Posted at 11:30 a.m.
What’s this ?
A walk with a guide in the Centre-Sud district, mainly on Ontario Street, to rediscover its working-class past and observe the vestiges of an agro-industrial past, many of which remain clearly visible. The podcast is the result of a collaboration between the Écomusée du fier monde and Audiotopie.
What to expect ?
To walk slowly, first. Once you’ve downloaded the audio files, you set off, letting yourself be guided by the narrator of a story set at the beginning of the last century (most of it takes place between 1927 and 1928) which features the shopkeepers, notables and workers in a bustling popular district and their way of life. The route focuses on the factories installed in the district (David biscuit factory, the jam factory which now houses the Usine C theater, the Saint-Jacques market, the Imperial Tobacco, etc.) and its agri-food vocation. Strolling along rue Ontario and making multiple incursions into the neighboring streets, one has the feeling of walking between two eras: one “sees” the working-class past of yesterday and one also realizes that, even if this neighborhood is in transformation, it remains a place where many disadvantaged people converge. We’re also surprised to learn that some neighborhood brands like Quincaillerie Moussette and Le Cheval Blanc microbrewery (formerly a tavern) already existed a century ago.
Rue Ontario, yesterday and today
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ECO-MUSEUM PHOTO OF THE PROUD WORLD
The Généreux bath (2050, rue Atateken) offered the working population of the neighborhood the opportunity to take a good bath rather than limit themselves to the tub installed in the apartment. The building now houses the Écomusée du fier monde.
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PHOTO SARKA VANCUROVA, THE PRESS
The Le Cheval Blanc microbrewery was a tavern in 1927, when the podcast begins Ontario Street. In the story told there, the journalist Émile Coderre, who wrote poems evoking the life of the “gueux” under the pseudonym Jean Nâche, discusses the origins of the typhoid epidemic that struck Montreal and the working-class neighborhood that is now called Centre-Sud.
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ECO-MUSEUM PHOTO OF THE PROUD WORLD
The Saint-Jacques market, corner Atateken and Ontario, as it was around 1910, before the fire that destroyed it
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ECO-MUSEUM PHOTO OF THE PROUD WORLD
The Raymond jam and marinade factory, avenue Lalonde, in 1959
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PHOTO SARKA VANCUROVA, THE PRESS
A view of Usine C, housed in the building that once housed the Raymond jam and pickle factory, set back from rue Ontario Est, between rue Panet and rue de la Visitation
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PHOTO SARKA VANCUROVA, THE PRESS
The former David biscuit factory, located at 930, rue De Champlain, now houses the Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul.
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ECO-MUSEUM PHOTO OF THE PROUD WORLD
The De Lorimier stadium, inaugurated in 1928, was where we see the multipurpose Pierre-Dupuy today. It has hosted the Montreal Royals games of the International Baseball League. It was demolished in the 1960s.
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PHOTO SARKA VANCUROVA, THE PRESS
The Macdonald Tobacco building, of neo-Renaissance inspiration, still sits at the corner of Ontario East and D’Iberville streets.
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Little tips
Since the first stop on the route is the Le Cheval Blanc microbrewery, you might be tempted to leave from the Berri-UQAM metro station. Do not do that. The podcast tells a story that really begins at Sherbrooke station and guides our steps from the first moments on Berri and Sherbrooke streets towards Ontario street. It is not advisable to do the circuit by bike: the artery of the Centre-Sud district does not have a bike path, and you would be constantly out of sync with the podcast, which would spoil the experience.
How to get there ?
Whether or not you use public transport, you go to the Sherbrooke station. The route ends near the Frontenac station.
Duration
About an hour, depending on the length of the breaks you take.