riffintown and Point St. Charles were Canada’s GETTING THERE ALLAN BUILDING 3 New York. The canal was widened in the 1840s under NEW CITY GAS (Circa 1859) 7 to live. It was zoned as an industrial area in 1963. GRIFFINTOWNGRIFFINTOWN ANDAND Gfirst industrial slums, home to Irish 4 rue d’Youville conditions of bitter conflict between contractors and 956 rue Ottawa, corner Dalhousie Then in 1967 part of the neighbourhood was immigrants who fled the potato famines in the Start your exploration of old Griffintown and Point St. Irish labourers. Working 16 hours a day for low wages, demolished to make way for the Bonaventure 1800s and generations of their descendants. Charles at the Victoria Square metro station, at the The Allan building (1858) housed the offices of the labourers were paid in company scrip that could only be Built in 1859, this is one of Montreal’s oldest surviving Expressway. Having lost most of its parishioners, POINTPOINT ST.ST. CHARLESCHARLES western edge of Old Montreal. Go south along Victoria Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, belonging to exchanged in company stores. A particularly violent factory buildings. The New City Gas Company burned St. Ann’s church was torn down in 1970. The site At the height of famine in the 1840s, as many as Square and turn left on McGill Street. Hugh Allan, a Scottish-born businessman once strike took place in 1843. coke to produce gas, which was used to light Montreal’s of the church is a park today. HERITAGEHERITAGE TRAILTRAIL 30,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Montreal considered the richest man in Canada. A mark on the streets, before the advent of electricity. each year. Thousands died of typhus in fever MCGILL STREET 1 Allan building commemorates the springtime flood of Once widened, the canal was a source of hydraulic Turn right on Wellington Street and cross sheds along the harbourfront. Some who 1886, one of the worst of the late 19th century. The energy for Montreal’s early factories. By 1850, the canal 8 Wellington Bridge into Point St. Charles. Like McGill Street is the boundary between Old Montreal GRIFFINTOWN HORSE PALACE survived the journey settled where they landed, flood was particularly disastrous for Griffintown and was Montreal’s core industrial area. The canal was 1220 - 1224 rue Ottawa Griffintown, Point St. Charles was once more on low-lying land at the edge of the St. Lawrence and Griffintown. The city’s western wall, torn down Point St. Charles as well as Old Montreal. widened again by Irish workers between 1873 and 1885, densely populated than it is today. In the early River. Here they laboured on the docks, in local between 1804 and 1817, was located here, adjacent to again with strikes and labour unrest. In the second half The buildings and yard at 1220 - 1224 Ottawa Street 20th century its main drag was a bustling street foundries, brickworks, soap factories, breweries, the Old Port. Outside the wall lay one of the city’s oldest 4 of the 19th century, Montreal’s business élite continued house one of the last remaining stables in central with a market, taverns, hotels, banks and stores. suburbs, a former seigneurial property owned by the JOE BEEF’S TAVERN Montreal. The Griffintown Horse Palace has been an flour mills and train yards. 201-207 rue de la Commune to invest in transportation infrastructure, ensuring the It’s interesting to note that Wellington Street MP-1989.15.44. Hotel-Dieu nuns and leased for farming. The area was city’s industrial and commercial preeminence. By the Irish-owned stable since the 1860s. Today, the stable follows a French colonial road that once linked This Heritage Trail walking tour leads to variously known as the Nazareth fief and the Récollets Charles McKiernan, born in Ireland, was given the early 20th century, the canal was part of a network that takes care of horses that pull tourist calèches in Old Old Montreal to Lachine. At the time of the landmarks and points of interest in two of suburb before 1804, when Mary Griffin, wife of a soap- nickname Joe Beef during his years as quartermaster for included the Grand Trunk Railway, the Victoria Bridge, Montreal. Conquest in 1759, General Amherst and his Montreal’s oldest working-class neighbourhoods, factory owner, acquired the lease and set about to the British Army during the Crimean War. He ran his and modern harbour facilities. British troops marched east along this route into through streets inhabited by builders of the subdivide the land and plan streets. Irish immigrants famous waterfront tavern in this building from 1870 till ST. ANN’S DAY NURSERY (1914) 9 the city. Lachine Canal, the Grand Trunk Railway and began to settle in Griffintown around 1815. From 1821 his death in 1889. The tavern was well known to sailors The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 made the old canal redundant and factories began to close. The 287 Eleanor the Victoria Bridge. St. Ann’s ward, which to 1825, labourers from Griffintown were employed in and tramps, a source of food and shelter for the down- BLACK ROCK K included Griffintown and the eastern part of the digging of the Lachine Canal. and-out. Joe Beef was famous for helping striking canal was filled in at the harbour entrance in the early From the corner of Ottawa and Eleanor streets, this Point St. Charles, furnished much of the brawn workers. He supported Lachine Canal workers during 1960s and closed at the Lachine end in 1970. It elegant brick and terracotta-tile building stands out. It A short side trip down Bridge Street leads to a that fueled the city’s industrial growth in the GRAND TRUNK BUILDING 2 the strikes of 1877 and workers on strike at the east-end remained closed for over 30 years as the southwest went was once the Day Nursery of St. Ann’s Kindergarten, run unique tribute to Montreal’s Irish legacy, the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hudon textile factory in 1882. through a period of economic decline. In 2002, the canal by the Sisters of Providence. Today the building is Black Rock monument. Stay on the east (left) 360 rue McGill reopened for pleasure boating. Griffintown and “the Point” grew up round the occupied by King’s Transfer Van Lines, a moving side of the street and walk south toward the The Grand Trunk Railway spared no expense to build Joe Beef was also famous for keeping a menagerie of wild hub of Montreal’s vast sea-to-rail shipping Follow the railway tracks alongside Grain Elevator No. 5 company started by Griffintowner William O’Donnell Victoria Bridge. The monument, an enormous this opulent head office building, inaugurated in 1902. animals in the basement. Mention is made of four black system. Where the harbour, the canal and the and come out near Mill Street. Cross the bridge to the in 1926. The business is now run by his grandson as part piece of granite weighing 30 tons, stands just Incorporated in 1852, the Grand Trunk had an bears, ten monkeys, three wild cats, a porcupine and an railway joined, Irish and French-Canadian north side of the canal and jog left along rue de la of Atlas Van Lines. south of Mill Street in the middle of the enormous impact on Canada’s development, alligator. Apparently he sometimes brought a bear up families weaved their homes into proud and Commune to Prince Street. You are now in Griffintown. Turn left and head south on rue Montagne until you expressway, surrounded by an iron fence undertaking construction of the country’s first main from the basement to restore order when patrons got too vibrant working-class communities. Follow Prince north to Ottawa Street and turn left. come to a park, the site of Griffintown’s historic parish decorated with shamrocks. railway line — the “trunk” from which all branch lines unruly. church. The Black Rock was lifted out of the river in Until the neighbourhood was partly bulldozed in were expected to spring. Now return to the Allan Building, cross rue de la 6 the 1960s to build the Bonaventure Expressway, DARLING BROTHERS FOUNDRY 1859 by workers building the Victoria Bridge. Operations of the Grand Trunk also shaped the growth Commune and the railway tracks and follow the Griffintown was at the heart of Montreal’s Irish (Circa 1918) ST. ANN’S CHURCH J The workers decided to make it into a memorial of Point St. Charles. In 1861, the Grand Trunk was riverfront to the railway bridge. The middle of the bridge community. Point St. Charles’s mixed Irish, 745 rue Ottawa Historic Site for the thousands of Irish immigrants who had Montreal’s largest industrial employer. A third of the marks the entrance to the historic Lachine Canal. English, Scottish and French-Canadian died of typhus in 1847. The rock marks the site company’s manufacturing jobs were located in the Point. This is the second foundry built by the Darling Brothers. St. Ann’s Church was the heart of Griffintown’s Irish inhabitants shared their neighbourhood with of a mass grave. The building belongs to the Quebec government today. 5 The first one, located east of here, was built in 1889. The Catholic community. Built in 1854, it was Montreal’s Ukrainians and Poles who emigrated to Quebec LACHINE CANAL Ask if the doorman will let you in to admire the company was very successful from the start and went on second English Catholic church after St. Patrick’s (1847). The epidemic was a frightening experience for in the early 1900s.