A path of hard packed earth littered with the season’s first fallen leaves meanders between Melrose and Draper street backyards in NDG. Although the pedestrian alley is only one block long – between Monkland Ave and Terrebonne – this lane-way feels completely removed from the city’s concrete grid.
The alley has just always been this way, says a Melrose street resident who has lived there for over 25 years. A tree growing in the centre of the path is evidence for her story.
In some places, the trees are so thick that passers-by have to duck under their branches. I spotted several lush-looking veggie gardens in the adjacent backyards and even a grape-vine creeping over one entryway. Laundry drying on the line added a bit of extra colour to the greenery.
Having an urban streetscape at your front step and a country lane out back seems like the ideal living situation. I wonder why natural alleyways like this one aren’t more common in the city?
7 comments
this is the kind of thing that makes montreal so special for me – access to a little nature (but still with the feeling of being out of the city) just in the back of your house :-)
i wish more alleyways would be like this, unfortunately behind our apartment it is concrete and the trees are being cut back …
Quand je me promène à vélo dans les parages, je passe toujours par là… :)
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Qui se souvient de la ruelle des autobus qui reliait le chemin Queen-Mary à la côte St-Luc, entre les rues Clanranald et Earnscliffe?
Il n’en reste que de petits parcs sur le chemin Queen-Mary et l’avenue Snowdon… Le reste a été vendu aux riverains…
À l’origine, c’était le tramway qui passait par là, et puis les voies ont été pavées pour permettre le passage des autobus (la 62, la 48 et la 17).
La ruelle a disparu à la fin des années 70 quand les autobus ont été relocalisés sur Décarie.
Wow doesn’t that look special. NDG represent
NDG has some interesting laneways. I wrote about one awhile ago that looks like a country road here: https://spacing.ca/montreal/2007/10/08/photo-du-jour-two-strips-of-dirt/
Alanah,
These are lovely photos of some lovely old trees. I recognize the horse chestnut with its palmate, almost round leaf divided into seven leaflets — or, could be its North American cousin, the Ohio buckeye, since each leaflet seems to come to a point as compared to the rounded horse chestnut leaflet. And the big tree in the centre appears to be a red ash — judging by the deeply grooved, tan coloured bark. And that big one that’s the backdrop to the coloured jockeys, fanning out like an elm, looks to be a silver maple, one of the many planted in the post-war housing construction in NDG.
Many thanks for this sip of cool water.
I lived on this lane for about 4 years in the mid eighties. Families would at opposite ends of the block would arrange playtimes for the children, then would go out to the lane or sidewalk and watch as the children made their way to the other end. Unfortunately more yards now have expanded privacy fencing into the lane. There are still many which have open views. Alas, all things change.
i grew a little vegetable garden by the building at the top of this alley with my friends Paul and Nick when i was a little boy back in the 70’s. We excavated the hardpack and gravel and lugged in some bagged soil and got our seeds from the w.h.Perron catalog. Paul liked to wear his davy crockett hat when we he watered the plants. The old ladies loved us for it. Sweet summer memories …