The organ grinder outside of Morgan's Department Store

Here is the final memory of going downtown with my Auntie Mable. It is the organ grinder in front of Morgan's Department Store who I remember from one of those Saturday afternoon trips. I am still trying to find the passage in which the organ grinder is mentioned in a poem by Louis Dudek. 

This Morgan's Department Store was also called Colonial House, that would be the original building as shown below, not the newer wing attached to the rear of the store. Morgan's was founded in 1845 and sold to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1960, this flagship location became La Baie in 1972. Morgan's was the first large department store in Canada; it was also the first large Montreal department store to move to Ste. Catherine Street in 1891 and our commercial downtown area grew from that time on. 

The store is bound by Ste. Catherine Street, where the organ grinder stood outside of the store, Aylmer Street on the east, and Union Street on the west. What also interests me is Phillip's Square, across Ste. Catherine Street from the store, and the location of the original Arts Association of Montreal, later the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 

There used to be a plaque commemorating Jefferson Davis's visit to Montreal, he stayed at the home of John Lovell, and the plaque was on Morgan's exterior wall on Union Street where Lovell's home had been located; Davis stayed at Lovell's home in 1867; the plaque was removed in 2017.

It seems that a twenty story condo and office building will be built on top of the old Morgan's building.

Morgan's Department Store, 1960s; Union Street and Ste. Catherine Street

Pushing his organ outside of Morgan's on Ste. Catherine Street West

The organ grinder in front of Morgan's

I am told he lived in a shed in Chinatown

Cartoon by John Collins

The organ grinder in the background

A Saturday Afternoon Downtown

I wrote a poem about going downtown with my Auntie Mable, the poem was published in A Private Mythology (Ekstasis Editions, 2015). 

Downtown Montreal, around 1955; Morgan's in the background, 
Christ Church Cathedral behind the streetcar on the left

A Saturday Afternoon

 

Outside the main doors

of Morgan’s Department Store

facing Phillip’s Square, an organ grinder

played music that Saturday afternoon downtown

with Aunt Mable. I was a child in the late 1950s

with my aunt, walking beside her, window shopping, 

eating turkey and mashed potato dinner

at Woolworth’s basement lunch counter

then buying pastries upstairs as we left to walk along             

Ste. Catherine Street. You could list the beggars you

saw in Montreal back then, the woman with one

shoe off, the shoe hidden behind her,

and the chauffeur-driven black car

that would pick her up,

or so we heard… or the old woman,

scarf tied under her chin

and the tin can of yellow pencils she sold.

Then, Eaton’s, Simpson’s and Morgan’s

were the big department stores,

now it's boutiques, restaurants, crowded streets,

strip joints and bright lights.

At Eaton's Department Store

Stephen Morrissey at Eaton's Department Store around 1960

Here I am around 1960, at Eaton`s Department Store on Ste. Catherine Street in Montreal with my Auntie Mable not visible but looking on from the side, at a boat show on one of the upper floors of the store. Polaroid photos were a new invention at the time and one of the store employees took my photo in front of a boat, I think anyone who was there could get a free photograph of themselves. Of course, the first thing I did was smudge the photo with my finger since the photo was still wet and I was told to wait to let it dry. In fact, I still have this photograph. I guess the rolled-up papers were brochures from the boat show. What was the boat show? Probably a few boats with Evinrude motors attached to the rear of the boats, nothing like the monster luxury boats that you would find at a boat show today, for instance at the boat shows held at Place Bonaventure.

Many years later my wife and I ate at the famous ninth floor restaurant at this Eaton`s branch. Eaton's went bankrupt in 1999 and many of us got some good deals on clothes; the clothes are worn out and the store is gone. Even in 1999 the big department stores were closing, and with them a part of a way of life and an important institution in Canadian life. 

Saturday afternoon with Auntie Mable

People used to go shopping, to movies, or to restaurants downtown on Friday evenings; they'd go shopping downtown on Saturday afternoons. I remember going downtown with my Auntie Mable (Morrissey) on Saturday afternoons, but memory has a life of its own so perhaps it was only one time or perhaps it was a few times. This was probably around 1960. 

There are several memories from those times. One is shopping at the Woolworth's store located on the corner of McGill College Avenue and Ste. Catherine Street West. This building was demolished years ago and it is now the location of the Montreal Trust building which includes a shopping mall. I remember eating a turkey dinner at Woolworth's and having two chocolate milk shakes on one of those occasions. I think the lunch counter was in the basement but perhaps it was on the main floor; as we left the store I remember Auntie Mable buying lemon squares in a white box tied with string when we left to return home. 

Because of these memories I have collected photographs of that Woolworth's location; the better to remember it. 

Woolworth's is the white building, centre of photo; view of McGill College Avenue
from Place Ville Marie

Interior of Woolworth's, late 1940s; not sure if this photo is of the Woolworth's we visited

Crowded Ste. Catherine Street in early 1960s, Woolworth's on right

Woolworth's on right; these people are crossing McGill College Avenue and walking along
Ste. Catherine Street, the main shopping area of Montreal

The lunch counter at Woolworth's; again, not sure if this is in Montreal where the lunch counter
was possibly located in the basement of the store

Looking east on Ste. Catherine Street; Woolworth's on the left; late 1950s