Nobody remembers the Buffalo Bridge which spanned the little St. Peter's River between 1876-1934.The structure crossed the river which ran sorta along LaSalle Blvd. at the eastern end of Verdun Ave.
The river was placed in a huge concrete tube underwater so there was no more need for the bridge, which had been shipped in from the states.
When it came time to demolish it in 1934 the city was unable to compensate the owners because nobody knew who it was and nobody came forward.
It is curious that on May 20, 1924--over ten years before the aldermen of the executive committee made their August 1934 "surprise discovery" of the Buffalo Bridge--a similar commission of city inspectors visited that very same structure and suggested proposals to have it demolished and the adjacent district revitalized.
ReplyDeleteSee the Montreal Gazette, May 21, 1924, page 5, column 5, heading: "Cover Tailrace to Make Street".
Intriguing inferences can also be derived from the aforementioned article regarding the removal of the Buffalo Bridge, such as the notion "to establish a handsome avenue" [the future May Avenue?], "reclaiming land from the river shallows" [the eventual landfill and park area created decades later], "a new roadway along the river front which would also allow of a new entrance to the city, and so bring tourists by a route [the future Champlain Bridge?] which would give a better impression than is now obtained after a journey through Bridge Street."--an obvious reference to the then dreary road access into town via the Victoria Bridge.
My notes enclosed in brackets [ ].
Clearly, our present-day infrastructure has been in the early planning stages for much longer than most of us would have imagined!
Of course, even grade school children would have been able to choose the most logical locations for our island bridges.
The Champlain was not logical in the sense that it's at a very long span of the river.
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