“Dorchester” to be kept by Montreal East
When the name of Dorchester Boulevard was changed to René‑Lévesque in 1987, two towns refused to change it – Westmount, and Montreal East. The latter town reconfirmed its refusal this week, despite demands from some of its residents to rethink its position.
GC 10:39 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
“La très anglophone Ville de Westmount” made me laugh.
Ephraim 11:16 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Dorchester was so important in Quebec history and the Quebec Act in particular. Without him, the French language and laws wouldn’t have remained in Quebec. There should be some shame associated with changing the name. There are so many fake Saint-Name streets in Montreal that they could have chosen to rename instead, like St-Antoine
Kate 11:25 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Ephraim, you persist in calling these names “fake” when they were not. Back in the day, when you wanted to honour somebody, you named something after their name saint.
For example, St‑Urbain Street was named after Pope Urban I, who was canonized a saint, but also for Urbain Tessier dit Lavigne, who claimed some land in the area.
Likewise, St Helen’s Island was named to honour Hélène Boullé, the wife of Samuel de Champlain.
Everyone understood that this was how it worked – it was a tradition, not a lie.
shawn 11:38 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Oh that’s why. I never knew that.
EmilyG 13:05 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
The east end has this odd reduplication of streets from further west. You get Ste-Catherine, Gauchetiere, and Dorchester/Rene-Levesque, which, it could be argued, are continuations of their better-known streets from the west after an interruption. But also, there’s a Prince Arthur street out there, and a Cherrier, and maybe a few others, positioned somewhat like they were further west. I’ve never been able to figure out why this is.
EmilyG 13:06 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
As for “saint” in street names, it’s also the French word for “holy,” so that might explain names like “Ste-Famille” (holy family, not a saint named Family.)
Ephraim 14:09 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
They were meant to sound religious. Some of which we don’t even know the origin, including Ste-Catherine which has a whole bunch of guesses, including a convent and Viger’s daughter. If it is named after his daughter, it was a nice gesture, but she’s not significant. Not that I’m suggesting renaming it, but just that it’s part of the ensemble of streets we don’t even really know the origin and history.
Saint-Dominque… even the city doesn’t have a clue why it’s named that way. Coloniale is named after someone’s family member. St-Vincent… named after a family’s patron saint. That’s nice but do we need to keep the name? St-Antoine, well they know why they changed it, but they aren’t sure where the name came from, other than it was one side of a neighbourhood faubourg St-Antoine, which they don’t know why it was named that way either. Esplanade is a lovely descriptive name, but it can be moved to the TYPE of street, like Esplanade Richler. We also have two different streets/avenues named Nelson in Montreal, both named after Horatio Nelson and we have his statue as well. Maplewood… again unknown. Waverly is named after someone who lived on the street…. So, where’s Kate Street? And you can toss is Grand Allee… another descriptive name like Esplanade that could easily be Grand Allee Guy Lafleur in the future 🙂
I mean there are names of streets in Ahuntsic that have better histories than the names in the centre of town. At least we know why we have a street named after Charles Gill and Suzor Cote
Kate 15:23 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Pretty names like Maplewood and Fairmount were usually assigned by property developers who wanted to make the street sound appealing. The city toponymy site is offline, though, and my edition of Les rues de Montréal dates from before the city mergers, so doesn’t include Maplewood, which is now a small street in Outremont (it used to be the name of the street now called Édouard‑Montpetit).
Les rues de Montréal says Grande Allée was conceived to be rather grand. I imagine they were thinking of something like Morgan Boulevard in Maisonneuve, or St‑Joseph when it used to have a green median. There’s also a rather more significant street called Grande Allée in Quebec City, which may or may not have figured in the naming.
Just find out for me why Groll Street was called that, and we’re quits.
Ephraim 16:34 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
https://montreal.ca/toponymie/toponymes/rue-groll
It is difficult to determine the opening dates and naming of this street. However, it is interesting to note that in 1897, Arthur Groll, who ran a butcher’s shop on Saint-Lawrence, lived on Saint-Urbain Street; rue Groll, with the dimensions of an alley, begins precisely at this street and leads to rue Jeanne-Mance.
Kate 17:16 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Well done!
Ian 19:26 on 2023-06-22 Permalink
Fun fact : Groll means bitterness, resentfulness, and wrath in German … and the English name actually derives from this.
In Yiddish it just means “growl”.