage near the southwest corner of Jean Talon and Cote des Neiges Rd. Long gone.
Such pranksterism, however, was nothing compared to what would regularly occur in the poorer districts like Pointe St. Charles and St. Henri where on "Mat Night" (the night before Halloween), it was an annual ritual for the older kids (mostly delinquent-types) to collect neighbours' garbage, break off pieces of fencing, etc., and light bonfires in the middle of intersections--the police and firemen kept busy all night long trying to put a stop to it. Finally, around 1960, the city passed a law banning firecracker and fireworks sales from corner stores, and coming down hard on "Mat Night" hooligans.
There were, of course, instances where people would be seriously injured and fires would break out elsewhere other than in the middle of the street. Nowadays, you can only buy firecrackers in Chinatown during the Moon Festival and perhaps Chinese New Year, but this isn't publicized in the general media.
Trenholme Park also had those "ladder" see-saws. I kept away from them.
ReplyDeleteAnother popular playground item was the "merry-go-round". You stood (or sat) on the side of a circular wooden structure about 10 feet in diameter, and about 3 feet high, and someone would spin it. There were handles to hold onto, but it would be challenging to be "spun" without holding on. There was lots of sand nearby to break your falls.
There was one of these in Patricis (aka Bowie) Park in NDG. Some of the original playground equipment is still there.
Yes, I remember those merry-go-rounds. Some parks even place old sections of sewer pipe for kids to crawl through.
ReplyDeleteThere were also shuffleboard facilities and croquet courts which we took addvantage of in the mid-60s, but when the city no longer staffed the park shacks, these facilities became rarely used and nearby residents couldn't be bothered to bring their own mallets, balls, etc.
Finally, in 1995 I watched the city begin to rip out the croquet and shuffleboard areas, replacing them in some parks with picnic tables and charcoal refuse containers for the recent immigrants who flocked to hold their cookouts.
I still wonder why some parks keep their brilliant klieg lights on at night when no teams are using the baseball or soccer fields.
For UrbanLegend:
ReplyDeletenope...he never went to Shawbridge - lucky for them!
And I never heard of Isabella being called Fourth St. Any info on that?
Betty (astroPaul's sister)
I remember those merry-go-rounds very well. I think there were also metal ones that flared out at an upward angle from a central hub from which they spun around. After throwing up a couple of times on those merry-go-rounds, I stopped playing on them.
ReplyDeleteI remember the tall slide at MacDonald Park. All of us fell off the top at least once and then learned to hold on.
I also remember the wading pool at the north end of the park. The chlorine smell at the pool and in the dressing room was quite evident.
Regarding the naming of streets in the various districts of Montreal...
ReplyDeleteWhen landowners put their properties up for sale to be subdivided into lots, they drew up tentative plans for streets and avenues to intersect within the tract. Numbered streets were a neutral, non-committal choice--essentially place-holders--and one would imagine that the city of Montreal had the final say after a committee meeting on such matters in order to avoid confusing duplications. Presumably as well, once people began to move in to their brand new neighbourhoods, they would be averse to living on faceless, numbered streets like they ended up doing in parts of Rosemount, Lachine, and elsewhere.
Therefore, the 1873 real estate map of Mount Royal Vale was similarly laid out with numbered streets running east to west and avenues north to south. McLynn Ave. and Dufferin Ave. were on that early map and exist today, while others like Molson Ave. became Clanranald and Monklands became MacDonald.
First Street became Avonmore, Second Street became Aumont, Third became Queen Mary Rd., and so on all the way up to Eighth Street which became Plamondon.
It is interesting that Molson Avenue was in this instance was chosen to be the main road; the central focal-point beginning at Cote St. Luc and running all the way through St. Laurent and on into present day Laval (then known as "Abord a Plouffe"); clearly one of Montreal's very early "master plans" which never materialized as envisaged!
If you read this fascinating link, you will see many familiar names used as a source for Montreal's streets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Macdonald_of_Clanranald
Odd that Molson's fine name was eventually relegated to the non-descript street in the east end it is today, as well as within the boondocks of Chateauguay! Then, perhaps the Molson family wasn't as vain as one might imagine and really could have cared less about such things, otherwise they might very well have insisted that Molson be the name of the main road passing in front of their brewery and not Notre Dame.
In any event, in my opinion, there are today way too many "de l'Eglise" and "Boulevard Industriel" in the metropolitan area and its environs to create enough confusion for out-of-town truckers and tourists! But at least they have GPS to assist them. Check your handy MapArt or Perly's directory to see the names redundancies.
Newspaper articles going back decades often referred to various "Metropolitan Boulevards" and "Trans-Island" expressways in their preliminary descriptions of long-promised, overdue road works and political footballs such as the Cavendish fiasco, but at least now every time you drive up Clanranald Avenue, just imagine for a moment how it might have been: that mystic "Molson Avenue" wending its way north through fields and streams (and many acres of snow) into the hinterlands of "Abord a Plouffe"!
"The guilty-faced store owners would give us a little brown bag for them and say, "Don't put them in your pocket.", presumably because they might ignite "accidently"? Then, with the booty in hand, we kids would roam the streets looking for various places to toss them, rarely lighting them all at once in multiple bangs, but preferring to carefully separate them and set them off individually."
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget the night "Big Harold" tossed a lit firecracker in neighbour Calvin's pocketful of firecrackers. The resulting cacophony was followed by Calvin running up the (Dalou) street, his pants leg smouldering, screaming in pain. He still carries the scars on his leg from that evening.
The perpetrator was called "Big" Harold to differentiate between himself and me. Quite rare to find two Harolds living on the same short dead-end street.
Mount Royal Vale - sale article, The Gazette, Sept. 27, 1873 [an edited description and promotion points. Notes in brackets [ ] are mine].
ReplyDelete"Perfect title and commuted [sic?]. Freedom from noise, dust, and impure air of the city.
Convenience of access at all times and all seasons. Approaches to the city through the most inviting suburbs. Its elevation and fine views.
Appearance of a beautiful park, shaded by forest, trees, orchards, and hedges. Main avenue [Molson, later renamed Clanranald] fenced throughout connects without turn, the macadamized road direct to the Back River. No hills to mount or descend. Wide avenues and streets."
* * * * * * *
Mount Royal Vale - sale article, Montreal Daily Witness, Sept. 29, 1874
"Mount Royal Vale. Cheap and healthy homes for the people.
As those cottages are nearly all disposed of, or leased for al long term of years, the proprietor is now prepared to erect any style of respectable residences to suit tenants or purchasers with any quantity or ground that may be required on very liberal terms. The situation is most inviting.
With charming scenery, pure air, pure water, superior schools and churches, fine roads, and no taxes worth mention, commanding all the advantages of the city with none of its expenses , impurities, or immoralities. Just such a place as God and nature intended that men should live in. A garden surrounded by fruits and flowers!
Apply to Thomas F. O'Brien, 532 St. Mary St."
* * * * * *
Similar articles can be found by typing "Mount Royal Vale" into the Google Archive webpage. Unfortunately, many editions of the Montreal Gazette are infuriatingly missing! The 1873 article was sourced by myself from library microfilm.
Apparently, the Gazette also possesses the defunct Montreal Star archives but will not make them available. Why?
See: http://news.google.com/newspapers?
scroll to desired newspaper
Although Macdonald (Monklands), Clanranald (Molson) and McLynn were laid out in 1873, not much was built there. I looked at a 1940 fire insurance map of the area and it's amazing how empty the area on Clanranald was. Of course it would very quickly fill up with housing especially in the second half of thew 1940s and the 1950s.
ReplyDeleteIt took up to 80 years for the Mount Royal Vale and its adjoining subdivisions in NDG Ward 3 (later popularly known as the Snowdon area) to become fully built upon; one of the main reasons being that the other NDG Wards 2 to 7 beginning from Westmount's western border to what became Montreal West were more vigourously promoted by developers and government officials of the time, Sherbrooke Street being the focal point for builders. Montreal West in fact seceded from the Town of NDG in 1897, as had St. Pierre earlier in 1893.
ReplyDeleteUnderstandably, econonomic downturns, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II interrupted NDG's steady growth, as indeed they did elsewhere in Canada.
A comprehensive analysis of how NDG developed and was finally annexed by the City of Montreal on June 4, 1910 is outlined in the excellent publication "Urban History Review", Vol. XIII, No. 2, October 1984 (ISSN 0703-0428), presumably still to be found in major Montreal Libraries. Fascinating detailed maps are also included. A "must read" for serious researchers.
To make a very long story short, it was essentially the powerful NDG farmer land-owners who brokered a deal for lower taxes in order to allow subdivisions on their properties to occur, and later, in return for annexation, for Montreal to provide waterworks, sewers, sidewalks, and tramways. Furthermore, Key NDG players such as Georges Marcil and T. A. Trenholme were at loggerheads regarding annexation.
The type of houses to be permitted were, with a few rare exceptions, strictly enforced as well (no outdoor staircases and no cheap, wooden structures would be allowed such as the shack-towns of the old Turcot Village of Ward 1), and needless to say, there were the inevitable political conflicts of interest with members of the Quebec government involved in the process--not to forget Westmount's historic paranoia at the prospect of being surrounded and then gobbled up by Montreal.
Correction re....
ReplyDelete"At the intersection of where McLynn hit Fourth Ave., the property lines diverged slightly which is why today McLynn and the later-to-be-built Earnscliffe Ave. do not continue in a straight line
--mystery solved for those who may have wondered!".
Should read: "...where McLynn hit Fifth Avenue (now Dupuis)., the property lines diverged slightly..."
Earnscliffe Avenue eventually ran south from Dupuis to Cote St. Luc Rd. through the property of W. C. Snowdon.
i remember playing on that diamond circa 1965, i believe it was replaced not too long after
ReplyDelete