Numbering the City
I think it’s safe to say that most cities have some kind of house numbering system, but the nature of that system differs from place to place. It took me awhile to figure out that there are two sets of civic numbers in Paris, one for residential buildings and another for retail spaces. Here in North America, many cities are divided into sections, with house numbers increasing with distance from a main street or particular geographic feature.
That’s the case for Montreal, where numbers on north-south streets increase depending on their distance from the St. Lawrence River. It’s a neat arrangement that allows you to determine the location of an address by its “hauteur” relative to the river. On a north-south street, for instance, I know that 3000 corresponds roughly to Ste. Catherine, 4500 to Mount Royal, 7000 to Jean Talon and so forth. 10,000 or more is inconceivably far north, near the edge of the island or perhaps the edge of the world.
Beyond the numbering system, though, I’ve always been curious about the way the numbers are represented. Throughout the central part of Montreal, most buildings and apartments have the same white-on-blue signs, which all appear to have been issued at the same time. There are also some black-on-white versions of the same signs. I don’t know much about them — when were they made? Who distributed them? As they gradually disappear, is anything being done to preserve them?
Photos taken on Demers Street in the Plateau Mont-Royal.
Tags: Montreal, Signs
Fagstein says:
It’s also nice to see places where the addresses have been renumbered and the old numbers are still there. There are some places in Westmount and on Decarie Blvd. in NDG that have the old number displayed in stained glass and the new number below.
The east-west number system (based at St. Laurent Blvd.) gets a bit crazy at the ends of the Island, where addresses are in the five digits — 11,000, 12,000, 13,000…, but north-south addresses are still four digits (and only go up to about 5,000 because the island is narrower).
December 22nd, 2007 at 3:28 am
Jimmy Zoubris says:
Someone once told me that when it comes to east west numbers, you cannot have a duplicate. For example, if there is a 1 Mont Royal East, there won’t be the same civic address West.
I wonder if this is true ? Now that you brought up numbers, I will look into it!
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:59 am
Lorie says:
Actually, there is one exception to that rule. On Charlevoix, south of the canal in Point St. Charles, the numbers begin with a 0 to distinguish them from the addresses north of the canal in St. Henri. These used to be two distinct municipalities and I guess Charlevoix was unconnected back then.
The addresses are funny to see: 01001 and 0179, etc. Apparently sometimes people in the Point get mail meant for their conterpoart in St. Henri and vice versa.
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 am
brad says:
My street number is 10787, which indeed is about as far north as you can go in Montréal without falling into the Rivière des Prairies. It’s the former “cottage country” for downtown Montréalers; villages like Sault-aux-Recollets (where I live) that were once summer homes for people who lived in centre-ville.
Seeing the mailbox in one of your images reminded me that I’d love to see a photo essay on letterboxes (if you’ve already done one, sorry). I’m actually looking for an old-style letterbox for our house, which was built in 1912, but they’re surprisingly hard to fin, even in antique shops.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am