Avonmore Avenue, June 2023

 

The renaming of Avonmore Avenue (it was previously called Milan Street) occurred on 7 May 1912:

La résolution du Conseil municipal de Montréal, à l'effet de changer le nom de la rue Milan en celui d'avenue Avonmore, donne l'origine de ce nom: «mot de la langue celtique qui signifie grande rivière». Toutefois, cette voie est très éloignée d'une grande rivière… 

                                                (from City of Montreal website) 

Previously, I've posted some photographs of the streetcar tracks still visible at the bottom of Avonmore Avenue, now where the tracks are is a lane and some of it is blocked off as people have extended their backyards. Avonmore is perpendicular to both Clanranald and Earnscliffe; Clanranald Avenue is on the west side and Earnscliffe Avenue is on the east side of Avonmore. My mother had many memories, one day she mentioned that when she lived on Avonmore a man followed her home, she phoned her father who was the captain at fire Station/Caserne 46 on Somerled Avenue, and he told her to stay in her apartment and lock the door, then he phoned the police. Another memory was of a woman who was killed by a streetcar that ran passed the Avonmore apartment building. Again, she phoned her father; we didn't see a lot of her father but he was often referred to by her. Finding these streetcar tracks was like being an archaeologist, it was to find a remnant of the past that was part of one's family history; you find the tracks and you say, "Aha! this is what she was talking about!" The tracks are still there, I doubt anyone will ever bother to remove them.

I always thought my parents lived at 5514 Avonmore Avenue but today, looking up addresses on Lovell's Montreal Street Directory, I see that they lived next door at 5515 Avonmore Avenue, apartment # 4. 

I also see that my cousin, Bob Morrissey, and his wife lived at 5485 Avonmore Avenue, apartment # 15, in 1967-68; Bob is the son of my Uncle Herb and Auntie Dorothy who lived next door to us on Oxford Avenue in the mid-1950s.

The old streetcar tracks are here; BTW, that's my brother and his wife in the centre
of the photograph, inspecting the old streetcar tracks and talking with someone who lives nearby.

1950s tram no.1932, line 50 on Girouard Avenue

Between Clanranald Avenue and Earnscliffe Avenue. The Northbound would turn right
on Queen Mary Road and head east. Sections of the track visible from Avonmore.

Avonmore Avenue, afternoon, 06 January 2015, facing where
Avonmore meets Clanranald Avenue

Avonmore Avenue, afternoon, 06 January 2015, facing where the old tracks are located



 

Avonmore Apartment, some old photographs

5515 Avonmore Avenue

5514 Avonmore Avenue

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas, around 1949

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas 1949

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas, around 1949

Gerry and Kitty Heffernan (Gerry Heffernan played for the Montreal Canadiens
hockey team) were good friends of my parents and visited
them often at the Avonmore apartment

Here is a photograph taken by one of my parents, it is the 1939
construction of the Avonmore apartments; according to the City of Montreal's
website, the building was constructed in 1943, this must be an error.

 

Visiting Avonmore Avenue on 22 July 2015

In July of 2015 I visited Avonmore Avenue and took these photographs; it is where my parents lived after they married in 1940.

 

This is the apartment building where my parents lived

They lived at 5515 Avonmore Avenue

Photographs are posted of the apartment that is for rent at 5515 Avonmore

The lane at the bottom of Avonmore with old streetcar tracks still present

Streetcars ran at the bottom of the street; you can still see the streetcar tracks

Here are some photographs posted at the entrance of the building, they show the  interior of the apartments 

 

Avonmore Avenue in January 2015

“Can you take me back where I came from, brother can you take me back?”

Avonmore Avenue. This was my parents' first home after they married in 1940, they lived at Apartment #4, at 5515 Avonmore Avenue; it was their home for the next ten years. During this time they lived only a few blocks from my paternal grandmother's home at 2226 Girouard Avenue. That's how things worked in the old days, you didn't move far from where your parents and siblings lived, your parents didn’t live far from where their parents lived. You stuck together as a family but this isn't possible anymore. My parents lived on Avonmore; it is a short street, it is a crescent and easy to miss as you walk in this area. This whole area, including Avonmore and Clanranald, always felt like it was in the past, to walk there was to walk in the past, it a neighborhood of apartments built in the 1930s and 1940s and, for me, it always had a quality of those years; it was also Avon which is a Celtic word for “river”, and it always suggested to me a place of dreams and mystery, a place where the days and nights were long. And then, in 1950 when I was born, my father was told by his doctor “you can’t live in a 3 1/2 room apartment with two small children” and so we moved a few blocks and lived with my maternal grandmother on Girouard Avenue, and that’s where we lived until around 1953. It was after the war and places to rent were still difficult to find, and if you did find an apartment or a flat to rent you had to pay the landlord for the key, it was a way the landlord could make some money on the side. Then, around 1953, we moved to one of Hoolahan’s flats on Oxford Avenue where my father’s brother, my Uncle Herb, already lived and he helped get us a place at 4614 Oxford, just a few doors from where Uncle Herb and his family lived. The new place was spacious, hard wood floors, a fireplace, living room, dining room, three bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, an unheated enclosed back porch, front and rear balconies, basement and garage. My God, it was (and still is) luxury living compared to the 3 1/2 room apartment on Avonmore that had a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a single bedroom. 

These photographs were taken on the afternoon of 06 January 2015.

5515 Avonmore Avenue is on the right

5515 Avonmore Avenue

On Avonmore, 1948 - 1949

Here's my brother around 1948 - 1949.



Here's my brother, before I was born, in the Avonmore apartment, our parents' first home after they married in 1940. This is around 1948 - 1949; it's Christmas and the cards are on the book shelf in front of the living room window. I think those chintz drapes were recycled to our home on Oxford Avenue. Entertainment back then was the radio and reading--no TV, no internet--I think I still have some of the books that are on the shelves beside and under the radio, or I've given them to my son.

Here is what Avonmore looks like today. Photo taken around 2004. One day my mother was followed home by a strange man; she phoned her father who was a fireman for the City of Montreal, and he sent around a police officer to check out the problem. Her parents were very protective of their daughter. Another time, she received a phone call from a neighbour, someone had been killed by a streetcar that ran on the far left (between two streets) of the above photo. Maybe it was a suicide. Streetcar service in Montreal ended in 1959, I remember the tracks on Decarie Blvd. being removed from the road, but you can still see some tracks embedded in asphalt, for instance the corner of Sherbrooke and Elmhurst; as well, where the tracks ran perpendicular to Avonmore, behind someone's fence, you can find the old tracks, maybe ten feet are left.

Here is what Avonmore looked like in 1940, just a single street then, now it's a crescent and the front door of the apartment opens directly onto the street. My parents lived here from 1940 to 1952 or 1953, after I was born. Back then a lot of the old neighbourhood was still country.