[MartinMtl]

Mes photos, dimanche 17 mai./My pics taken may 17th, 2015.

 

[junctionist]

Thanks for sharing. Old Montreal is beautiful. In many ways, it's a model for heritage conservation districts. Preserve entire buildings, not just facades. Restore and renovate the buildings, and adapt them to new uses. Invest in streetscapes and public spaces like parks and squares. Restore heritage pavements like granite blocks and bricks. Use small and unobtrusive traffic lights that don't block visual sight lines. It's one of the most interesting historic districts on the continent.

However, I wish that some of the buildings had more prominent signs for their businesses. There are probably heritage restrictions in this regard. Some of the streetscapes (but not all) look sterile and lifeless or like a museum because you can't see any commercial signs for the businesses located in the buildings. Also, most people in the photos look like tourists. It would be better if the district had more of a mix of tourists and locals.

 

[TheKingEast]

Was there yesterday. Love it. Love how they incorporated newer, low/midrise condos with the older buildings. It's really an amazing little area.

 

[onfence]

Thx for sharing. Great photography.

 

[Tewder]

Great pics. A city that takes pride, clearly. I shake my head that anyone could find these streetscapes to be 'sterile'. Perhaps we just don't understand what clean and maintained means anymore? Besides, there are all kinds of funky, messy-urban streetscapes in Montreal too. Vive la diversité.

 

[urbandreamer]

I used to live in Old Montreal. 2000 sq ft for $750 those were the days....

I always fled the area on weekends in the summer--those annoying ROC/Americans drove me nuts.

There are many buildings in the area that are simply facades with new buildings behind them.

 

[Tewder]

Ah sounds like Toronto then.

 

[MartinMtl]

There are many buildings in the area that are simply facades with new buildings behind them.

Very few actually. Old Montreal is a protected historic district since 1964. From that year, everything south of Notre-Dame was protected and submit to very strict protection code. The fact that the law applied only south of Notre-Dame did allow some façadism on St-Jacques (Centre de commerce mondial), but the law was changed in 1992 to include the whole district (south of St-Antoine, east of McGill). Obviously, some buildings that were gut by fire or following neglect are in fact only facades, but they are exception to the rule. The vast majority of those grey stone warehouses have been transformed into residential or commercial buildings, meaning that their interior spaces were adapted, but this is not façadism, of course. They are not new buildings behind old facades, like you implied. It's very rare that you enter a building in Old Montreal and finds yourself in a very modern interior. Even when that happens, like for exemple the Hotel Gault, the interior is modern but it's adapted from the old space, not completely rebuild.