These are pictures I took in april 2011 of the old part of the city aptly named Old Montreal. There is alot of variety in this district. I only scraped the surface of what used to be the old colonial city of which few monuments survive although there are a number of early to mid 18th century dwellings of note especially east of St-Laurent boulevard (The Main). As the city grew, the district became the financial center near St James or St Jacques street depending on your cultural affiliation and as the 20th century progressed, banks and insurance companies moved their HQ's to more spacious office towers.
In the early sixties there was a plan to demolish a massive part of this area to accomodate the building of the Ville-Marie and Bonaventure expressways but thankfully this didnt happen. Mind you, both expressways will see partial or total part of their infrastructures demolished in turn because they are in dismal condition nearly 50 years later. The salt and ice have caused major problems to the steel reinforcement, eroding the concrete elevated freeways in this city of weather extremes.
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