So in a search for an answer, I thought I'd turn to the crowd of reader (You mean "readers" surely? - Chimples).
The reply might be contained in the 2nd Memories of Snowdon book, which author Bill Conrod was gracious enough to send to me from his home in Ottawa. (Ottawa? Sheesh! - Chimples).
I'm told that the answer does not lie in the first book and was too busy to read through the sequel to find out if it's in there. (Too busy? But not too busy to play 1,000 geography and history trivia games on QuizUp?- Chimples).
Here's the note:
In the 1950s and even in the early 1960s, it was often said that
Snowdon was "the second largest shopping area outside of downtown." Do you or your readers have any idea where this originated?
As a onetime Snowdon resident many decades ago, I too would say it to people. Nonetheless I was a little sceptical at the time and thought it sounded more like business hype than truth. Snowdon area had many commercial enterprises stretching from just east of Westbury on Queen Mary west to about Earnscliffe. Decarie had businesses on both sides from Cote St. Luc to about Isabella years before the expressway was built.
But there were a lot fewer businesses in the 1940s. It was in the 1950s that many of the apartment buildings on Queen Mary started converting their ground floors to retail space. Perhaps the idea started when Morgan's (The Bay) opened their first store outside of downtown Snowdon in the early 1950s. But even that was a novelty for only a few years. By the mid-1950s, there were Morgan's stores in Dorval and at Pie IX and Jean Talon. So that can't be it.
Indeed Queen Mary and Decarie, the epicentre of Snowdon, was a busy place in the 1940s with the streetcar turning loop and the many routes starting or terminating there. By then Decarie had also become the main road route to St. Laurent and the Laurentians. But again the shopping area wasn't really. Perhaps it was because adjacent Hampstead allowed no commercial operations in their city and residents had to go to Snowdon to shop. But then, Hampstead wasn't as populous as it is today.
In any case, the streetcar loop had been moved to Garland Terminus about a mile north of Queen Mary and Decarie by 1949 so you didn't have the same foot traffic. In fact I might even argue that Snowdon's downward slide began in the 1950s when more people were buying their first cars and moving to newly developing suburbs. As an original old streetcar suburb Snowdon just did not have the parking space for all these new cars. That's why so many of the new shopping centres of the early 1960s with their free parking lots became so popular. Where did that "second after downtown" statement originate? Surely in the 1950s there were equally populous and important commercial neighbourhoods in Montreal that would prove it untrue.
Conrod's reply: I would agree that the Morgan people must have been behind it. Definately car ownership forced a change in shopping habits. The Buskards would drive to Dorval to buy groceries, probably because it was easy to park there. Your right in reminding readers that the change from Snowdon Junction to the Garland turn-around influenced the drop-off shopping in Snowdon. I might suggest that Gerry Snyder might have been behind the boast about the "second largest". Ask his son, Glen.
Snowdon--The Shopping District
ReplyDeletePart One:
I suspect that the phrase "the second largest shopping area second only to downtown" was likely part of some real estate company's advertising campaign to promote a particular building project in order to make it more attractive; possibly even that mid-50s, highly-touted "medical building" at 4950 Queen Mary Road which was essentially a flop and ended up as the poorly-designed, dreary office building it eventually became and still is today.
In spite of this, the notion that shopping has been "dropping off" in the Snowdon area is a myth. Witness the steady increase in traffic and business activity since the Metro station was opened back in 1981.
Indeed, the station itself is currently under renovation with its feeder bus routes constantly busy. Students from the nearby Marie de France school take advantage of the many restaurants and depanneurs on Queen Mary during lunch hour and after classes end. Certainly some businesses do come and go, but this is no different from other commercial areas in the city.
During WWII and in the years following there was a serious housing shortage in Montreal. The former farmers' fields of the adjacent Cote des Neiges district slowly became subdivided and built upon in the 1950s in the area east of what became Westbury Avenue and up the hill towards Cote des Neiges Road and south of the CPR tracks to Queen Mary. The online aerial maps of Montreal clearly show just how sparsely populated Cote des Neiges was at that time. Brand new avenues of duplexes and apartment buildings were constructed so that nearby Snowdon's businesses and services inevitably became convenient to the new residents moving in from the deteriorating housing of eastern Montreal.
Since the Jewish General Hospital had for many years already owned large tracts of land westward down the hill to the Snowdon boundary at Westbury Avenue, over time these tracts were likewise sold and subdivided.
Snowdon--The Shopping District
ReplyDeletePart Two:
The fact that Snowdon Junction at the corner of Queen Mary (then named as a continuation of Cote St. Luc Road) and Decarie (originally named Monkland Boulevard) had for decades already been a convenient streetcar route transfer point and later loop only added to the traffic which later increased so severely that the creation of the new Garland streetcar terminus became necessary. It was therefore only natural that additional retail businesses, services, and restaurants would appear on Decarie north of Queen Mary Road.
Circa 1913-14, Trans Island Avenue (which was probably if briefly a two-way street!), then Mountain Sights (originally named Fortier Avenue), and Westbury began to be laid out in their current, narrow width one block north from Queen Mary Road, the latter two streets then ending abruptly at what would eventually be named Isabella Avenue. This narrow street design presumably continued the archaic street planning procedure of the city's much older eastern districts.
However, in subsequent years a wider street grid emerged inside of Cote des Neiges and it would be interesting to learn who in the Montreal city planning department decided on this more user-friendly street-width arrangement.
Maplewood (later renamed Edouard-Montpetit) and Lacombe were two of the earliest streets to run all the way west from Cote des Neiges Road toward the Snowdon district, then itself designated as NDG Ward 3.
Ridgevale Avenue was renamed St. Kevin Avenue, evidently at the request of the Catholic church on the corner of Cote des Neiges Road, but I digress.
Following the contruction of the Decarie Depressway during 1964-67, Garland Terminus was demolished and later replaced by Le Castel Blanc townhouse complex at 6280 Decarie and Les Habitations Newman retirement apartments at 6300. Car dealerships and gas service stations came and went along Decarie. From Snowdon, the Metro Orange Line swerved east of Decarie, thus favouring the dense population of Cote des Neiges.
Perhaps some day in the 22nd century when a brave and sympathetic politician decides to allocate the necessary funding to completely cover the Decarie Depressway--thus eliminating its noise and air pollution--the Snowdon district will finally be transformed into the idyllic place it deserves to become.
Now I am addicted to QuizUp.
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived on Saranac after the War, we did most of our shopping in the Snowdon area.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we DID do what might be called Major Shopping on Ste. Catherine at Morgan's, Eaton's Simpson's and Ogilvy's. they all, I assume, had delivery service, as we went down and back by streetcar.
Before the War, north end folks shopped on St. Hubert of the first trolley busses, I understand.
My Mother had a metal plate in a leather holder in her purse, called a Charga Plate to pay for big purchases.
The plates came in various colours, and there was a cardboard tag inserted into the back with personal info written on it.
Years ago, someone on Coolopolis fleshed out the Charga Plate story, Probably Mr. U.L.??
From way back my Father had a Shell gas card, which, I think was a fibre, rather than a true plastic card.
We gassed up the New Car, a Nash, for the first time at the Shell @ Sherbrooke and Elmhurst by the Tramways' Loop @ 25 cents a gallon. Being a New Customer, he received a round 'Shellzone' bimetal thermometer on a suction cup for the dash of the Nash.
He moved it from car to car, a magnet replacing the cup as latter perished in heat.
It went with the car, along with the Shell Cards and old oval 'Ford' emblems from the twenties, a Mack Bull Dog, etc. just before my Father passed away, a big boat 4 Door Pontiac from his second wife for $1 to a friend who makes model live steam locomotives and needed a big car to haul the engines around.
We used one of his engines, me on a flat car, to ride around their loop, me scattering my Father's ashes behind steam.
I later got to run the engine, but, prefer the 56 1/2 inch ones.
More of his ashes went in MTC 1046 a Delson, as he rode that car to Montreal High in the thirties.
We then went to once-Intervale on the CNR, just south of Huberdeau and spread more ashes around the once-wye. The ashes definitely 'got around'. Others @ Tramways' Ahuntsic Station @ Millen, and @ Kelly/LaJeunesse at the Petro Can as thats where their house once was.
The Intervale sign is at the CRHA at Delson.
In 1963? helped lay track at Delson in the mud in a hurry for the MTC streetcar collection as the CRHA had to make instant room as the MTC was demolishing Youville Shops for the Metro.
Here is Snowdon Junction from the air, upper right, BEFORE Tramways moved to Terminus Garland.
http://archivesdemontreal.com/greffe/vues-aeriennes-archives/jpeg/VM97-3_7P12-18.jpg
After the streetcars came off the 17 Cartierville, we used to ride our bikes along Vezina, past Beaver Construction with all their junky orange and black equipment ( Billet Construction had even MORE junky machines! dark blue with elongated diamond on side or doors. ) the Beaver logo a hobo beaver, stick over his shoulder w/ a neckerchief, and a floppy hat smoking a cigar .
Suited the equipment.
We then would travel south on Little Decarie, past the DEP/ADT office, my Father was a machinist for DEP, and watch autobusses @ Garland, then go next door and look in the east window in the door at the M/G set inside the substation.
Garland Terminus, looking southish, substation beyond PCC car. Mountain in distance.
http://dewi.ca/trains/montreal/pix/a005_07.jpg
Another Tramways view.
Looking east on Queen Mary @ CdN. The short portion of a sorda Private Right of Way of the Tramways can be see bethind streetcar, beyond the Ford. In distance can be seen tower of U de M.
http://www.memorablemontreal.com/document/image/original/HM_ARC_002433-001.jpg
There was another curved sorda PRW SOUTH of Cote St. Luc Rd connecting over to Girouard. The LONG PRW was north of CSL to Queen Mary.
Gosh, but I digress.
More Blah, Blah, Blah.
Thank You.
I often stayed at my grandparents' place at Van Horne and Linton throughout the 1950's. I used to accompany my grandmother shopping and I remember small plazas, something that didn't exist anywhere else in Montreal until the 1960's.
ReplyDeleteThe Plaza Cote des Neiges took about ten years of delays and land negotiations before finally opening in October 1968.
ReplyDeleteUp until then, there was a wood panel fence along the street saying "future shopping centre".
In 1972 there was a bizarre murder there in the downstairs Ben Ash delicatessen, now long gone.
Incidently, the original plan for the Plaza Cote des Neiges included the construction of high-rise apartment buildings in the rear where the outdoor parking exists today instead.
ReplyDeleteHad those apartments been built, it would have meant serious traffic and parking problems along the adjacent residential streets.
According to a Google Search, the first shopping "mall" in Canada was The Toronto Arcade built in 1883. Then West Vancouver's Park Royal Shopping Centre had the distinction of being Canada's first shopping "centre" which opened in September 1950 as an open-air mall with Woodward's being one of the original developers and tenants. Also in 1950, the Norgate shopping centre opened in Ville St. Laurent at the northeast corner of Decarie and Cote Vertu. This served the then new and nearby Norgate housing project which consisted of cheap, cookie-cutter design apartment buildings that still exist today. These dwellings were constructed to ease the post-WWII housing shortage and were similar to those built in N.D.G.s Benny Farm subdivision and in the Cote des Neiges district.
ReplyDeleteAbout those Charga-Plates (pronounced Charge-a-plate): I remember my mother having one in the mid 1950s. It had a pinkish-red colour and preceded the eventual invention of the plastic Chargex card which was later rebranded Visa. Unfortunately, I never knew what became of my mother's Charga-Plate, but I assume she replaced it with a Chargex. Major department stores like Eaton's also offered their own plastic credit cards, one of which I've managed to keep as a souvenir as well as a Chargex card. Do a Google Search for more details.
As an aside, one may conclude that the invention of credit cards has destroyed western society forever by encouraging people to purchase what they cannot afford which over time has created a habit resulting in bad debts, an overheated economy, the requirement than women work as well as their husbands (who used to be the sole breadwinners of a family), resulting in the need for day-care services that governments end up financing, thereby increasing taxes, etc., etc.--a vicious circle where no one truly "gets ahead" as the cost of goods and services continually increase. Is it any wonder then that lotteries, casinos, legal cannabis, and now online gambling websites (all once considered unthinkable indeed illegal in a past, more innocent era) have come to dominate our lives in the daily grind? Ancient empires came and went just as ours will at some point.