Montage du jour : Immeuble commercial à l’intersection des rues Mont-Royal et Berri

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1. The most obvious change between the 1961 photo and the later is the collection of what now might be deemed ‘Classic’ vehicles?

   Most obvious is the Fifties International Harvester Metro Van. These had sliding doors on the front and two hinged doors on the rear. There was a sliding door between the driver and the cargo area.

   Cherished Steinberg’s once had a fleet in their now ‘Classic’ Red with Gold lettering in which groceries were delivered.

   By the late Sixties hippies and Draft Dodgers were making ‘Motor Homes’ out of Metro Vans by installing a small wood heater in the former cargo area, smoke stack protruding thru the roof, a string of these motor homes could often be seen lined up in front of beer parlours in the West.

   Back to the Landers, Hmmm.

   Facing to the left is a Chevrolet ‘Panel’, also once quite common for home delivery of groceries and for home delivery door-to-door of meat, eggs and other dairy products.

   Tho’ not in the photos, other vehicles once common on the commercial side in the Fifties/Sixties included automobile-like Sedan Deliveries and the stand-up-or-sit-down-to-drive Divco dairy trucks.

   Sedan Delivery.

   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/1949_Chevy_Sedan_delivery.jpg

   Divco Milk Truck.

   http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r293/VIEWLINER/PTA/DIVCO.jpg

   Vans as we know them today really started to take over after 1961 or so.

   Behind the panel is a Citroen, also numerous in the Fifties and Sixties. They were front wheel drive and had hydraulic suspension so that the car could be raised and lowered.

   Never a big player, and soon to go out of business, a Studebaker is second behind the Metro Van.

   Dodge/Plymouths and VWs appear.

   In both photos is a large bell on the wall to the right of the Metro Van and above the Hydrant in the colour photo that is, I am presuming, a hydraulic ‘ Water Flow Sprinkler Alarm’ in which, if the Sprinkler System within the building is activated by a fire, the check valve on the water main in from the street opens in the Sprinkler room, uncovering a side port which sends water flow to a water-driven turbine on the inside of the building.

   The turbine rotor is on the same shaft, which protudes outside, and spins a rotating clapper inside the bell.

   Sometimes a water flow pipe also protrudes, causing water to pour onto the sidewalk from the turbine, and, often, there is a sign saying to call Fire Dept. if bell ringing and water flowing.

   Above the people on the corner is an ‘A Louer’ sign with the seven-digit telephone number AV 8-1234,the ‘AVenue 8’ later becoming 288 in the mid-Sixties when telephone numbers became all digits.