Think of Circle Road as Summit Circle lite.
Crazily-wealthy Sam Bronfman was one of the original residents of Westmount's mountain-crowning Summit Circle while not-so-crazily wealthy Sam Steinberg was one of the first to settle on Circle Road in NDG in the 30s and 40s.
Seventy years later the residents of Circle Rd were still imagining themselves to be part of that fine mountaintop tradition, without realizing that they are not actually part of the club they imagine themselves to be in.
The street has long been infected with the Westmount-wannabe virus, and one initiative from September 2000, organized by resident Richard Simon saw 98 percent of street residents inking a petition in hopes of joining Westmount.*
They wanted better snow clearance, lower taxes, a cuter library, more English services and increased home values.
The street is not geographically connected to Westmount.
The proposal would have created an unprecedented, separate island of Westmountness, a sort of Beemer-driving municipal equivalent of cold war West Berlin.
The street, which is otherwise no great shakes, might harbour delusions of exclusivity due to the fact that it's a pain-in-the-butt to access.
If you're in a car at the corner of Victoria and The Boulevard, you cannot even get to Circle without going down to Cote St. Luc, turning right and then going up Ponsard. A lot of driving for what? Who's the designer that made Bonavista a dead end?
Ottawa writer Bill Conrod, who has penned a pair of books about the Snowdon area (Because what is there to do in Ottawa but wish you were in Montreal? -Chimples) - with healthy bits of help from contributors - has asked if anybody out there knows how or why the street was originally laid out as such.
Please toss a bone in the comments below if you know the back-story.
The only flashy bits of history from the street? A home on the street was the first choice for an FLQ kidnapping before the Quebec separatist terrorists opted to go west to take Jame Cross in October 1970. And it was also the site of a 1980 hostage standoff involving a downtown jeweler.
* Homes on Mira, Iona, Glencairn, Meridian and Ponsard were also part of the proposal.
Crazily-wealthy Sam Bronfman was one of the original residents of Westmount's mountain-crowning Summit Circle while not-so-crazily wealthy Sam Steinberg was one of the first to settle on Circle Road in NDG in the 30s and 40s.
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| 1940 Map courtesy Jim M. |
Seventy years later the residents of Circle Rd were still imagining themselves to be part of that fine mountaintop tradition, without realizing that they are not actually part of the club they imagine themselves to be in.
The street has long been infected with the Westmount-wannabe virus, and one initiative from September 2000, organized by resident Richard Simon saw 98 percent of street residents inking a petition in hopes of joining Westmount.*
They wanted better snow clearance, lower taxes, a cuter library, more English services and increased home values.
The street is not geographically connected to Westmount.
The proposal would have created an unprecedented, separate island of Westmountness, a sort of Beemer-driving municipal equivalent of cold war West Berlin.
The street, which is otherwise no great shakes, might harbour delusions of exclusivity due to the fact that it's a pain-in-the-butt to access.
If you're in a car at the corner of Victoria and The Boulevard, you cannot even get to Circle without going down to Cote St. Luc, turning right and then going up Ponsard. A lot of driving for what? Who's the designer that made Bonavista a dead end?
Ottawa writer Bill Conrod, who has penned a pair of books about the Snowdon area (Because what is there to do in Ottawa but wish you were in Montreal? -Chimples) - with healthy bits of help from contributors - has asked if anybody out there knows how or why the street was originally laid out as such.Please toss a bone in the comments below if you know the back-story.
The only flashy bits of history from the street? A home on the street was the first choice for an FLQ kidnapping before the Quebec separatist terrorists opted to go west to take Jame Cross in October 1970. And it was also the site of a 1980 hostage standoff involving a downtown jeweler.
* Homes on Mira, Iona, Glencairn, Meridian and Ponsard were also part of the proposal.
A Circle Road story from the Forties.
ReplyDeleteBack, after the War, we lived on Saranac off of Decarie where I attended Iona School beyond Circle Road in Wannabe Westmount.
Anyway, at the top end of Saranac then was 'bush' and we just walked thru a path, onto Circle, then along to Iona Ave and the school.
One day a crew showed up with a back hoe and, soon a house was built.
We then had to travel around by the Decarie end of Saranac and back up and along Ponsard, more than doubling the distance and putting our parents into fits, as Decarie was a very busy road even then with heavy trucks backfiring down from CSL to Snowdon Jct. at QM. all still at ground level.
There was a Supertest gas station on the NE corner.
Decarie was definitely Off Limits to children!
( Can't forget the Chish and Fip place @ Dalou! )
On Saranac yet another crew showed up, as the last vacant lot on the south side was to be developed, BUT, this crew had a STEAM SHOVEL!!! with the bucket and bottom door on hinges like a jaw.
It burned coal, and smelled better than Diesel. Water came from a hose to a hydrant.
We loved it!!!!
( A back hoe usually digs from around the edge of the hole. A Dipper Shovel usually digs a ramp down into the expanding hole and there loads trucks which drive up and down the ramp to the street.)
Photo of Steam Shovel and trucks. Don't know why trucks are facing shovel, tho'.
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/a1/97/cb/a197cb4f4c0dd0b19ece19e317696b58.jpg
Blah, Blah, Blah.
We moved to NDG in '51 and Rosedale School, our first year there in the old school/church hall on SE corner Mariette and Terrebonne, this structure being demolished in fall 1963 around time JFK was shot.
Anyway, years later I went back ito Saranac in the Bell and, with older eyes, noticed a driveway and garage at the end of Saranac where the bush used to be.
Odd, just a driveway and garage facing the street.
BUT, the house itself faced on Circle, @ 4910. So, to drive around with the car you'd have to go around by Ponsard, a thrill, now with the Decarie trench!! or the other way.
So, in a way, we kids 'got even' for them taking our path to Iona away.
The present 4910 Circle on Google looks seedy, and has a forest growing in the evestrough.
There once was an alley parallel to Decarie behind the gas station and other businesses facing Decarie, but, they, and the alley were swallowed up, as the the big bank on the corner at QM.
Idle Thoughs of decades ago.
Photo from top of bank @ QM and Decarie looking north. Streetcars gone, wires down, autobusses using old right of way to Terminus Garland.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/2710669505_936b5b4e63_o.png
Working on Decarie. Concrete mixer to right is an Autocar, rest are Macks. Love the road roller!
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3686/14122027420_0689e61fa1_z.jpg
Old View at Snowdon Jct.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4011/decariehistorique.jpg
Decarie Circle looking West along Cote de Liesse. Laurentien/ Marcil Laurin comes in above Sunoco station.
Streetcar tracks Cartierville 17 at bottom of photo, North South. Sliding-window Brill.
Twin striped chimneys are on a City Incinerator.
http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/about/history/decarie-interchange-1957.jpg
Thank You!
The earliest map I possess which shows the street layout plan for Circle Road is from 1913.
ReplyDeleteThe property was officially designated as cadastre 150 and originally owned by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame which operated the nearby Villa Maria Girls School, the centre building of which was originally the home of Canadian Attorney General James Monk--hence Monklands.
I have not yet researched the exact date when the nun's actually sold the property to the City of Montreal or for how long the lot stood empty before being built upon.
I sometimes do the walk up around Circle Road as it is a neat and handy exercise. One notices right away that, compared to other less fortunate districts in the city, pavement repairs are quickly made and the street sweepers and water trucks are more frequently active as well. Perhaps some city bigshots live up along there.
The well-kept homes of the affluent in this enclave are varied in size and design with renovations taking place almost continually.
There is a convenient pedestrian path connecting Cote St. Luc Road with Maurice-Cullen Park.
A downside to living here, however, is the constant traffic noise coming from the Decarie Depressway.
Other nearby "Westmount wannabe streets" include Cedar Crescent, Stanley-Weir, Michel-Bibaud, and Miller Avenue, likewise consisting of lavish residences.
Incidentally, there are some Montreal streets in an enclave called Glenmount which has seen some resident petitioning to join the adjacent Town of Mount of Mount Royal, presumably for better municipal services.
FROM MP & I - PT 1
ReplyDeleteCircle Road in it's entirety!
http://archivesdemontreal.com/greffe/vues-aeriennes-archives/jpeg/VM97-3_7P12-19.jpg
Captures many of the subjects talked about on Coolopolis and embellished by resident experts.
Thank You, Messers. G. and L and Chimples and many others.
Iona School can be seen, along with Saranac, where we once resided, the last lot on the south of the Steam Shovel still undeveloped, as well as the one which blocked off access to Iona, later 4910 Circle.
Old Snowdon Junction before the Tramways moved to Terminus Garland is prominent.
Our house on Saranac, c. 1923, was a fourplex, with my Father owning Up and Down on one half, my Aunt and Uncle as renters above until they moved to Prince of Wales to a new house across from then-new Benny Farm on Monkland, Cavendish under construction thru to Somerled and North, little traffic enraging circle btwn Monkland and Sherbrooke til '62.
There were four coal/coke furnaces in the basements on Saranac and the men looked after each others' when one or the other family was away.
Side door in alley on side of houses to basements.
I now recall all four bathrooms up and down and next. were connected by a light shaft, they visible on the roof, doors on hinges w/frosted glass in corner of each bathroom over the tub. Odd sounds and grunts could be heard in hallways, etc. if doors left open for ventilation.
Beautiful varnished wood work panels and wainscotting and glass doors into dining room w/electric wall sconces and flame-shaped bulbs. Long hall to run down at full speed, then slide on the wood or kitchen floor on socks.
SAME COMMENT FROM MP & I - PT 2
ReplyDeleteGas stove with strike-anywhere match holder beside, the match box having sand glued on sides to strike matches on.
Hot water taps would gush steam in very cold weather if furnace being 'forced', as water heating pipe for washing and baths passed thru the firebox.
There was a little room with a drain off the kitchens for the Ice Box. We had an electric Frigidaire by then and my Father put a Bendix washing machine in ice box room, using the drain.
Was back into one of the homes in the Bell, and it had been all changed and painted. Looked awful, full of renters who did not give a shit.
At the very top left of photo the Tramways' tracks on QM can be seen just starting to turn South onto their right of way down to CSL and Girouard.
( The East side of the Decarie service road above the trench would be along the alley behind the business fronting Decarie in the 1947 view. )
The bank on the SE corner of QM and Decarie not yet enlarged.
QM and Decarie looking West. 'Small' bank on corner to left, Decarie to CSL beyond.
My Father and I came down to watch this construction as the Tramways moved to Ternimus Garland.
http://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/histoire/ht4_1950_3-950-005_travaux_sur_decarie.jpg
Much 'Empty' too!
Would like to go back, for a while, but might not want to stay??
Like to try, tho'?
Thank You, All.
9:22 am Delete
Blogger M. P. and I. said...
Regarding salt substitute.
Probably like the 50-mile-per-gallon carburetor supposedly developed in the fifties that all the oil companies bought up to keep consumption, and profits ( and taxes ) high.
Cheap salt now, large maintenance expense later? after several elections?
If the bridges and roads did not wear out as fast there'd be no road work and spin off patronage jobs and taxation and Govt. spending of OUR money all for US!
See it will still be the Champlain Bridge, when done.
Well, not all of our tax money is for us, some? must go for wages, benefits, pensions, expenses perks, etc at the Snivel Service level??
Democracy and our version of Capitalism works very well as long as the tree and the Golden Goose have lots of apples and eggs.
A recent McLeans magazine had an article on jobs and the future of pensions, etc. for the so-called Middle Class.
What is the 'Middle Class', today??
Reading a book on 'Automation', 'The Glass Cage' by Nicholas Carr which is illuminating, to say the least.
Scary.
Glad I can remember 1947! and street cars at the Snowdon Theatre and the word Pension still carried weight.
The Circle Road enclave in Snowdon is certainly unique. As Urban Legend writes, the streets and street names were already laid out as early as 1913. Although adjacent, there was a huge change between Ponsard from Decarie to Circle Road and Ponsard beyond. There were only four entrances to the enclave: Ponsard from Decarie, Ponsard from Queen Mary, Circle from Queen Mary, and Mira from Victoria. Later a fifth was added when dead end Globert was opened to Circle from Decarie.
ReplyDeleteA Goad Fire Insurance map from 1912-1914 map shows two early duplexes at 242/244 and 246/248 Ponsard between Decarie and Circle Road. The addresses would be changed in later years when the numbering system changed. The first residents show up in the 1915-1916 directory as S. Castle and Albion Jones at 244 and Ed Lynes and William Henshaw at 246. The buildings might still be there. The majority of the buildings on that section of Ponsard and all those little dead end streets off Decarie were built in the 1920s. There is nothing built in the Circle Road area and within.
Interestingly a 1921 Goad map appears to have mistakes in the street names in the area. The small dead end streets are (from North to South) Globert, Byron, Musset, Dalou, Dupuis, Bourret, and Ponsard. Ponsard is shown where Jacques-Grenier is, Bourret where Ponsard is and Dupuis where Saranac is. Saranac at one time was named Murat as I recall.
By the time of the 1940 Goad map, there are houses built in the Circle Road area, but mostly along Ponsard between the two ends of Circle Road, several along Glencairn, Mira and Meridien and a few on lower Circle near Iona School. Much of the area is still relatively empty. (I have sent it to Kristian to post.)
In later years, Montreal City Councillor (and sports shop owner) Gerry Snyder lived on Ponsard at the corner of Circle Road near the Queen Mary end. As many will recall, he was instrumental in Montreal getting the Expos and the 1976 Olympics. There was another official of some kind at a house where Circle Road and Ponsard intersect near Decarie at the other end. I remember soldiers guarding the house during the 1970 FLQ crisis.
I delivered the Montreal Star in the area. Later I helped a Dominion Dairies milkman on his route there during his busy Saturday run. And still later, I worked on snow removal in that district. The usual routine was to clear Decarie first, then some of the major cross streets like Queen Mary, Van Horne and so on. I still remember when a city foreman told our boss to move the crew and equipment from a major street to a part of Circle Road to clear space for street parking in front of a house for someone’s private event. I can’t recall whose house it was but it definitely wasn’t Gerry Snyder. The area was always a priority after major commercial streets and was always worked on only between 7PM and 12 midnight. The only time the midnight cut-off convention was ever changed was during major snowstorms.
When researching the history of Montreal's built-up areas subdivided from former fields and farmlands, Lovell's Directory and historical maps cannot be relied on for the complete story.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it should be clear to anyone delving into our past that Lovell's--as with any such directory--can only accurately list addresses and resident names after the fact since there is obviously a publishing time delay following actual building construction. Then one must factor-in omitted and/or misspelt resident surnames, the result of human error by former Lovell employees canvassing those new districts, much the same as census-takers once did.
As for old maps, many of them are in fact merely "plans" drawn up by surveyors who hand-printed tentative street "names" yet to be officially designated by the city.
This is why, for example, many maps will show "1st, 2nd, and 3rd Avenues" when it has not been decided what their real names will become once the tracts have been opened up and even before all of the individual lots within those tracts have been sold. For expediency, in many cases such tentative street names were either deliberate or unwitting duplicates of streets which already existed in east-end districts.
Decades ago, the temptation by surveyors to use "Molson Avenue" again and again all over town would have proved to be confusing to say the least, although it must be said that the current overusage of "de l'Eglise" and "Boulevard Industriel" (thus infuriating delivery men) has become somewhat of a farce at this point.
Indeed, an 1873 map of Mount Royal Vale (NDG) delineates "Molson Avenue" (later officially named Clanranald) to veer all the way north across Cote Vertu and eventually into Abord a Plouffe (Laval!), this, of course, being decades before the eventually-named Decarie Boulevard was constructed north of what became known as Queen Mary Road.
The curious misnomer that is Trans Island Avenue was most likely the result of some city planner thinking aloud and stealing it from frequent newspaper articles which referred to long-promised "trans-island" routes criss-crossing the city and even over non-existent bridges envisioned to link off-island suburbs. Indeed, during the many years before Metropolitain Boulevard actually became a reality, it had often been tagged with the "trans-island" term for obvious reasons. But, I digress.
Researchers requiring precise information about property bills of sale with signatures, cadastre (tract) numbers, dwelling construction dates and so on, must visit the Montreal Registry Office (Bureau d'Enregistrements) and/or the Office of Permits and Inspections (Bureau des Permis). Such detailed data is often crucial when purchasing property and where there is a need to know if a fence has been accurately placed, where pipes were installed, and so on.
It is entirely possible that such registry offices may today be located in various locations around the city and not in one central location as it used to be, however, so better call ahead and know exactly what you are looking for so that the staff can locate particular documents more easily and quickly. Once there, make notes and keep them for further reference.
Several years ago I visited the Registry Office and browsed through dusty, ancient, thick-covered tomes in order to verify particular land sales identifying who sold what to whom and when. It was very enlightening.
It is to hoped that all such official records will be copied to microfilm or, better yet, to online databases--a massive endeavour to be sure.
Much of Cote Saint Luc, where I live, is like the Circle Road area, only much more so. I'm talking, in particular, about the northern part of CSL that is entirely surrounded by rail tracks and railyards (e.g. where the Cavendish Mall and the CSL Tennis Club are located). That area can only be legally accessed by the general public (as opposed to workers of Canadian Pacific, which owns those tracks and yards) from the south along the Cavendish and Westminster underpasses. For decades there has been much discussion of opening up Cavendish to the north (to Saint Laurent and the TMR industrial park) - and, for a time, opening up Kildare to Jean Talon. In the meantime, and perhaps for always, CSL is the Circle Road area writ quite large. If accessing the Circle Road area is a pain in the butt, accessing northern CSL is a ROYAL pain in the butt.
ReplyDeleteRegarding "land-locked" City of Cote St. Luc, you can thank the long parade of its mayors who deliberately played "hot potato" with the extension of Cavendish Boulevard over or under the railway yards and into Ville St. Laurent and the ongoing dispute with Montreal regarding jurisdiction and how vehicular traffic patterns will be configured.
ReplyDeleteSome of this traffic pressure will be relieved once the former Blue Bonnets property has been developed requiring road access into Cote St. Luc, presumably linking Mackle Road with Jean Talon.
Rest assured that quiet jockeying for property ownership in this sector is already taking place which should place even more pressure for Cavendish to be completed as well.
It will be much less expensive to build a Cavendish overpass across the railway yards (similar to the one connecting Van Horne with Rosemont Boulevard) than to excavate a tunnel.
Indeed, a tunnel would turn out to be a huge boondoggle should the railway yards ever be reduced in size or even closed entirely; yards which may very well be moved elsewhere off-island at some point in the future. (Note the now-abandoned Wellington Tunnel replaced by an overpass).
Obviously, a Cavendish overpass instead could be easily demolished and the former railway property beneath it redeveloped accordingly, as has routinely occurred in other parts of the city, i.e., Turcot Yards, Glen Yards, Angus Shops, Little Burgundy, etc.
Sam Steinberg never lived on circle road. However his brother Nathan lived there. Sam lived on Aberdeen.
ReplyDelete