Griffintown - History

History

Griffintown was first populated in the early nineteenth century mostly by Irish unskilled immigrant labourers. They worked on the Lachine Canal and the industries surrounding it, the Victoria Bridge, railways, and the Port of Montreal.

The Irish community was centered around St. Ann's Catholic Church, which opened in 1854 at the corner of McCord (now Mountain Street) and Basin Streets, across from Gallery Square, which was named after the Gallery brothers, John Daniel Gallery, who ran a large and successful bakery and his brother Daniel Gallery who was an alderman of Montreal, Schools commissioner and a Liberal member of parliament.

By the early twentieth century, the Irish were being replaced by Jewish, Italian, Ukrianian, and Francophone communities, with the Irish becoming a minority group by 1941.

Post-war economic changes beginning in the 1950s led to the depopulation of "The Griff". The Lachine Canal lost its role as a major transport artery when it was replaced by in 1959 by the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

In 1962, Griffintown was re-zoned as "light industrial". Many buildings were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Bonaventure Expressway and for parking lots.

In 1970 St. Ann's Church was demolished, and is now the site of the Parc Griffintown-St-Ann, where parts of the church's foundations remain visible, and park benches are positioned where the pews would have been. By 1971, the population of Griffintown was 810.

In 1990, the area was renamed the "Faubourg des Recollets", and only somewhat resembles what it once was due to the historical architecture that remains. The Cité Multimédia was built partly above the ruins. The remainders are preserved in the McCord Museum.