Mile End - The Rialto Theatre Opening Night 1924

The Rialto on a wintry day just before its opening on 27 December 1924. 

The ‘torch’ and the building-long iron-and-glass canopy are in place, and the ads for the opening movie, In Every Woman’s Life, are in the panels beside the doors. A florist, dress shop and tobacconist are among the stores already open.

The lobby in 1930: lots of marble and a fancy lamp. The door on the left led to the loges, the next to the orchestra. The third door was an exit for those leaving the theatre, and the stairway led to the balcony.


No wonder people build with marble. This is the lobby stairway in 1987, unmarred by sixty years of use.

The hall in 1930, with the great vaults of decorative plaster and stained glass on the ceiling and under the balcony. 

No other Montreal theatre had features quite like these, nor the amount or variety of both decorative plaster and stained glass. 

The vault’s colour-scheme was sombre: beige, gold and turquoise.

The corner of the upstairs vault. Note the plaster oak leaves and acorns, and the painted faces.


The downstairs vault in 1930. It may still be there, behind a false ceiling. Photo right

The Standard, Montreal, Saturday, December 27, 1924.
Montreal’s New Luxury Theatre The Rialto

Park Avenue at Bernard

Opens To-Night at 8.15

The opening of the Rialto tonight marks another step forward in theatre building and welds still another link in the famous chain of theatres operated by the United Amusement Corp. Limited, which also includes the Strand, Regent, Papineau, Belmont, Plaza, Corona and Mount Royal.

We feel proud of the Rialto, and justly so, as the most brilliant brains in the country were secured to transform the highest quality materials into what we believe to be the finest constructed and most luxurious theatre in Canada.

We cordially welcome you to the Rialto and sincerely hope that you will become a regular patron and a friend. It will be a pleasure to serve you at all times and we will welcome any suggestions you may offer for the improvement of Rialto entertainment or service.

Policy of the New Rialto

Admission Prices

Matinees except Sundays and Holidays: Adults 17c, Children 10c. Evening, Sundays and Holidays, Orchestra and Loges, 33c. Balcony 25c (tax included).

Film Programs
Complete change of program every Sunday and Wednesday. There will be two feature pictures on every bill except when presenting big productions of more than the usual length.

Coming Attractions
Marion Davies in “YOLANDA”
Milton Stills, Enid Bennett and Wallace Beery, in “THE SEA HAWK”
Harold Lloyd in “HOT WATER”
Norma Talmadge in “SECRETS”
Anna Q. Nilsson and All-Star Cast in “THE FIRE PATROL”
George O’Brien and Dorothy Mackaill in “THE MAN WHO CAME BACK”
Pola Negri in “FORBIDDEN PARADISE”

Gloria Swanson in “WAGES OF VIRTUE”

Rialto - 2015

Originally a neighbourhood movie theatre, the Rialto Theatre was built in 1923-1924 according to plans by Montreal architect Raoul Gariépy. The Beaux Arts façade was inspired by the Paris Opera while the neo-baroque interior features a rich décor signed Emmanuel Briffa. The Rialto Theatre was designated as a Historical Monument by the City of Montreal in 1988 and by the Government of Quebec in 1990, and also as National Historic Site of Canada in 1993.

Mile End

Nineteenth-century maps and other documents show the name Mile End as the crossroads at Saint-Laurent Road (now Boulevard) and what is now Mont-Royal Avenue. Originally, this road was Côte Sainte-Catherine Road (heading west) and Tanneries Road (heading east). It is probable that the name Mile End was inspired by the East London suburb of the same name. 

Contrary to popular belief, the place is not precisely a mile away from any official marker. It is, however, a mile north along Saint-Laurent from Sherbrooke Street, which in the early 19th century marked the boundary between the urban area and open countryside. (Several decades later, the Mile End train station near Bernard Street was situated coincidentally one more mile north along Saint-Laurent from the original crossroads.)


Mile End was also the first important crossroads north of the tollgate set up in 1841 at the city limits of 1792. From the crossroads to the city limits the distance was 0.4 miles (0.64 km). The city limits were located 100 chains (1.25 miles or about 2 km) north of the fortification wall, and intersected Saint-Laurent just south of the current Duluth Avenue.

As early as 1810, there was a Mile End Hotel and tavern, operated by Stanley Bagg, an American-born entrepreneur and father of the wealthy landowner Stanley Clark Bagg. The earliest known published references to Mile End are advertisements placed by Stanley Bagg, in both English and French, in The Gazette during the summer of 1815. He announced in July: "Farm for sale at St. Catherine [i.e., Outremont], near Mile End Tavern, about two miles from town...". On 7 August, he inserted the following:

STRAYED or STOLEN from the Pasture of Stanley Bagg, Mile End Tavern, on or about the end of June last, a Bay HORSE about ten years old, white face, and some white about the feet. Any person who will give information where the Thief or Horse may be found shall receive a reward of TEN DOLLARS and all reasonable charges paid. STANLEY BAGG. Montreal, Mile End, August 4, 1815.

A photograph of 1859 shows members of the Montreal Hunt Club at the Mile End tavern.

The road variously known as Chemin des Tanneries (Tannery Road), Chemin des Carrières (Quarry Road), or Chemin de la Côte-Saint-Louis led to a tannery and to limestone quarries used for the construction of much of Montreal's architecture. 

The village of Côte Saint-Louis (incorporated 1846) sprung up near the quarries, its houses clustered east of the Mile End district around the present-day intersection of Berri Street and Laurier Avenue. 

It was to serve this village that a chapel of the Infant Jesus was established in 1848 near Saint Lawrence Road, on land donated by Pierre Beaubien. In 1857-8, the chapel was replaced by the church of Saint Enfant Jésus du Mile End. 

The church, made even more impressive by a new façade in 1901-3, was the first important building in what would become Mile End.

The Irish Churches of Quebec - R is for Church of the Recollets

Following the authorization of the Récollets to settle outside Quebec , with the appointment of Mgr. Jean-Baptiste de La Croix Chevrieres of Saint-Vallier in 1688, the order moved to Montreal and undertook the construction of a church to be opened in 1693. It would be the work of brother Didace Pelletier who also led the work of the convent of Trois-Rivières . It is located on the quadrilateral of Notre-Dame , Sainte-Hélène , Récollets and Saint-Pierre streets .

A monastery is added to the church in 1705. The master builder of the site is a man named Pierre Couturier. New works were undertaken in 1713 for the façade of the church with the sculptor Jean Jacquié dit Leblond. A fence is built in 1722.

In 1760, after the capitulation of the colony , the church was ceded to the British occupier. It serves as a barracks until 1792, while the goods of the Récollets are sequestrated around 1810.

In 1818, the expansion of Montreal, with the construction of St. Helena Street, led to the demolition of the west wing.

The Sulpicians also settled in the old church in 1831. They enlarged and embellished it by adding a portal taken from the old Notre-Dame church demolished in 1829. The church was then used to worship Catholics Irish who use it until 1847. Become a school, the site is finally destroyed in 1867. 

The interior décor including the church altar was preserved and moved to the church of Notre-Dame des Anges on Lagauchetière Street. 


The latter building later became the church of the Chinese community; it still exists to this day.

The Irish Catholic Churches of Quebec - J is for Saint Joseph

     

In the city of Montreal. Address:
1967 rue Saint-Jacques. Saint-Henri district. 

Canonical Erection: July 2, 1867. 
Civil Erection: February 23, 1875    

The territory of this parish has been detached from Notre-Dame-de-Montréal. 

The city of Saint-Henri was incorporated December 28, 1876. 

The parish has long been called "Saint-Henri-des-Tanneries". 

This name of tanneries comes from the fact that at the beginning of this parish, tanneries were opened by Messrs. Lenoir dit Rolland. 

During its canonical erection, the parish included the villages of Délisle, Saint-Augustin, Ferme Saint-Gabriel, Saint-Pierre River and Saint-Henri-de-la-Côte-Saint-Paul, where built the church: hence the name of Saint-Henri, given to the parish. Pop. 10.675.  

The Irish Catholic Churches of Quebec - G is for Church of the Gesu - Saint Mary

Photo - Jean Gagnon own work

When one tends to think of religious institutions, one thinks of tradition and stability. More often we don’t realise that its long tradition is rooted in its history and its involvement in society, and that the simple look of a building can speak a lot about its time period and the people that would have attended its services. The Church of the Gesù is one such religious institution.

The Church of Gesù was built in 1865 by Patrick C. Keeley. The church is named after the same church in which the founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, is buried. Following the traditional Baroque style architecture that was propagated by the Jesuits, the church has the vivid ceiling decorations and its general curved structure. It was designated as an historical monument in 1975 by the provincial government and a heritage building in 2012.

Right next door to the Church of Gesù is its Centre of creativity, whose ambition is to combine the spiritual with the artistic. The Centre of creativity was formerly Sainte-Marie College, the first Jesuit educational institution in Montreal that would educate the likes of poet Émile Nelligan, engineer Lucien L’Allier, and novelist Hubert Aquin. Its amphitheatre opened to the public in 1923 and has always been in constant usage since. Later closed because of a merger with UQÀM in 1969, the amphitheatre remains in constant usage. Crowned by La Presse as the place with the optimal acoustics in Montreal, the Centre of creativity welcomes over fifty thousand visitors a year for festivals such as Just for Laughs and Francofolies.

One hundred and fifty years is no small anniversary, and to celebrate, the institution has a series of events coming up this month. First up is an organ concert given by Régis Rousseau performing Yves Daoust’s “A concert for organ and band” on January 31. Then, in February, we have an evening with Ivy and Mykalle Bielinski starting at 7:30 pm on February 19. This particular presentation, 18$, is presented with the help of Montréal en lumière and consists in an original presentation of poetry and music entwined together. 

If you want a more permanent reminder of the celebrations, the institution has two interesting gifts for you: the first, a podcast called The Gesù from 1865 to today that you can take anywhere, thanks to a download onto your Android or iPhone. The podcast has images and music that immerses you into the culture and history in the church. Secondly, the Gesù will be publishing a commemorative book about the church later this month. Published with the help of the Archives of the Jesuits in Canada, Le Gesù: 150 ans d’une église will appear later this month.

Irish Catholic Churches of Quebec - B is for Bonsecours Church Notre Dame de Bon Secours

courtesy Jean Gagnon

A jewel of history and heritage

For over 350 years, the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, a jewel of history and heritage, has made its way into the hearts of generations of visitors and pilgrims. As you step into the church, you will immediately notice the peaceful atmosphere and feel a palpable link to Montreal’s past.

This is the chapel of 1771, built over the ruins of the first stone chapel of pilgrimage whose foundations were recently uncovered. This is the site where officers of the British regime considered setting up barracks to house the military. This is the silent witness to the faith of Montrealers who rebuilt a chapel when it seemed impossible.


Marguerite Bourgeoys’ historic chapel

You turn to two cameo paintings by Ozias Leduc on the back wall. One shows Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, founder of Montreal, who donated the land for the original chapel. The other is of Marguerite Bourgeoys, the first teacher and founder of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame. In 1655, she rallied the colonists to build a chapel of pilgrimage outside the settlement, a stone chapel finally erected in 1675. After a second trip back to France in 1672, Marguerite returned with the wooden statuette of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours for the chapel, the one in the reliquary on the left side-altar.

Along with the chapel, the little statue has an interesting history. Possibly the most spectacular moment for both was that fateful day in 1754 when fire ravaged the first chapel, and the statue and its reliquary were found intact among the smoldering embers.

Cradle of the English-speaking Catholic community

After the fall of Montreal six years later, the British garrison included Irish and Scottish families who attended services at Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. It was from this community that money was raised to begin construction of Saint Patrick’s, Montreal’s first parish for the English-speaking community.

Under the choir loft, you spot an intriguing painting, the gift of Bishop Bourget in 1849. This votive offering was a gift in thanksgiving for the end of the typhus epidemic that struck the city in 1847 with the arrival of immigrants in fever ships. Another of his gifts, the statue by Charles Dauphin called Star of the Sea, was raised to the roof of the chapel overlooking the port.

The Sailors’ Church

As the port grew in importance in the 19th century, the chapel became a favourite place of prayer for sailors. The carved replicas of sailing ships hang from the vault of the chapel as a reminder of their faith in Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours.

View from the harbor

Generations leave their mark

Succeeding generations have contributed to the decoration and renovation of the chapel: Beaulieu’s windows, the statues of Gratton and Laperle and of Guardo, and the 1886 works of Meloche uncovered in the late 1990s on the vault of the chapel.

The tomb of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys

In 2003, celebrations marked the 350th anniversary of Marguerite Bourgeoys’ arrival in Montreal. And in 2005, the 350th anniversary of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours was especially joyful when the “mother of the colony” returned to the chapel in Montreal’s historic district where she had lived as a beloved friend and valued counsellor to all. Her remains were placed in the left side-altar below the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. A few weeks later, the remains of Jeanne Le Ber, the recluse of Montreal, were interred in the east lateral wall of the chapel.

A Community's Loss

The Mohawk of Kahnawake were renowned for their skill and agility when it came to high-steel construction. But in 1907, they were the hardest hit when the Quebec Bridge collapsed.

Shontoskwenne is what the Mohawks of Kahnawake call the Quebec City bridge disaster. It’s pronounced “soon-doe -SKWONN-nay,” and means “when the bridge fell.”

When the bridge fell, the Mohawks lost 33 of their men. Gone in an instant were breadwinners for 22 families, most of them in their 20s or 30s.

When the bridge fell, suddenly 25 women were widows, 53 children were fatherless. No other community was hit as hard.

When the bridge fell, the D’Aillaboust family suffered the biggest loss — four brothers, an uncle, a cousin and a brother-in-law all died, leaving 22 children without fathers. Ten of those were in the household of Joseph Orite D’Aillaboust, whose widow was pregnant with their 11th child.

When the bridge fell, it was also a major blow to Kahnawake’s increased economic reliance on high-steel construction, for which its workers had gained widespread acclaim.

“It is the most major event in our history;” says band elder Andrew Delisle Sr. He was chief of Kahnawake from 1963 to 1970 and 1974 to 1981, and in 1969 became the first Indigenous person to receive the Order of Canada. His uncle Mitchell Delisle, at 25, was a victim of shontoskwenne.

Delisle says Kahnawake “never has talked about it,” not because it was too painful to remember, but because “it was accepted right away” as part of Kahnawake’s proud tradition of bravery and independence.

“Young people wanted to emulate their forefathers’ bravery as voyageurs, warriors [helping the English capture Montreal without bloodshed in the Seven Years’ War] and rafters over the Lachine Rapids. Thus, they weren’t hesitant about the dangers of bridge-building. Their training as “rivet punks” began at age 12; they started by fetching equipment.

Riveting gangs enjoyed competing against one another to determine which would finish their riveting job first. Then “reservation Indians,” they never wanted to be dependent on the government, but rather to be self-sufficient. While permission was needed from the government’s Indian Agent to work off the reservation for most jobs, it was not [needed] for bridge-building, because of our skill.”

Kahnawake, its population then just over 2,000, was a close-knit community of extended families.

“Not every family had victims but everyone felt some loss because they knew a name or were neighbours,” says Billy Two Rivers, a council member from 1978 to 1998 and an organizer of a centennial commemoration to be held in 2007.

“It had a long-term impact on the family structure, creating an imbalance between men and women. It was a tremendous number of men to lose.”

Kahnawake, meaning “at the rapids,” is 10 kilometres southwest of Montreal.

Mohawks converted to Catholicism by French Jesuits established it in 1716. Until 1980, when Kahnawake was recognized as the official name, outsiders called it “Caughnawaga,” the way early Dutch settlers in America adjusted it to their language.

The phonetic English pronunciation is Guh-na-WA-geh. The chief sources of income were the fur trade, logging, farming, crafts (moccasins, snowshoes, beadwork) and river piloting, until the men got into bridge construction by chance.

In the 1850s the construction process fascinated river pilots who were delivering stone from Kahnawake’s quarries to the site of Montreal’s Victoria Bridge. Fearlessly, they clambered along the high support beams in their moccasins for a close-up view. Those in charge of the work were impressed. Until then it had been customary to hire sailors comfortable with heights. Easily trained, the Kahnawakehronon were quickly in demand, especially as riveters, the most dangerous high-steel job.

“They were as agile as goats … immune to the noise of riveting which usually makes newcomers to construction sick and dizzy,” a Dominion Bridge Company official was quoted in a 1949 New Yorker story about indigenous skyscraper builders. “Putting riveting tools in their hands was like putting ham with eggs.” By 1907, there were 70 Kahnawake bridge workers, almost half toiling on the Quebec Bridge.

The village learned of the disaster when its only phone rang in the post office at 6:30 p.m., 53 minutes after the bridge collapsed. Postmaster Antoine Glasson ran into the street with the devastating news. Desperate for information, 30 villagers went to the accident site the next morning.

“The poor old mother and two of the wives were there first thing this morning to find out if there was any hope,” the Toronto Star wrote of the D’Aillabousts. “Their quiet intense grief was most touching and brought tears to the eyes of onlookers even more than if it had been voiced. The poor things simply sat quiet in the office hardly uttering a word, but the mere look of their faces was enough to cause strong ones to lower their voices to whispers.”

Only eight Mohawk bodies were recovered. They were taken by train from Quebec City to Montreal, then transported to Kahnawake. Since the community only had two hearses, it borrowed four from neighbouring communities; the remaining two coffins were carried to St. Francis Xavier Church at Kahnawake for a Catholic mass followed by an Indigenous death chant. An overflow crowd of hundreds prayed outside the church.

Only 16 bodies [in total] were pulled out of the rubble with crowbars and tackle. All were badly mutilated, some severed in half.

When the disaster occurred, the daughters of two of the victims were in their second week at a government-sponsored, missionary-run residential English school on Ontario’s Manitoulin Island, in Georgian Bay, 330 kilometres north of Toronto. Their fathers had wanted them to be trilingual.

One of them, Satekenhatie, in 1997 a 102-year-old elder whose English name is Marion Patten Phillips, recalled the time in an interview for Kahnawake’s Elders’ Calendar.

“There were several girls from Kahnawake at the school. Being together made us happy. We were all heartbroken by the tragedy and all wept together. None of the girls returned home because the distance was too far.”

Six indigenous workers survived the disaster. Alexander Beauvais, team leader of a riveting “four gang,” had a particularly amazing escape. Half an hour before the collapse he had reported to C.R. Meredith, the rivet boss, two rivets had broken off near a splice, and ribs were bending. Meredith replied that he did “not think it serious.”

Driving rivets inside a chord (part of the framework) when the bridge began falling, Beauvais could neither see nor hear what was happening. When he felt the break, he wrapped his arms and legs around the chord. Beauvais escaped being crushed because the chord landed erect.

Everything happened so quickly he didn't realize one foot and his nose had broken. Two of his rivet teammates perished; the other was off due to a leg injury. Meredith, 26, died.

Beauvais returned to construction, becoming a Dominion Bridge Company superintendent. The company supplied him with steel to erect a six-metre memorial cross at each end of Kahnawake and donated money for him to build a memorial steel portico in the cemetery where his workmates were interred.

Fifteen days’ due wages were paid to the families of the dead and to injured survivors, with one bizarre complication. “A question arose in one case in which a man seemed to have committed bigamy and uncertainty arose as to who was the proper recipient of the money,” James Macrae, inspector of Indian Agencies and Reserves, reported in a Department of Indian Affairs memorandum.

Macrae advised Kahnawake’s band council to financially help only “widows and orphans in real need,” otherwise claims for damages against the Phoenix Bridge Company “might be affected.” He also advised against sending the victims’ children to government-run industrial schools (usually small, with one teacher for several grades) “because it could be construed by the company as a mitigation of damages.”

In September 1908, Macrae, as guardian, accepted a $100,000 lump sum for the minor children of the victims from the Phoenix Bridge Company.

In poignant December 1910 correspondence to the Indian Affairs department, lawyers for victim Thomas Deer’s young widow pleaded for speedy payment of her 3-year-old son George’s $300 allowance. She had tuberculosis, didn’t expect to live through the winter and wanted assurance her son would get the money.

In 1912, George’s grandparents applied for $300 to build a house for themselves, saying it would be the boy’s property. The department refused, stating the boy “is and will be away for some years attending school.”

The compensation issue came up again in 1947, 30 years later, when some of Joseph Orite D’Aillaboust’s children said they had received no benefits and charged that the government had kept their money “on deposit.” The government responded, “Only younger children were helped.” D’Aillaboust had had no insurance.

From government and other compensation the deeply religious widows donated money for a large crucifix behind the main altar of St. Francis Xavier Church in honour of the victims.

Kahnawake’s women insisted that never again should so many of the men work together on a single high-steel project.

“The policy no longer is followed, but the disaster is always in the back of our minds,” council member Two Rivers says.

Kahnawake skywalkers have worked on such famous projects as Montreal’s Place Ville Marie, New York’s Empire State Building, the United Nations Building in Manhattan and skyscrapers in Detroit and Boston.

They helped remove victims from the entangled steel of the World Trade towers after the 9/11 attacks.

At a centennial commemoration in 2007 the people of Kahnawake unveiled a monument in honour of the victims and their survivors.

-Susan Goldberg  

The Garrison Graveyard at Fort Anne in Annapolis Royal, N.S

Unraveling the mystery...more

Dawes Brewery

Year unknown.
9 of the 31 Black horses owned by the Dawes brewery in Montreal.
The stables were in Griffintown

Entrepreneur Thomas Dawes founded the Dawes Brewery in 1811 on the banks of the Lachine Canal.

When he died, his two sons, Thomas and James, took over the company. When James died, his two sons went into business with their uncle Thomas. One of these two grandsons, Andrew James, eventually assumed ownership of the company and became president of National Breweries Ltd., a group of breweries including the Dawes Brewery.

This company was the first in Canada to employ the telegraph, using it to communicate between its Lachine facility and offices downtown.

A true family business, the company continued to be run by other descendants (including Norman J., Kenneth T., and Donald) between 1921 and 1952, although the brewery shut down its Lachine operations in 1927.

1943-1944 sign atop of Dawes brewery on St-Maurice St.

After that, the buildings were used for various purposes: a candle factory, the sale and repair of household articles, and now a museum. The Maison du Brasseur (Brewers home), Vielle Brasserie (Old Brewery), and Pavillon de l'Entrepot (Warehouse) now make up the Guy-Descary Cultural Complex.

Photographs courtesy of Roger Albert and Griffintown Memories on Facebook

Apocalypse for a horseman

FOR 40 YEARS, Leo Leonard has been operating the Griffintown Horse Palace. But a redevelopment plan for the area would turn his property into housing and commercial space.

Leo Leonard at his Griffintown stable on Ottawa St., with horse Rocky in the background. “People say I should turn the place into a zoo and charge admission,” he says.

During the Second World War you could hire a calèche to take you up to Mount Royal for $5. Today, if you can find a driver willing to make the four-hour return trip to the mountain, it would cost about $300.

“When I began driving in 1942, it was another era,” said Leo Leonard. He has owned the Griffintown Horse Palace on Ottawa St. for 40 years.

“Back then there were 62 carriages at Dominion Square outside the Windsor Hotel and another 25 outside the gates of McGill. Today, there are only 35 calèche drivers’ permits, and all the drivers are down in Old Montreal.”

The price of a calèche ride is $45 for a half-hour, $80 for an hour. Competition is stiff.

Horse-drawn carriages are an anachronism in the 21st century, and their future, as well as that of Leonard’s stables just south of the École de technologie supérieure on Notre Dame St. W., is up in the air.

The Southwest borough has designs on Leonard’s property, one of the last in the area to house horses.

A redevelopment plan unveiled in October for the neighbourhood has the stables, tack house and corral earmarked as an area for office and commercial space, and affordable and subsidized housing.

Inspired by Toronto’s Distillery district, an industrial area that was transformed into a gentrified neighbourhood, urban planners see Griffintown as an ideal site for redevelopment.

Heritage Montreal’s Dinu Bumbaru says while he wel- comes development in the area, razing the stables would be a mistake.

“They are not a great monument,” he said, “but they are the only remnants to remind us that the driving force behind the metropolis was the horse.

“There is room in the city’s heritage policy to keep Leonard’s stables, and perhaps integrate them into a … network of Montreal memory to remind us it is the unheralded blue-collar workers who make a great city.”

Leonard was born in Goose Village and raised in Griffintown. He is 81.

Known as Clawhammer Jack, he is probably one of the last residents to have lived and worked in the neighbourhood for eight decades.

His permit to run his stable has a grandfather clause that states he can keep horses on the property as long as he owns it.

Leonard concedes, however, developers are eager to acquire his land, and perhaps the time has come for him to sell.

“I’ve always been in the horse business, but now I’m fed up with the industry,” Leonard said.

“People say I should turn the place into a zoo and charge admission,” he said with a chuckle.

Leonard bought the stables, which date from 1862, for $15,000 in 1967 when the city ran the Ville Marie Expressway eight blocks to the east, and people moved out of the neighbourhood.

He won’t say how much he wants for the property, which contains residential units, a tack house, a barn for eight horses and a small exercise corral.

“I’m not supposed to talk about anything, but, yes, agents have been coming around to talk to me about selling. We’ll see what happens,” Leonard said.

In addition to his property, he says, real estate agents are looking at a nearby scrapyard and an old paint shop next door.

Should he sell, Leonard isn’t sure what he’ll do if he no longer has horses to look after.

“I won’t go live in Florida, that’s for sure,” he said. “You’ll never catch me on a plane.”

Bouvril Building

Bouvril Building – 1921

Bovril Building art deco building located on the corner of Van Horne and Park Ave was built in 1921-22 by Montreal architect James Cecil McDougall for Food Specialists of Canada Limited, the manufacturers of Bovril in Canada.

In the mid 1800s, John Lawson Johnston, a Scottish butcher, having an interest in food science and preserving, experimented with heating beef trimmings, and came up with a concentrated beef stock, which had a long shelf-life. It became a favorite nourishing beef beverage for Edinburgh’s poor, as it would also have restorative and medicinal values.

Johnston emigrated to Montreal in 1863, where he set up a factory, where he developed “Johnston’s Fluid Beef”. In 1871 he went back and married Elizabeth Elliott Lawson in Edinburgh, Scotland. The couple lived there until 1875. In 1874 Johnston won a contract to produce preserved beef products for the French army of Emperor Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War. According to Bovril’s official history, around a million tonnes of beef product were produced, in the wake of it losing the war that year to the Prussians. In 1875, John, his wife and their first three children moved back to Canada and settled in Quebec City. There their last two children were born. He kept working on his liquid beef and re-invented it as a concentrate, which he made from beef parts leftover from the French government order of tinned beef. In 1879, John moved the business from Quebec City to Montreal. When, in 1884 his factory was destroyed by fire, he decided to move back to Europe, where he set up business in London selling his concentrate to grocery stores and pubs. In 1887 the name “Bovril” was registered, and a new brown-glass bottle was introduced. In 1895 John bought Kingswood House in Sydenham, London, and enlarged it by adding a wing and a large entrance. The Victorian mansion became known as “Bovril Castle”. The Bovril empire was sold in 1896 for £2 million. John Lawson Johnston died in 1900, but his product has survived to this day.

Food Specialists of Canada Ltd. occupied the Bovril building to 1948, when they moved and sold the building to British based Brooke Bond & Co, as a packaging plant for the Red Rose Tea factory established by Theodore Harding Estabrooks in 1894 in Saint John, New Brunswick. After Red Rose moved out in 1962, the Bovril building was home to several small businesses, mainly clothing shops. It has also been a low-rent place for artists such as painters, musicians, mimes and other various struggling artists.

Today, the building, owned by the Skver Yeshivah, houses a Hasidic Jewish primary school, library and daycare, and a non-profit artist’s cooperative with studios on the upper floors, each with their own entrance. The Bovril name has been removed, but the 1920’s industrial architecture remained intact.

©2018 The past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Dominion Corset

In the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, the city of Quebec, which saw its port activities decline and shipbuilding disappear, reoriented its economy and became an important center for the production of shoes and corsets. Many factories established themselves in the populous districts of Saint-Roch and Saint-Sauveur and employed more than five thousand people in 1900.

The Dominion Corset of Georges-Élie Amyot was one of the largest corset factories in America. In 1886, Georges-Élie Amyot began making corsets. At the turn of the twentieth century, he became Quebec's largest employer and was appointed legislative counsel in 1912.
In production, the labor force has always been exclusively female and the workers have been supervised by female foremen. Factory work allowed single women to support themselves outside of marriage and religious life, but until the late 1950s, married women were prohibited from remaining in the employ of the company.
Note that corsets made in the late nineteenth century gave a size of wasp to those who wear them by means of "turns" in the form of hoops adapting to the dresses of the time. At the beginning of the 20th century, the rust-free whale refined silhouettes without over-constraining breathing. New corsets and bustiers reduced the unwanted curves of tubular fashion in the 1920s.
The arrival of synthetic fabrics made the whales disappear after the Second World War. The clientele adopts the first models of sleeves and bras. The 1950s are the golden age of the company, which launches the lines Sarong and Daisyfresh.
From Pierre Amyot in 1973, the management of the company is entrusted to Maurice Godbout.In 1977, the company adopted a new market strategy and took the name of Daisyfresh Creations. It is still sold in 1988 to the company Canadelle WonderBra, which abandons the manufacture of the lower town to settle in the industrial park of Vanier.
The decommissioned factory was finally reorganized to house the Center de développement économique et urbain (CDÉU) of Quebec City and the School of Visual Arts at Laval University.
The arrival of public servants and students in the early 1990s contributes to the revitalization of the Saint-Roch district. Its vast building, at the corner of Charest Boulevard and Dorchester Street has been restored and is occupied by services of the City of Quebec and Laval University. The ground floor, open to the public, evokes the memory of the hundreds of workers who once worked there.

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Partridge Island, N.B.

The Celtic Cross Memorial

Partridge Island is a Canadian island located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Saint John, New Brunswick within the city's Inner Harbour.

The island is a provincial historic site and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974. It lies on the west side of the mouth of the Saint John River
Partridge Island was first established as a quarantine station and pest house in 1785 by the Saint John Royal Charter, which also set aside the island for use as a navigational aids station and a military post. Its first use as a Quarantine Station was not until 1816. A hospital was constructed on the island in 1830.

It received its largest influx of immigrants in the 1840's during the Great Famine, known as the "Irish Potato Famine", when a shortage of potatoes occurred because of potato blight striking Ireland's staple crop, causing millions to starve to death or otherwise emigrate, mainly to North America. During the famine, some 30,000 immigrants were processed by the island's visiting and resident physicians, with 1196 dying at Partridge Island and the adjacent city of Saint John during the Typhus epidemic of 1847. During the 1890's there were over 78,000 immigrants a year being examined or treated on the island.

A memorial to the Irish immigrants of the mid-1840's was set up on the island in the 1890's but by World War One it had deteriorated. In 1926 the Saint John City Cornet Band approached Saint John contractor George McArthur who agreed to lead a campaign to build a suitable monument. The Celtic Cross memorial to the Irish dead of 1847 was dedicated in 1927. 

This was restored and rededicated in 1985. In the early and mid-1980's the Saint John Jewish Community, the Loyal Orange Lodge, the Partridge Island Research Project, and the Partridge Island & Harbour Heritage Inc., a company that was registered in 1988 and dissolved in 2004 erected memorials to the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish immigrants buried in one of the six island graveyards, as well as a monument to all of the Irish dead from 1830 to the 1920's.

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All Bets Are Off

History

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Imperial Theater

Imperial Theater

The Imperial Theatre opened on April 26, 1913 in downtown Montreal, Quebec. It had a seating capacity of 2,300.

In 1934, the Imperial Theatre was rented to Leo Ernest Ouimet and in 1936, RKO Radio Pictures sold the movie house to Consolidated Theatres.

In 1950, the Imperial Theatre was first renovated and was altered again for Cinerama in 1954.

In 1970, it was sold to Cinema International and was renamed the Cine Centre in 1974. The theater was twinned in 1975 and was renamed the Imperial Theatre in 1976.

In 1980, United Theatres (part of Famous Players) repurchased the Imperial and it was restored and reopened in 1981.

In 1986, the Imperial Theatre became the first cinema in Quebec to receive THX certification. It was donated to the Montreal Film Festival in 1995 by Famous Players.

The Cinema Imperial currently seats 819, and is still a true “Cinema Treasure”.

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The Redpath Mansion Mystery

Redpath Mansion Mystery

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Palace Theatre

Built as the Allen Theatre for movies in 1921 at what is now 698 Ste-Catherine, between McGill College Ave. and University St. Its architect, C. Howard Crane, designed other theatres in Canada and the U.S. Highly decorated interior with columns, marble stairways, crystal chandeliers and paintings. Redecorated by Emmanuel Briffa in 1928 when it became the Palace, with Greek-inspired statues, a central dome and tile mosaics. Showed the city’s first sound pictures. Gutted and subdivided into multiple cinemas in 1980. Most recently a hamburger restaurant.

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Théâtre Français

Opened in 1884 on the south side of Ste-Catherine at St-Dominique St. Name changed to Billy Moore’s Lyceum, and Sara Bernhardt performed here in 1905. Loews chain in New York renovated the theatre in 1920 and renamed it Loews Court. Its name changed back to Français in 1924. In 1960, it began showing only French-language movies. Became Eros, a porno theatre, in 1970. Closed in 1981. Reopened as Club Metropolis in 1986.

On September 17, 2017 it reopened as a concert venue named M TELUS after a wireless provider.

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Gayety Theatre

The building which housed the Gayety Theatre, was designed by the architects firm of Ross and MacFarlane, for the Canadian Amusement Company. The building with its balcony and gallery gallery, featured seating for 1600 guests. It became one of Montreal’s first landmarks of public entertainment. Opening its doors on in 1912, the Gayety offered American Vaudeville, a popular form of entertainment at the time of the Great Depression. It saw packed crowds of not only men but women and children. Vaudeville disappeared around 1929 and the theatre became a movie house for a number of years, before becoming one of the most popular cabarets iin Montreal.

During Prohibition in the USA, Montreal businessman Samuel Bronfman, founder of Distillers Corporation Limited was the importer of Seagram’s Canadian Whiskey, and Montreal became the destination for Americans looking for a drink and other pleasures. Burlesque houses, variety theatres and jazz clubs thrived during this era. Gambling and prostitution, unrivaled in North America, earned Montreal the nickname “Sin City”. The Gayety Theatre featured burlesque artists like Gypsy Rose and exotic dancer Lily St-Cyr, considered the “Queen of Strippers” in the 1940s and 1950s. She often performed topless, and was one of Montreal’s main cultural attractions, taking in an average of $5000 a week, an amount unheard of at the time. Her performances included erotic versions of classical stories, oriental fantasies of harems and sex slaves, and scenarios set in bathrooms and bedrooms. She performed her last show in March 1957. By the late 1940s, the Gayety Theatre along with other clubs of Montreal’s red light district, became associated with organized crime and corruption.

In 1950, lawyer (and later Montreal mayor) Jean Drapeau and former police chief and lawyer Pax Plante along with other political and religious individuals formed “La Comite de Moralite Publique”, a morality squad that promised to rid Montreal of gambling, prostitution and corruption, much of which was centered around the red light district. They imposed harsh curfews and closing times, which caused many of the cabarets to shut down, including the Gayety Theatre which closed its doors in 1953. From 1953 to 1956, it was known as Radio City.

In 1956, Canadian author, playwright, actor, director, and producer Gratien Gélinas, who is considered one of the founders of modern Canadian theatre and film. bought the theater. It became the Comédie Canadienne, a French theater that featured shows with performers like Gilles Vigneault, Monique Leyrac, Claude Léveillée, Jacques Brel, Barbara and Serge Reggiani. In 1972, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, bought the building and is the current owner. The TNM is a theatre company and venue, featuring national and international classic plays.

The building is located at 84 rue Sainte-Catherine West in Montreal.

courtesy – Montreal Times

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The Theaters of Ste. Catherine Street

In the early 20th century, Ste-Catherine St. was abuzz with cinemas, concert halls and theatres. Today, most of them have vanished, and many of the original buildings have been razed and replaced with not so much as a plaque to mark this vanished era. From west to east, here are some of the theatres that once lined the street.

Seville Theatre

The theater, designed by Cajetan L. Dufort (full name Louis-Joseph Cajetan Dufort, also the architect of the Corona Theater), was built in 1929 - just five years after the nearby Montreal Forum - in a then -bustling part of downtown Montreal. Its interior was designed by Emmanuel Briffa.

The Seville was a single-screen, 1148 seat theater and one of only 15 atmospheric theaters ever built in Canada. Its exterior had a Spanish theme (hence the name Seville) with its ceiling painted to resemble a night sky with sparkling stars. There was an additional mechanism in place that could be turned on to give the appearance of clouds moving across the sky. The theater was built with shops in the front, including an ice cream parlor on the east side and a drugstore on the west.

Opened in 1929 at Ste-Catherine and Chomedey Sts. One of the United Amusement chain’s neighbourhood double-bill movie houses.

Interior decorated by Emmanuel Briffa. Became a concert hall in the 1940s, with performers including Tony Bennett, Nat “King” Cole and Harry Belafonte.

Operated as a repertory theatre for a decade before its developer-owner shut it down in 1984. It was left to fall into ruin. Its carcass was razed to make way for condos in 2010.

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