...from Mount Royal to Jean Talon

Saint-Enfant-Jésus-du-Mile-End Church

© Parks Canada/ G. Fulton, 1996

The third section of Boulevard Saint-Laurent begins at Mount Royal Avenue, once the northern limit of the City of Montréal, and runs to Jean Talon. This was Saint-Louis-du-Mile-End, the northernmost suburb and the limit of suburban Montréal in the late 19^th century. Saint-Laurent Street was its commercial spine. The gridiron street pattern established south of Mount Royal Avenue continues north of it, interrupted only by the winding line of CPR tracks which bridge over Saint-Laurent at Bernard Avenue. The unswerving 6-km run of Boulevard Saint-Laurent from Old Montréal ends at Jean Talon, where Saint-Laurent and the surrounding street pattern changes direction as it passes into the former parish of Saint-Laurent. By 1910, most of the north-south streets near Jean Talon were open to traffic and had east-west access via the dirt road, Mozart Street. However, city services such as water, electricity and paved sidewalks were long absent from this area, which in 1916 was likened to a country village.

Italian brass band in Little Italy

© Edward Hillel, 1987

The built environment of this section of Boulevard Saint-Laurent is truly eclectic. Long stretches of two- and three-storey late-19^th and 20^th century vernacular commercial buildings predominate, but are punctuated by architectural monuments such as the former Saint-Louis-du-Mile-End city hall, now a fire and police station, the churches of Saint-Enfant-Jésus-du-Mile-End and Saint-Jean-de-la-Croix; by fine urban spaces such as Lahaie Park; and by wind-blown vacant lots and blank industrial facades.

In the late 19^th century the open fields on Jean Talon Street attracted Italian immigrants looking for garden allotments; many who worked at the Mile End railway terminal settled near Jean Talon, and in 1911 a new parish, Madonna de la Difesa, was created here. The visual evidence of the Italian community's dominance of this section Boulevard Saint-Laurent is still extremely strong, particularly from Saint-Zotique to Jean Talon:

As the novelist Régine Robin points out, Montréal's Italian community has close ties to the Piccola Italia, an area added on to Boulevard Saint-Laurent south of the Jean Talon market. Once again, this is an industrialized sector with a concentration of clothing factories, some originally located on the southern part of the artery. These factories surround Saint-Laurent Street with its many restaurants, trattorias, pizzerias, cafés and its more-Italian-than-Italy grocery stores, bakeries and cheese shops. Caffe Italia has become the meeting place for the World Cup in soccer, and is also where Caffe Italia was filmed. There are also small Haitian, Salvadorean and Vietnamese businesses that attest to the recent arrival of these communities. These are interspersed with the latest fashionable restaurants.

The Milano greengrocer

© Parks Canada/ G. Fulton, 1996

Other very typical Italian businesses capture our attention. One of Little Italy's oldest and most exclusive shops belongs to the tailor Giovanni Grimald, who has been plying his trade, an art that Italians have long practised and always excelled at, here for over fifty years. Other long-standing traditions are Fruiterie Milano, a real grocery store with a butcher shop and bakery that has been in operation for over forty years, and the Roma Bakery. Also worthy of mention is Baggio Cycle, which has specialized in selling Italian bicycles for over sixty years.