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



 

“June Light” by Richard Wilbur

 

Your voice, with clear location of June days,
Called me outside the window.  You were there,
Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare
Of uncontested summer all things raise
Plainly their seeming into seamless air.

Then your love looked as simple and entire
As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face
As legible as pearskin’s fleck and trace,
Which promise always wine, by mottled fire
More fatal fleshed than ever human grace.

And your gay gift—Oh when I saw it fall
Into my hands, through all that naïve light,
It seemed as blessed with truth and new delight
As must have been the first great gift of all.

"June Rain" by Richard Aldington

 

June 2009

Hot, a griffin's mouth of flame,
The sun rasped with his golden tongue
The city streets, till men and walls shrivelled;
The dusty air stagnated.

At the third noon a wind rippled,
A wide sea silently breaking;
A thick veil of rain-drops
Hid the sun and the hard blue.

A grey garment of rain,
Cold as hoar frost in April,
Enwrapped us.

The garden's progress

The garden changes everyday. Photos taken on June 26. 

Phlox

Foxglove