Quebec City Tour: Notre Dame des Anges

Gateway to Quebec’s smallest municipality

For most people in Quebec City, Notre Dame des Anges refers to the ironically-named street where you could pick up prostitutes in the days before Saint Roch was cleaned up and gentrified. Few locals realize there’s another place of the same name in their midst.

Notre Dame des Anges is the smallest municipality in the province (0.06 km2), with a mere 456 residents. It’s right in the heart of Quebec’s urban core but has managed to escape the recent municipal mergers that swallowed up most suburbs within a 10km radius. It was created in 1855 to protect its main occupant from taxes, the 300+ year old General Hospital. It survives today as a tax haven run by the mother superior of the Augustines.

More

Saint Roch Contemporary

New buildings in Saint Roch, Quebec City

Canada’s Only Good Boulevard

Canadian cities fail miserably grandiose urban planning. Every single effort at creating a monumental boulevard has resulted in something mediocre. University Street in Toronto, which runs straight into the Ontario provincial parliament building, has a nice median and a good visual terminus, but it’s ruined by drab furnishings and even more banal buildings. Montreal’s René-Lévesque Boulevard starts nowhere in particular and ends nowhere in particular; although it passes by a number of great Modernist landmarks, like Place Ville-Marie, the CIBC Tower, Hydro-Quebec building and Maison Radio-Canada, it feels aimless and kind of pointless. Ottawa, the one city that could really use a boulevard or two, suffers from an ordinary provincial street grid that ignores the existence of the capital’s many important buildings.

The only example of a Canadian boulevard that really works, at least in my experience, is in Quebec City: Honoré-Mercier Avenue, formerly known as Dufferin Avenue (it was renamed in 1996, with Dufferin’s name given to an expressway, an exchange that brings to mind the renaming, in Montreal, of Dorchester Boulevard after René Lévesque and Dominion Square after Lord Dorchester). First planned in the late nineteenth century, after the construction of Quebec’s provincial legislature, it runs between the Mercier Monument and the edge of the hill separating Quebec’s upper and lower towns. What makes it so remarkable is that it opens up a spectacular vista of the suburbs and hills to the north of Quebec. Restrained street furniture keeps the view uncluttered. Walking down from the parliament, or from the narrow streets of either Old Quebec or Saint-Jean-Baptiste, it is breathtaking.

Quebec City Tour: Le Campanile

In the early 1980s, New Urbanism arose as a reaction to suburban sprawl, advocating a return to traditional city planning. The Campanile area, laid out in 1986, was built according to these ideas. This dense neighbourhood lies beyond the low-density suburbs of Sainte-Foy on the edge of Greater Quebec. Just when you think you’ve hit the wilderness, there it is.

New Urbanist principles dictate that neighbourhoods should have a discernable centre. The centre here is a “campanile,” or clock tower. Beneath the tower is a modern day take on an old market hall, containing a supermarket, a pharmacy, and a few specialty food stores. A typical main street stretches up from this clock tower and has managed to attract an interesting array of shops.

More

Quebec City Tour: Suburbia

This is Sainte-Foy, one of Quebec City’s numerous suburbs, where I grew up. Yes, it could be anywhere in North America. 80% of the population in Greater Quebec lives in low-density burbs like this one, with anonymous detached homes on large grassy lots. This demographic majority has redefined the public image of Quebec City, a city often depicted as an enigmatic hotbed of conservatives by the press. The fact that these conservative values are largely relegated to the suburbs has been mapped through demographic research.

Though all Quebec suburbs may feel similarly insipid to some, there is a pecking order for locals. Sainte-Foy is near the top. People from Sainte-Foy look down on people from Charlesbourg, who in turn look down on people from Beauport, who look down on people from Duberger, who look down on people from Neuchatel and Loretteville, who look down on people from Val-Bélair, who look down on people from Vanier. Vanier is the bottom of the suburban barrel, home of the “Coupe Vanier” (AKA Coupe Longueuil AKA The Mullet). Only Cap-Rouge and Sillery are high enough on the pecking order to look down on Sainte-Foy.

But that’s just the north shore, which leaves out the “farmers” on the south shore. And there’s Quebec’s city centre, which looks down on all these suburbanites, their screaming populist politicians, and their “my power centre is bigger than your power centre” pecking order. So who’s the big fish now? Well, let’s not forget Montreal, who thinks the “gros village” of Quebec has its head up its ass for even thinking of itself as a city. But Montreal has “les 450” to reckon with, and that takes us into a whole new pecking order.

So who’s right?

Railway Stations in Quebec and Montreal

Gare du Palais, Quebec

In the 19th century, Montreal boomed as an industrial railway hub while Quebec City fell into obscurity. Quebec remained poorly connected by rail to the rest of the continent until the 20th century. A grand chateau-style railway station, called Gare du Palais, was built in 1915 to inaugurate the new railway line crossing the recently-completed Quebec Bridge. A small park with a brutalist fountain by Charles Daudelin was added to the front in 1999, and for some strange reason the contrast works. There’s something grand to this area, leaving you with the misleading impression that Quebec is an important railway hub. But the cavernous emptiness of the halls reveal the truth – only four trains come into the station per day.

Gare du Palais, Quebec

More

The Revolving Fortunes of Rotating Restaurants

From the 1940s to the 1980s, vast areas of North American cities were demolished and replaced with freeways and large concrete skyscrapers. This process, which came to be known as Urban Renewal, did not hit Quebec City quite as hard as Montreal or other cities in Canada. Though the old city was left untouched, over 1,200 homes were demolished to widen boulevards and make way for skyscrapers in historic neighbourhoods immediately outside the city walls. In 1974 alone, four of the city’s ten tallest skyscrapers were inaugurated. One of these was topped with a revolving restaurant on the 31st floor.

The restaurant in question, L’Astral, tops the Loews le Concorde hotel. The Italianate home of Cyrille Duquet, little-known inventor of the double-ended telephone handset, once stood on the site of this hotel. Promotional literature of the time claimed Le Concorde provided the “sophistication of the vieux regime with a bold contemporary statement.” Though it’s difficult to see the link between a mass of brutalist concrete and the traditions of New France, there’s no doubt that the building was bold.

I went to this rotating restaurant for the first time a few weeks ago. The whole idea of lunching at L’Astral had always seemed a bit corny. A few work colleagues managed to talk me into it with promises of nice views. To be fair, it was better than other tourist traps on the same strip, and it got me mind thinking about revolving restaurants.

More

Quebec City Tour: Montcalm

To many people in Quebec, Montcalm ward is synonymous with old money and big houses. It is actually quite a diverse and interesting area, with everything from cheap student flats to landscaped boulevards with mansions. The term “climbing the social ladder” takes on a rather literal meaning here—the lower part of Montcalm is more modest than the streets fronting the Plains of Abraham at the top.

Montcalm is located immediately west of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, and about a twenty minute walk from Vieux-Québec. This is too far for most tourists, which is a shame as the area has lots to offer. The few tourists who do make it out tend to come for the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Plains of Abraham, but a walk through its architecturally diverse streets is worth the detour.

In the middle of the 19th century, Montcalm was located outside Quebec’s city limits. A tiny settlement of tax dodgers sprung up on its edge, called Faubourg Guenette. Most of the land in today’s Montcalm was originally owned by wealthy English-speaking lumber barons. These gentleman-farmers built picturesque villas on large estates overlooking the cliffs, living out the romantic ideal and fleeing the cholera and typhus of the dense centre.

Traces of the old Faubourg Guenette, along Rue Crémazie

More

Wolfe vs. Wolfe-Montcalm

The Plains of Abraham are famous for the confrontation between the armies of Wolfe and Montcalm, a decisive battle leading to Britain’s conquest of New France.

Several centuries later, a confrontation over a street name is taking place on this lamp-post bordering the park. Federal and Municipal authorities can’t agree on whether to call the street “Wolfe” or “Wolfe-Montcalm”. It seems likely that the disagreement reached a stalemate several decades back. Nowadays, the two names coexist and most people are either indifferent or unaware.

There are legitimate grounds to adopt either name. The city named the avenue “Wolfe-Montcalm” first, in 1901, a politically correct decision to commemorate both victor and vanquished equally. The National Battlefields Park was created in 1908 when Federal authorities saved the area from residential development and turned it into a commemorative park. The disagreement probably arose because the short avenue has always led to a monument on the spot where Wolfe fell in battle; the street has no link whatsoever with Montcalm. To complicate things, recent municipal mergers have resulted in the fact that a Wolfe Avenue now exists elsewhere in the city (home to an English-language, formerly Irish Catholic, elementary school).

More

Finding Your Way in Quebec City

I tracked down five types of street signs within the traditional limits of Quebec City. The oldest signs are these attractive blue and white ones. The highest concentration of such signs are in Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

This type of sign with a curious mix of embossed lower case and capital letters is the next in our chronological progression. Saint-Sauveur is where most of these are located.

More

Quebec City Tour: Limoilou

Poster advertising keytar legend “Gils” at Limoilou’s Pub Chez Jean

The image above summarizes my perception of Limoilou: a neighbourhood locked in time where mullets, keytars, and bikers rule. I don’t go there often, and when I do I always experience culture shock (but I suppose it also makes me laugh).

Largely planned and built in the early 20th century, Limoilou looks more like Montreal’s triplex neighbourhoods than any other part of Quebec City. Spiral staircases, tree-lined streets, and a “balconville” atmosphere reigns. Locals in Nordiques caps and short shorts drink Labatt Bleue on their balconies. It could almost be Rosemont/Petite Patrie or Hochelaga/Maisonneuve, but not quite.

In order to get a different perspective on the place, I asked my British friends Tom Welham and Judith Kirby why they live there. After circling the world a few times and cycling across Australia, Tom and Judith decided Limoilou was the best place on earth. They immigrated from England, bought a flat here, and intend to stay.

More

Caution: Satan at Work

The Old Town and the Sea

The St. Lawrence River in Montreal. Photo by Matt Hobbs

If we don’t get a handle on runaway greenhouse warming, sea levels are predicted to rise by approximately 20 feet, or seven meters. If you think this won’t affect Quebec, think again. Using the Google Maps API and NASA climate projection data, a clever person has put together a site to show exactly what will be flooded when sea levels rise.

In Quebec City, most of Lower Town will be underwater and significant portions of the islands and riverbanks will be lost. The region around Sorel-Tracy, mostly farms, will be completely flooded. Montreal and the South Shore will lose a lot of riverfront, and in general, many of the low-elevation islands such as the Iles de Boucherville will lose huge amounts of their surface area. Even municipalities along the Richelieu will also suffer a good deal of flooding, for instance, near Chambly.

And that, in part, is why I voted Green yesterday.

Quebec City Tour #5: Saint Sauveur

Saint Sauveur, like neighbouring Saint Roch, has a tangible working class past, but this is where similarities end. Saint-Roch is in the throes of gentrification and is rapidly becoming a new downtown. Saint-Sauveur has retained its modest rundown feel, but is one of the few places attracting a noticeable immigrant presence in lilywhite Quebec City. This is the neighbourhood to hit for asian markets, african shops, and latino grocers. They’re right there in between the old-school Roi de la patate, Au Royaume de la Tarte, and Tabagie de l’ouvrier.

More