In 1852 the laws against wooden buildings were enforced. At this time St. Lawrence Main Street was the fashionable boulevard for the French citizens.
A review of the year 1856 says: “There has been an intense energy manifested during the year and is still visible. The business streets are being paved in the most substantial manner; the avenues to the city and the roads in the outskirts are graded and macadamized; handsome fountains have been erected, trees are being planted out, rows of dwelling houses of elegant and substantial descriptions are going up in various quarters; a number of stores and warehouses of the largest, most substantial and at the same time most elegant kind are approaching completion. The great wharf for ocean steamships is finished as are the railway buildings at Point St. Charles. Labourers, mechanics, manufacturers and merchants—in a word all classes are at work with all their might and the results make their appearance with almost magical celerity. Nor in all this material advancement are the pulpit, the press, the college, or the school neglected.”
The year 1864 marked great building operations. No less than seven church edifices were commenced, viz., Trinity church on Viger Square; the Church of the Gesu, Bleury Street; three Wesleyan churches; the American Presbyterian church; Knox church on Dorchester Street, and Erskine church on St. Catherine Street. The Protestant House of Industry and Refuge, Dorchester Street, and the Molson Bank, St. James Street, complete the list of public buildings, while in addition to these 1,019 dwelling houses were erected.
The extension of Notre Dame from Dalhousie Square to McGill Street was made from 1864 to 1868. Ontario Street was opened in 1864 and at the same time St. Catherine Street was extended between St. George and St. Lawrence streets.
PUBLIC PLACES, SQUARES AND PARKS
A total of seventy-five parks and public places.
