Ah how i miss living in that neighbourhood. Although it looked much nicer in the 1900s…
C’a avait l’air d’une banlieue en 1900.
Well, it was just all the same kinds of houses in the 1900s…I think is one of the nicest stretches of Sherbrooke street east of Guy left in the city. More trees, of course…we get jealous looking at the scope of greenery in the 1900s photo…I wonder how many elms we lost here!…but between Berri and Amherst I always felt there was a pleasant scale to such a wide thoroughfare–even the modern buildings seem as exclusive to the streetfront on the north side as they were in 1900!
The big mistake was to turn Sherbrooke/Berri into an interchange, which even today doesn’t seem well-used enough to warrant the erasing of an entire quarter. I’d love to see some photos of this stretch of Berri before it was eight lanes wide with two overpasses at Sherbrooke. If the powers-that-were had their fantasy world actualized, there would be a grade-separated expressway shuttle between the ville-marie and the metropolitan via Berri. (if not, I’m curious why they did this!—actually, I wonder if there is a source to find out the details of traffic management in the Plateau/Centre-Sud/Quartier Latin during the 60s). Instead it seems they had to re-route north/south-bound traffic via St.-Denis by turning Cherrier (between Berri and St.-Denis) into a traffic circle. I mean, there is an abrupt shift in the streetscape on Berri, between Sherbrooke and Maisonneuve/Ontario/Roy/Duluth. At first glance it almost seems like “Before/During/After.”
At the same time, there is this unique feeling walking down the hill at Berri between Sherbrooke and below. You are surrounded by high-modernism on a street so wide with rusty fences, wide expanses, and a sidewalk designed as wide as they thought people would need once everybody had a car–the place looks good for two seconds! And what a spectacular vantage point…with the neighborhood cleared there is such a view at this post-UQAM sh*t storm below. It makes you feel like even GRANDER plans just weren’t realized–for the extent of traffic management and infrastructure it still feels like a “half-built” neighborhood, when photos like this tell us otherwise.
I like this stretch of Sherbrooke between Berri and Amherst, but at Berri (where this photo was taken) you could probably fit at least three blocks’ worth of development where this silly interchange exists (with its bizarre sight-impared chirping, which I have yet to experience at other large intersections in the city, and which I think goes to show how unwieldy it is to pedestrians while it is surrounded by such a walkable environment! I’m sure they do exist elsewhere, but this one kind of sticks out.).
So, after all that, no surprise–more trees, and DO SOMETHING WITH THAT INTERCHANGE!
P.S. Every time I see photos of Sherbrooke compared to today I have to wonder exactly: what were the specs for street widenings?
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Ah how i miss living in that neighbourhood. Although it looked much nicer in the 1900s…
C’a avait l’air d’une banlieue en 1900.
Well, it was just all the same kinds of houses in the 1900s…I think is one of the nicest stretches of Sherbrooke street east of Guy left in the city. More trees, of course…we get jealous looking at the scope of greenery in the 1900s photo…I wonder how many elms we lost here!…but between Berri and Amherst I always felt there was a pleasant scale to such a wide thoroughfare–even the modern buildings seem as exclusive to the streetfront on the north side as they were in 1900!
The big mistake was to turn Sherbrooke/Berri into an interchange, which even today doesn’t seem well-used enough to warrant the erasing of an entire quarter. I’d love to see some photos of this stretch of Berri before it was eight lanes wide with two overpasses at Sherbrooke. If the powers-that-were had their fantasy world actualized, there would be a grade-separated expressway shuttle between the ville-marie and the metropolitan via Berri. (if not, I’m curious why they did this!—actually, I wonder if there is a source to find out the details of traffic management in the Plateau/Centre-Sud/Quartier Latin during the 60s). Instead it seems they had to re-route north/south-bound traffic via St.-Denis by turning Cherrier (between Berri and St.-Denis) into a traffic circle. I mean, there is an abrupt shift in the streetscape on Berri, between Sherbrooke and Maisonneuve/Ontario/Roy/Duluth. At first glance it almost seems like “Before/During/After.”
At the same time, there is this unique feeling walking down the hill at Berri between Sherbrooke and below. You are surrounded by high-modernism on a street so wide with rusty fences, wide expanses, and a sidewalk designed as wide as they thought people would need once everybody had a car–the place looks good for two seconds! And what a spectacular vantage point…with the neighborhood cleared there is such a view at this post-UQAM sh*t storm below. It makes you feel like even GRANDER plans just weren’t realized–for the extent of traffic management and infrastructure it still feels like a “half-built” neighborhood, when photos like this tell us otherwise.
I like this stretch of Sherbrooke between Berri and Amherst, but at Berri (where this photo was taken) you could probably fit at least three blocks’ worth of development where this silly interchange exists (with its bizarre sight-impared chirping, which I have yet to experience at other large intersections in the city, and which I think goes to show how unwieldy it is to pedestrians while it is surrounded by such a walkable environment! I’m sure they do exist elsewhere, but this one kind of sticks out.).
So, after all that, no surprise–more trees, and DO SOMETHING WITH THAT INTERCHANGE!
P.S. Every time I see photos of Sherbrooke compared to today I have to wonder exactly: what were the specs for street widenings?