Saint Lawrence Boulevard has always been an important street
in Montreal. It is the dividing line for the
city;
addresses for east-west streets begin here. Traditionally, anglophones lived
west of here, while francophones lived to the east. In English the street is
also known as 'The Main' because for many years it was the main street of the
Saint-Louis district.
The street was established in the early 18th century during the French Régime and extended north from the city, all the way to Sault-aux-Récollets on the Rivière des Prairies. By the 1830's, the road passed through many fertile farms and orchards. Several wealthy people owned mansions on long narrow farms stretching north from Sherbrooke Street. Stanley Clark Bagg, who would become the largest landowner on the Island of Montreal, and for whom Clark and Bagg Streets were named, owned the land just west of Saint Lawrence extending one mile north from Sherbrooke. Houses began to appear in the countryside in the 1850's. For the most part, these mansions lined Sherbrooke Street. It was a middle class area, inhabited primarily by English-speaking merchants, businessmen and tradespeople.
For a time the physical barrier of the slope below Sherbrooke Street was a social barrier as well. However, the barrier was weakened when the Montreal City Passenger Railway Company opened a line of horse-drawn tramways extending as far north as Mont-Royal Boulevard. As two horses had quite a hard time negotiating the hill, an extra team of animals was added. Once the tramway was electrified in 1892, it was no longer difficult to climb the slope. A new wave of working class immigrants came to this area when progroms in Russia started a stream of fleeing Jews in the early 1880's. The stream soon became a flood, and by the 1920's, Yiddish was heard everywhere around Saint-Laurent.
We will see many remnants of the Jewish area in our walk along the street. Wealthy Jews established textile factories in the area, but most Jews were poor working people struggling to survive. The factory owners employed whatever cheap labor they could hire making no distinctions in their exploitation.
During the 1930's, the center of the Jewish community moved northward past Mont-Royal Boulevard. After the Second World War the Jews moved even further away. The Greeks followed one step behind. They settled first on Saint Lawrence near Sherbrooke and later moved northward. Park Avenue became an axis of the Greek community along its entire length. Many other people from diverse ethnic groups settled along The Main. Hungarians, Slavs Portuguese and Latin-Americans have all made this stretch of Montreal an exciting place to shop on.
In the last few years, more upscale trendy products are taking over stores on Saint Lawrence Street. The large airy lofts of the buildings on Saint Lawrence Street are an attraction to designers and artists. A large number of New-Wave clothing stores have moved onto the street. This influx of new tenants has begun to pressure the rents upwards. It is possible that the ethnic flavor which makes the street unique will be lost, giving way to yet another chic artery.
To illustrate how quickly a neighbourhood can change, it is interesting to note that Guilbaut's Zoological Gardens were located between Saint Lawrence, Saint Urbain, Guilbaut and Prince Arthur from the 1830's to 1885. John Kalbfleisch quoted from the Septempber 14, 1858 edition of "The Montreal Gazette", precisely 150 years after this information's first appearance, that this zoological garden had been a favorite of tourists and residents alike. The quote from the newspaper mentioned that "the Museum of Curiosities has been greatly augmented" and spoke about a Gymnasium, Aerial Boats, Swings and other Amusements. Kalbfleish indicated an entance fee of 12 cents at the time.1 The gardens included wild animals, sideshows and acrobatic performances. Their great popularity for group picnics and other outings did not prevent the disappearance of the zoo in 1885 during a construction boom. Now there is no hint of the existance of this former major Montreal destination.
Will the ethnic character of The Main suffer a similar fate?
1. Montreal Gazette, September 14, 2008 page A16.