The newly-built intersection at St. Remi and Cabot might not look special but it's the gateway to the future and that future is Gladstone Village.If optimized, the warehouse-laden area just south of the St. Remi tunnel could be transformed into a dozen residential blocks, returning to a glory it once enjoyed long ago.
The section of Cote St. Paul was, in recent years, almost abandoned to industrial usage, with all sorts of forced demolitions ravaging the area in 1985. Only a smattering of homes and the Ma Tante truckers restaurant are still fighting the good fight.
Since the St. Remi Tunnel was built, southbound motorists would have to go all the way to Church and then double back to get in there.
But a quick turn at Cabot is now possible with the recently-reconfigured roads, so getting into the area has never been easier... so you'll surely start to acquaint yourself with that part of town, take autumn strolls through the area, date a pretty girl from one of those houses and so forth.The main drag, Gladstone, was initially known as Molson Ave. and saw its name switch somewhere around 1905.
The jewel of the area is the old Gladstone Protestant School, which by rights should be one of at least three protected heritage sites in Cote St. Paul, the other being the Golden Dragon Cafe and the third being the church on Laurendeau.
The school is used as a storage facilty for shipment, having been sold by the PSBGM in 1964.
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| The old Gladstone Protestant School |
We've noted previously that nobody famous ever came out of Cote St. Paul but a nurse named Eugenie Germain who purportedly lived on Gladstone gained some reknown for her widely-advertised testimonial to the health benefits of a certain vegetable compound in the 1930s.
So there's that.
I'd say you should buy up a plot of land down there and wait for the offers to come in, as the area will surely be repopulated now that it's far more easily accessed (Pitt is also being joined to Verdun, to make the area doubly easy-to-reach.
Alas nobody is selling any property down there at the moment so it might be difficult to establish your position in the future hipstertastic Gladstone Village.
Before running out to snap up properties around there, one important factor to remember about these relatively flat, low-lying Montreal districts close to the waterfront such as Verdun, St. Henri, Cote St. Paul, Pointe St. Charles, etc., is that they were historically (and are often still!) prone to flooding following heavy summer downpours because the city had unwisely intalled narrow sewer pipes which would then back up and even burst, ruining nearby homes.
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember this happening during the summer storm/deluge of 1987 in parts of St. Henri after which rue St. Emilie was eventually dug up and beneath which much larger diameter pipes were placed, but it would not surprise me if many other streets still have the older, narrower sewer pipes, so it would definitely be worth checking ahead before sinking millions of dollars into new housing and commercial projects.
In Verdun, many decades ago, before the dyke/landfill was built south of LaSalle Blvd., spring flooding from thawing river ice jams would also wreak havoc all the way up to and over Wellington Street.
In Ville St. Laurent--also flat terrain--Raimbault Creek, historically a popular fishing spot, would overflow into nearby streets and sewers such as along Dutrisac, Gohier, Lamer (which no longer exists), and even parts of Decarie. It would take many decades before the creek was put into pipes, a portion over which today a park and bicycle path exists. TMR also had such storm-related flooding, though apparently not as serious.
Reference: see Montreal Gazette, April 7, 1954, page 21, with photos.
Avenue de Ruisseau in Ville St. Laurent refers to the former Raimbault Creek which in fact had its origins from a small lake approximately located where the Rockhill Apartments are today, then winding north and downhill roughly alongside the former farms of Cote des Neiges Road to empty into Riviere des Prairies from what is now Raimbault Park in Cartierville--as it still does today and where ducks and geese can be seen congregating during the milder months.
Google searches will reveal further details about such events and other historical facts.
There’s a big drawback with that area: you just cannot find home insurance, no insurance company will insure you there, there are too many thefts.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Mario Lemieux from CSP?
ReplyDeleteYou and some commentators examined this once before. Nice to see it again!
ReplyDeletehttp://coolopolis.blogspot.ca/2010/07/new-road-baby.html
I used to ride my bicycle around there in the late 60s and early 70s. It was still a residential district, despite the fairly large and busy CPR Cote St. Paul yard that ran down from the canal.
ReplyDeleteSt. Patrick St. had a deviation because of the canal millrace that still cut it off, and all traffic had to go down Cabot as far as Edie before rejoining St. Patrick. Luckily I took pictures of the Victorian power station that stood by the locks. It was demolished around the same time.
A couple of the original large houses on Cabot are still there, but a long-disused church disappeared years ago, the site now occupied by Charbonneau plumbing supply.
And at the corner of Angers I believe stood a large house with wrap-around galleries and a huge, well-tended garden. One day I returned to find it converted into an industrial lot.
And in the 80s the police used an abandoned house on Dunn or Brock for tactical drills. An old resident kept returning to it and couldn't understand the burnt-out shell was no longer his home.
I grew up at 1602 Gladstone across the. Street from the old school. Played ball .moved away in June of 1975.
ReplyDeleteThre was a resturant below us and. W Vachon locksmith
Attila, Mario Lemieux is from Ville Emard. I recently noticed that his parents no longer live in the house that he grew up in, although they were there until a few years back. Anybody know what happened? (If you have access to the real estate records page I'll give you the address and pay you the buck it takes to underattke a search, my browser never works right doing those searches.)
ReplyDeleteThere's a relatively plentiful stock of famous folk from VE but virtually none from neighbouring CSP, which has more residents.
Think of CSP/VE as the mirror image of Verdun, but on the bar-side of the aqueduct.