April 2nd, 2009
1ière avenue, part 3: Lachine
By Chris Erb // 5 Comments
Continuing our tour of Montreal's 1ière avenues, we find ourselves on Lachine's tiny "1 Avenue" (as the street sign indicates) at the eastern-most end of the old city of Lachine (Ville St-Pierre now makes up the most eastern portion of the new borough of Lachine). This is the last set of photos from my daytrip around the south-west when I also visited Verdun and Lasalle.
Numbered streets are very important in Lachine as the entire borough (with the exception of Ville St-Pierre and the industrial portions) have numbered streets running vertically through it with every east-west street passing through one. The western border of Lachine is at 56e Avenue, the last numbered street before Dorval switches to named streets.
Lachine's 1e ave is a tiny street at only 3 blocks in length and, quite frankly, doesn't have much going for it. The residential portions have a mix of housing types typical to Lachine with small plexes, post-war apartment buildings, and a new condo building, all in various states of repair. Mixed with the residential buildings are empty lots, a gas station and a a couple light industrial properties. As can be said for a great deal of borough, it's not the prettiest street in the Montreal but it's filled with Lachine's unique charm noted by Christopher DeWolf on his visit a year and a half ago.
The street begins at Victoria terminating at a chain link fence of what looks like a junkyard. The bike path is part of a route that takes you into Ville St-Pierre and eventually connects to the path along the Lachine Canal.
Looking north from Victoria:
More photos after the jump.
Yellow flags and a white and green trailer advertise the new condos being built across the street. A sign of the increasing gentrification of Lachine.
The street ends after an overpass at the 20 as it goes into the massive industrial section of Lachine.
Loading ...
Comments
Neither the author nor Spacing necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Spacing reserves the right to edit or delete comments entirely. See our Comment Policy.
I love this series! There is a structured randomness that I appreciate. Don't know if you stumbled upon the "missing" 1st Avenue of Ville Saint Pierre? The main residential streets of the town were numbered 1-9 but have all been renamed. I am going to guess that that happened after the merger and that the streets were renamed to avoid a conflict with the numbered streets in Lachine when they joined Lachine.
They were renamed after the then St. Pierre coucillors who lost their jobs.
Wow, what an ironic twist. Surprised that isn't a more well known story.
Interesting, I stumbled on this by accident. The area sure has changed since I saw it last.
The building on the corner of 1st ave and highway 20 was the original head office of Dominion Engineering Works. I worked there for a number of years. Further south was the Harrington Tool and Dye Co. The Dominion address was 795 so Harrington would have been say,700. I used toi refer to Ville St Pierre as "Gods Country " because that is where I was born. Wow life in VStP and Lachine was something back in the 50's Notre Dame Street was the main shopping area then. Great Site !!!!
Don't forget Roxboro's 1st avenue.
Comment by Mark Sabourin
April 3, 2009 | 8:43 am