CONTEXT: GRIFFINTOWN
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Griffintown is a richly historical area that fosters many waves of immigrants looking for a better place to live. It is a fast-growing multi-ethnic area affected by significant real estate projects. In Griffintown, my neighborhood still has left a group of repurposed industrial buildings like the new city gas and some abandoned land, such as the former horse stable for the carriages, named the Horse Palace. This land, like other spaces, can be integrated into innovative SEA activities that will spark imagination and connect with the neighborhood members.
Griffintown is an area of Montreal City, located within the borough of Le Sud-Ouest. The place derived its name from Mary Griffin, who, in 1804, asked a surveyor to subdivide the former Nazareth Fief (see fig 1) (Mc Cord Museum, 2022). It is located North of the Lachine canal, delimited by Notre Dame Street to the north, the Bonaventure Expressway to the east, and St Gabriel locks to the west. It is considered the first Faubourg or suburb of Old Montreal city.
The area was populated primarily by Irish immigrants from 1820-1960. Later, urban developments like the construction of Montreal Central station (1940), the loss of the Lachine canal role (it was closed in 1959), and the construction of the Bonaventure expressway (1965) made the area almost a ghost town during the 70s (Janssen, 2009).
Amajor transformation of the urban fabric of Montreal was done as a result of the Expo 67 preparations and the modernist urban vision planning. Many historic buildings were demolished and replaced, in many cases just with parking lots. Some groups and initiatives, such as the Quartier Éphémère; Griffintown's Community for Sustainable Redevelopment (CSR); Save Griffitown, and others, have been working to rebirth the area by saving its historical heritage. Since the beginning of this century, significant changes in urban zoning have made the area a Contested Territory, as Janssen (2009, p.19) described it. As a result, we have witnessed the rapid transformation of the site in the last ten years, from a neglected neighborhood to a crowded, densified condo development.
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Local projects like the Ottawa Cultural Corridor and others promoted by groups like Panique au Faubourg in 1997, artists Caroline Andrieux, founder, and director of the Darling Foundry, and more recently MR-63 (Le Doyon, 2009; Ville de Montreal 2021) are still going on to maintain Montreal's culture and heritage in the area. But the fact is that a new population is living in the area, with no attachments to the site, no meaningful connection, and no sense of community.
In the recent past, several scholarly researchers have discussed the accelerated effects of changes in historic areas of cities like Griffintown. While they have informed me of the understanding of the place and the critical examination of the city’s gentrification through art interventions, my research differs in that it looks at the future and the urban pedagogy for people living in the city.
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Links:
MacLeod 9 Productions Presents: 21 short films by G. Scott MacLeod
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Fonderie Darling - Place Public Toponymy, Tool box
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Darling Brothers Limited by Darling Brothers Limited
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Discover Montreal’s Lost Neighborhood of Griffintown
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REFERENCES:
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Janssen, S (2009). Reclaiming the Darling Foundry: From Post-Industrial Landscape to Quartier
Ephemere (Master dissertation, Concordia University).
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Janssen, S. (2014). Urban Occupations Urbaines: Curating the Post-industrial
Landscape (Doctoral dissertation, Concordia University).
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Mc Cord Museum, (2022). McCord Museum, institutional page. Retrieved: June 2022.
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IMAGE: Mc. CORD MUSEUM
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