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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Photo du jour: Pedestrian tunnel

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Sometime in the 1930s, a pedestrian tunnel was built between Lafontaine Park and the Notre-Dame Hospital on Sherbrooke Street. It has since closed and I’ve never noticed the entrance — does anyone know if it’s still there?

Photo from the Montreal city archives

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7 comments

  1. That’s where the large pointy statue is, judging from what little can be seen of the hospital in the background of the image.

    I imagine it was removed because it was a trouble spot… Another closed up tunnel, entrance still extant, is under the tracks in Point St-Charles, from Rue de la Congregation to Shearer.

  2. Anyone else old enough to remember similar tunnels between Jeanne Mance Park and Mont Royal? Or for that matter, the underground bathrooms at Philip’s Square (hint: the two flower beds now facing Saint Catherine were actually stairwells going down to the men’s and ladies’)?

  3. I’m sure a lot of people on the site will remember the more recently closed tunnel under avenue du Parc between the Mountain and Jeanne-Mance park. Not only muggings, but a persistent urine smell. A traffic light has proven a better solution.

    These er … flow… from an obsession with traffic flow.

  4. First time commenter! This picture brought back childhood memories of the St.Laurant underpass walk way going to Jarry Park. I think it was around Faillon. Long, dark corridor with a constant urine smell.

  5. Maria, I guess I’m not the only old-timer, then.

    Thing is, I remember when I was little that they weren’t grotty and stinky. But they became so. It’s sad.

    And as I look around today at my beloved hometown, absolutely caked with grafitti — and not “art” either, just gang or pseudo-gang shit — it makes me sadder.

    Okay, I’m upping my meds.

  6. actually,i was taking pics from Notre-dame to Westmount the other day and i was looking for that tunnel near the Atwater vicinity,pretty sure it was near the highway overpass.

    if i remember correctly you could take that tunnel and end up close to …..i dont remember.

  7. That Park Avenue pedestrian underpass disappeared at least
    20 years ago. The traffic light only went in last year or
    so.

    Duluth was a logical place to cross. I remember when they
    had a commission in the late eighties or early nineties about
    the state of The Mountain, I wrote a submission and said those
    blocks are terribly long, full of people, yet few places for
    pedestrians to cross. Pine to Mount Royal, and only one place
    to cross, at the statue. The underpass was gone by that point, yet
    they put up a barrier in the middle of the street rather than
    put in a light for pedestrians to cross.

    The same thing happened on Pine, sort of. I forget the side street,
    but there was a logical place to cross pine near the interchange, and
    the city put up a barrier sometime within the past twenty years. Yes,
    it wasn’t a smart place to cross, but it was a logical place and only
    in a city where pedestrians come second would they block pedestrian
    passage rather than make it safer for them to cross.

    Michael

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