Sidewalking Montreal - Griffintown

 October 2025 - Montreal QC

in August I did a Sidewalking Montreal post.

We were back in October and spent some time in Griffintown. Steps 19,000!!! 

More Montreal photos can be found in our weekly recap.

Montreal Murals from Griffintown.

Griffintown, Little Burgundy, Saint-Henri… could it get more confusing? Known collectively as Les Quartiers du Canal, this is an area of Montréal that everyone wants to visit, and for good reason. From great history to avant-garde new architecture and a dining scene that can’t be beat, it’s the place to be.

Griffintown spread westward from the then-downtown in a serious way in the 1820s and was populated mainly by Irish labourers. It was founded by an enterprising woman named Mary Griffin, a businessman’s wife who obtained the land lease and got it subdivided into streets starting in 1804. By the early 20th century, the Irish inhabitants were joined by Jewish, Italian, Ukrainian and French-Canadian communities, a happy mélange that has diversified further since — especially since the area’s boom of young professionals starting in the early 2000s. The two-story workman’s houses are now few and far between, having made way to condo towers with canal views and industrial buildings retrofitted to hold everything from art galleries to fancy restaurants.

We started with coffee in Old Montreal cutting through the Palais des Congres, also known as the Montreal Convention Centre. It is recognized for its colorful architecture, extensive facilities for events of all sizes, and commitment to sustainability. The center hosts thousands of events, including major conferences and exhibitions, and is accessible by metro.

The Merchants Bank of Canada Building

Founded by the Allan family in 1861, the Merchants Bank head office was located at 355 Saint-Jacques Street. The building’s magnificence reflected the bank’s corporate ambitions. The bank was purchased by the Bank of Montreal in 1922. The glorious building was also home to the luxury Hotel Le St-James which welcomed numerous A-list celebrities like the Rolling Stones, U2, Elton John, Bon Jovi, Britney Spears, Madonna and the Spice Girls it closed in 2022.

The Crew Collective building is a heritage building in Old Montreal, Canada, that was formerly the Royal Bank of Canada headquarters. It has been transformed into a popular cafe, coworking space, and event venue, while preserving the ornate and impressive architecture of the original structure.  

The Royal Bank of Canada opened its first branch in Montreal in 1887, and moved its head office to the city 20 years later. After occupying various premises, the Bank began construction of a building to house the head office, as well as a branch, at 360 Rue Saint-Jacques. The new building, inaugurated in 1928, symbolized prestige and prosperity and became a Montreal landmark.

While the exterior is fairly sober, the interior design of the building evokes richness and refinement. A grand marble staircase leads to the banking hall with gold-plated bronze wickets and marble counters. From the marble-mosaic and travertine floor to the ornate, Renaissance-inspired coffered ceiling, the interior spaces reflect the status of a prestigious financial institution and call to mind the palazzos of Florence.

In 1962, the Royal Bank moved its head office to Place Ville Marie, but kept a branch in the iconic Old Montreal building. 
 Once the tallest landmark in Canada, and, indeed, the British Empire, the tower was abandoned in 2010 after decades of service as Royal Bank’s corporate headquarters. 

We had taken this photo of the exterior in August. It is now the InterContinental Hotel.
But the original name remains over the door.

1848: The Nordheimer brothers open a branch on Rue Saint-Jacques, specializing in sheet music sales and piano manufacturing, attracting artists such as Sarah Bernhardt and Maurice Ravel.

This time we stepped inside.

What was once a car-infested thoroughfare turned into a verdant esplanade during the mid-2010’s, when the city of Montreal decided to tear down an existing highway. The newly-created public space was then peppered with multiple artworks, one of which, the Dendrites, has since captivated the attention of motorists and passersby alike.

Shortly before Montreal’s 1967 Expo took place, Bonaventure Expressway was constructed along the neighborhoods of Pointe-Saint-Charles and Griffintown, linking the world’s fair site with the downtown area. Several decades later, elevated parts of the massive 11-lane highway were deemed useless and even harmful, as incoming traffic has dwindled to less than 60,000 car per day.

We know, this used to our route home from Place Bonaventure to Nun's Island!!!!

In 2017, the controversial expressway was partially dismantled to a fanfare of schadenfreude. Instead, a large park crisscrossed with walkways and bicycle lanes became the epicenter of the area’s urban revival. Dotting the brand-new esplanade are also several eye-catching works of art, including a rather bizarre sculpture which might seem at first like an unfinished pedestrian bridge. Straddling the Notre-Dame Street, Dendrites are a pair of convoluted stairways, whose muses are as numerous as its steps. The brainchild of artist Michel de Broin.

I took a photo from the train the next day as it rained.

At the other end of the Bonaventure Park is a Plensa work and we were finally able to get a good photo. 

Barcelona artist Jaume Plensa's ten-metre-high Source impresses. Look closer to see the tangle of letters and symbols from eight alphabets, which Plensa sees as representing the complexity of humanity.

We have been lucky to find Plensa's work around the world.

More new condos.

Although this building was built around 1861, the history of the Dow brewery began nearly 60 years earlier, in 1790, when a farmer named Thomas Dunn started in the beer industry in La Prairie, who was an important stopover for travelers who went to New York from Montreal. 

In 1809, the brewery moves to Montreal on Notre-Dame street and then on St. Joseph street in 1818. The name "Dow Brewery" comes from James Dunn's business partner, son of Thomas: William Dow, a Scottish master brewer who takes the reins of the company in 1834.

While Molson was the beer everyone was drinking in Montreal, Quebec City was a real fortress for Dow brewery. 85% of all beer drank in Quebec City, and 51% of the beer consumed in the rest of the province came from the Dow brewery.

Between August 1965 and April 1966, more than 48 hospital patients in the Quebec region were diagnosed with an unusual cardiac disease. Fifteen of them will die. While fingers were quickly pointed at their alcoholism, the Dow brewery was put under the spotlight when journalists found an enzyme in the beer, the cobalt salt, who was added to increase foam production. This enzyme was suspected as the cause of these men's death.

Although no link was found between Dow beer and the death of these men, the brewery tried to show their credentials by pouring the remaining stocks in the St-Lawrence River and also stopped the beer production in its Quebec City’s brewery. This operation was a real mess and, on the contrary, people saw these acts as a recognition of guilt.

And thus, in only one year, Dow brewery lost nearly all its market share in Quebec. The following year, in 1967, the brewery was sold to O'Keefe, its competitor. It was then sold to Molson in 1989. Although the Dow beer will be brewed until 1998, Dow won’t ever recover from this dark history.

The building on Notre Dame Street is abandoned since 1998 and is contaminated with asbestos. A portion of the complex was converted into condos and some other buildings now owned by Molson-Coors have since been sold.

The former Lowney chocolate factory in Montreal is now a condominium complex known as The Lowney in the Griffintown neighborhood. The original factory building, constructed in 1905, is preserved as part of the converted residential property.

Walter M. Lowney Company of Canada, a subsidiary of the American confectionery firm, built the large factory and warehouse on William Street in Montreal in 1905. The company produced cocoa, chocolate, and bonbons, including the well-known Cherry Blossom candy.

CHERRY BLOSSOM - my favourite chocolate growing up, I lamented its passing in a post!

As business flourished, Lowney expanded operations by taking over the adjacent Gault building.

In 1960, Lowney moved its manufacturing operations to Sherbrooke, and the Griffintown factory building was used for leather goods production until about 1992.

Condo conversion: The building stood idle for some 20 years before being converted into a condominium complex around 2006.

We turned down Richard lane to admire Jean Brillant's substantial sculptures (where I saw the delicate balance between nature and industry). 

Jean-Robert Drouillard's fox.

Although Montréal was already the commercial centre of Canada by the late 18th century, the invention of the steam-powered engine in 1811 was the catalyst to the industrial revolution here, just as in the rest of the world, making Montréal the undisputed hub of Canadian industry as well. With the creation of the Lachine canal, built between 1821 and 1825, the modernization of the port between 1830 and 1845, and the building of a railroad between Montréal and Lachine, manufacturers settled along the banks of the canal and in the Faubourg des Récollets (formerly Griffintown). A high demand for ship building, machined parts, and iron works led to the establishment of several foundries in the Faubourg.

The Darling Brothers got their start in 1880, at a time when metal works in Griffintown were operating at full tilt.

Fonderie Darling continued to prosper until 1971, employing more than 800 people at one point. The Brothers were known for their particular technique of pouring metal into “grey sand” molds, as well as the high-quality of their machined parts, used widely in construction. Several separate parts would be poured and, once hardened, would be soldered together to create the finished pieces. Although the company was commissioned to produce armaments during the two World Wars, it was principally known for its production of industrial equipment, including heating systems, steam and water pumps, elevators and tramway stairs.

It's now a visual arts hub, founded and run by Quartier Éphémère, which promotes art of the… ephemeral kind.

In the background you can see some of the many new condos built over the last ten years. There are grocery stores in several of them to serve this thriving neighbourhood.

If you look closely at the post it says PLACE DU SABLE GRIS referring to the grey sand mentioned above.

Montreal Fire Station No. 3 was originally a firehouse built between 1903 and 1904, designed by architects Joseph Perrault and Simon Lesage. The building was later converted into a museum dedicated to Montréal's history and heritage in the early 1980s, a project overseen by the Société immobilière du patrimoine architectural de Montréal (SIMPA).

The Kander Building (triangle) in Montreal was built in 1896 and served as the head office for the Lachine Rapids Hydraulic and Land Company. It also housed other businesses, including the Kander Paper Stock Company and the James Ballantyne Munitions department. 

Today it houses a selfie museum. Le Petit Dep, which occupies two floors of the building, was already one of Montreal's most Instagrammable cafés following its opening in 2021. Magda Slezak wanted to push the envelope, offering selfie enthusiasts 16 installations designed by film artisans in her Imaginarium Museum. At $35 pp entrance fee, we passed. We've done the Selfie Museum in Las Vegas and also a pop up here in Toronto.

We stopped in for a drink.

We went in circles looking for the tiny site of Montreal's oldest urban stable, only to discover it was a park with a sign.

Adjacent to the hotel, the Parc de l'Écurie Horse Palace (1206 Ottawa St) marks the site of a stable established in 1862, which Montreal's horse-drawn carriage drivers used until the City decided to abolish horse-drawn carriages in January 2020! Don't hesitate to open the paddock to see the carriage at the far end, under century-old poplars.

The Montreal Rodier Building is an iconic, historic flatiron-style building constructed in 1875 and named for its builder, Charles S. Rodier  a French-Canadian entrepreneur very renowned in the Montreal business world. The building is today one of the last vestiges from the Faubourg des Récollets, a former prosperous commercial sector and the building is recognized as endangered heritage and is one of six such flatiron buildings remaining in Canada.

It was time to head back and find dinner.