Before the Grid

Paths in snow, on the beach and across fields show how people seem unable to walk straight even when they have a clear shot at where they’re going.

People don’t walk straight. Not only do they take short cuts when they can, they avoid trees, rocks and uneven places. The streets in old cities and towns reflect that meandering, but between the beginning of the 19th century and suburban developments in the middle of the 20th century, cities used right-angled street grids in their urban plans almost exclusively. It’s only where the grid met pre-existing footpaths that we can see evidence today of a time when walking feet determined where roads went.

One of the first attempts at “rational” planning began in 1803 when New York’s City Commissioners decided to survey Manhattan and bring order to the hodge-podge of grids that had been laid out along the island’s shorelines. Not much could be done about the earlier patterns, but they were integrated into a huge master plan which would not be completely built up for nearly 150 years. The chief exception to straight streets and right angles came when the commissioners recognized they had to include some footpaths used for centuries by Amerindians. The shortcuts and trails had become major thoroughfares, the most famous being the one running diagonally across the island and now known as Broadway.

The jigs and jogs of Dundas Street in Toronto and York Boulevard in Hamilton both reflect the routes that Native Canadians used long before Europeans arrived. The Côtes in Montreal—Côte Sainte Catherine on the north side of Mount Royal, Côte St. Antoine on the south side, and Côte des Neiges which passes between the two high points in the mountain—are also remnants of the paths used by local Amerindians to avoid unnecessary climbs. The name comes from the French word for “slope” as in Côtes de Rhone, although the only grapes that grew around here weren’t the kind you make good wine from.

More recent walking feet were responsible for one of the few other non-grid streets in central Montreal, Gilford Street, on the Plateau. In the mid-19th century the city was still concentrated near the riverfront, although construction had crept up to the southern and eastern sides of the mountain. Stone for buildings was being quarried north of what is now St. Joseph Boulevard and workers walked across undeveloped fields to get there. A street grid was laid out later, which resulted in a complicated corner where Villeneuve (it was a new neighborhood, after all) meets Saint Denis and Gilford. Not incidentally, Gilford was first called Rue des Carrières or Quarry Street.

Gilford Street in the Plateau district of Montreal originally was a path that workers took across vacant land to get to a quarry where they worked. The street grid was laid out later, making for an intersection of complicated angles at Villeneuve, Gilford and St. Denis.

Cutting around Mount Royal, Amerindians created Montreal’s “Côtes,” major roads which today slash across the city’s predominant grids. Côte Ste-Catherine, on the north side of the mountain curves sinuously around obstacles that disappeared a couple of centuries ago.