Place du Canada (Montreal)

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Place du Canada with St. George Church and Macdonald Monument

The Place du Canada is a 14,000 m² square in Montreal . It is located in the central district of Ville-Marie between the Boulevard René-Lévesque , the Rue de la Cathédrale, the Rue de La Gauchetière and the Rue Peel . The square, which opened in 1872, is designed as an urban park. To the northwest of the boulevard is the Dorchester Square . Both places had the same name until 1967, Square Dominion .

Buildings

View in 1911

The Place du Canada is surrounded by outstanding buildings on all four sides. The Marie-Reine-du-Monde de Montréal cathedral on Rue de la Cathédrale occupies the entire north-east side. The 1000 de La Gauchetière skyscraper , the Marriott Château Champlain hotel and the former Gare Windsor main train station on Rue de La Gauchetière form the southeastern boundary. St. George's Anglican Church is located on Rue Peel in the southwest . Across the street from Boulevard René-Lévesque are the Tour CIBC and Édifice Sun Life skyscrapers .

There are two monuments on Place du Canada. The English sculptor George Edward Wade created an 18-meter-high monument in 1895 in honor of the first Canadian Prime Minister John Macdonald . It is flanked by two cannons from the Crimean War , a gift from Queen Victoria . In 1924 the cenotaph was unveiled in memory of those who fell in the First World War.

The Place du Canada offers access to several traffic structures. At the southeast end is the entrance to the Bonaventure metro station . From there, the widely ramified Montreal underground city can also be reached. The train stations Gare Centrale and Gare Lucien-L'Allier are only a few hundred meters away .

history

Photo and plan of the Square Dominion (1907 and 1927 respectively)

In 1775 the Jewish community Shearith Israel acquired a piece of land at the current location of St. George's Church and set up a cemetery there. The Catholic parish of Notre-Dame de Montréal bought the parcel to the east in 1799 and used it for the Saint-Antoine cemetery. In 1812 she built a small chapel and expanded the cemetery. In 1854, the city had the dead buried in the Catholic cemetery exhumed and transferred to the new Mont-Royal cemetery; the Jewish graves followed until 1869.

The city acquired the site in 1870, and Square Dominion was officially opened two years later . As a result, numerous representative buildings were built around the square. In 1967 the southeastern part of Square Dominion was named Place du Canada on the occasion of the centenary of the Canadian Confederation , and in 1987 the northwestern part was renamed Square Dorchester . On October 27, 1995, three days before the Québec referendum in 1995 , around 100,000 people gathered in the square to demonstrate for the unity of Canada and against Québec's independence ; it was the largest political demonstration in the history of the country to date . From 2009 to 2012 extensive renovation work was carried out on both sites.

Web links

Commons : Place du Canada  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monument to sir John A. Macdonald. In: L'art public à Montréal. City of Montreal, accessed November 3, 2011 (French).
  2. ↑ Monument aux braves de Montréal. In: Montréal en quartiers. Patrimoine Canada, accessed November 3, 2011 (French).
  3. ^ Canadians rally for a united country. CNN , October 28, 1995, accessed November 3, 2011 .

Coordinates: 45 ° 29 ′ 54.6 "  N , 73 ° 34 ′ 8"  W.