St. James United Church in downtown Montreal

Just a few blocks east of Phillip's Square, adjacent to Ste. Catherine Street, where Morgan's Department Store (now The Bay) was located, you will find the prestigious Saint James United Church, pictured below. For many years the front of the church was lost to view when buildings for stores were constructed here; however, a few years ago these buildings were demolished so that the original front of the church was restored to view. And what a view it is! It is a magnificent building in downtown Montreal.

Interior

Historical photographs of St. James United Church

In this photograph you can see how the front of the church 
was lost to view when buildings housing stores were constructed;
these buildings have all now been demolished.

St. James Church was hidden behind these stores; they brought
in needed revenue but they were also an eye sore.

Phillip's Square from The Bay

All but one of the following photographs were taken in 2011 when we used to go to The Bay and my wife would buy clothes at The Bay's Jacques Vert department, I think it was on the second or third floor. In Vancouver The Bay has a terrific cafeteria, full course meals, while the cafeteria at the downtown Montreal Bay store is good but not great.  Next to the cafeteria is a small, free, museum on the history of The Bay and it's worth visiting. Some of these photos were taken from the dress department just above the Ste. Catherine Street entrance to The Bay; that's Phillip's Square directly across the street, this is the entrance where the organ grinder played back in the 1950s.

Spring 2011

June 2011

Where the Burger King is located was the location of the Art Association of Montreal; June 2011

Birks is on the right, now it has a hotel built on top of the original store

The Canada Cement Company building behind the statue of King Edward VII

Taken from Ste. Catherine Street, this is the entrance to The Bay, in 2013

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

Phillip's Square seen from The Bay in late May 2011