Visit to the Cité-Jardin
24heures looks at the Cité-Jardin, one of the quirkier corners of town. The original layout was more ambitious and included a shopping centre, public pool, a church and more than 600 houses, but the eventual project only has 167 houses and no services at all, as pointed out by one resident – “Pour la bouffe, les épiceries de quartiers, les cafés, il y a fuck all.”
The journalist also found a design professor who says the area is completely without interest, a curious pose. One of the houses was the residence of Jean Drapeau, as noted – but the journalist doesn’t mention how it must have been rebuilt after being blown up by a bomb in 1969. (This last link may take some time – the BAnQ’s newspaper archive is very slow.)
Nicholas 23:21 on 2024-11-08 Permalink
Seems much of the land for the rest of the houses became the Olympic Village and a city-owned golf course. Unrelated, too bad there’s no space for housing near metro stations and parks.
Also, interesting that Montreal has a pair of those fancy Washington-style lamp posts for the mayor, in front of that house still owned by the Drapeau family (Michel). Apparently it was a tradition for 120 years, stopped by Doré because he lived in a condo. The current mayor of Westmount has similar lamp posts (with the Westmount logo) in front of the current mayor and her predecessor, and used to have ones in front of his predecessor’s home, all visible on street view. Pointe-Claire does this too.
Kate 23:40 on 2024-11-08 Permalink
I had no idea about that tradition – thanks!
Orr 23:44 on 2024-11-10 Permalink
The Cité Jardin area isn’t interesting for the houses, it is interesting for the trees.
Each street is named after and features a different tree species/family (pines, oaks, cedars, etc), and it is spectacular. Particularly now that so many of the trees have reached mature heights,
Talk about the story writer not seeing the forest for the trees.
A unique and special place, imo. I love it.
Kate 09:56 on 2024-11-11 Permalink
The houses aren’t like anything in the surrounding city, Orr, and for that alone it’s worth a look. There’s a sort of hobbity cosiness about the area that’s not urban but isn’t quite like any of the city’s suburbs either. But the area has one serious suburb‑style flaw: no sidewalks. I can’t imagine what the planners were thinking when that was decided.
Orr 11:37 on 2024-11-11 Permalink
That is a good point about the sidewalk, designers forgot that people would still walk in the future!
The cozy dead-end street nature of it and the forest all contribute to a place like no other.
An excellent tree-walk locale to learn to identify tree types. I imagine the people on maple street envy the lack of leaves on cedar and pine streets at this time of year.
It is so cool that instead of just naming the streets after trees, they actually planted the streets with those tree species. Avenue des Plaines (actually there are silver maples here, and they are now giants), Avenue des Marronniers, Avenue des Cèdres, Avenue des Épinettes, Avenue des Chênes, Avenue des Sapins, Avenue des Saules, Avenue des Bouleaux, Avenue des TIlleuls, Avenue des Sorbiers, Avenue des Mélèzes. It’s like a tree encyclopedia.
Speaking of tree encyclopedia, if you want to know what trees are on your street, the “Arbres publics de Montréal” interactive tree-map website is a terrific resource. In English and french (to choose language you have to enter via the QueBio.ca parent website). Unfortunately the site’s revamp removed the advanced search features, but nonetheless, it is a resource like no other.
CE 14:54 on 2024-11-11 Permalink
Sidewalks weren’t put on the street because it was designed so all the walking would be done in the paths behind the houses. The streets were for car access. It was a very popular approach to suburban town planning at the time where the streets were reserved just for cars so people walking wouldn’t have to interact them. People would go from house to house by foot from the back of the houses. Usually, the kitchens were placed at the backs of the house so the mothers could keep an eye on children and see when visitors were approaching the house. A fully developed example is . Radburn NJ. Not very many developments were made with this configuration and what we ended up with in most suburban areas was a half way approach where the houses were built without the sidewalks and without the paths so the streets were for cars but nowhere was for pedestrians.
Kate 15:51 on 2024-11-11 Permalink
Thank you, CE! I gather this was the “garden city” philosophy from the UK.
CE 16:49 on 2024-11-11 Permalink
Yes, very much so.