Griffintown

The portrait

History of Griffintown

At first, this corner of the island was nothing but fields. The merchant Thomas McCord held the lease. While he was away in Ireland, the man he had trusted with his affairs sold them, without any right to, to Mary Griffin. In 1804, she had streets laid out and gave the area her own name: Griffintown.

McCord fought in court for about ten years, and won. He kept the street plan but erased the Griffin name: rue Griffin became rue Wellington. Montrealers kept saying Griffintown anyway. And those streets, Wellington and Ottawa among them, are still the ones you walk today.

Gas, chocolate and horses

Then the Lachine Canal brought Irish labourers, and the factories followed. On rue Ottawa, the New City Gas Company turned coal into gas for downtown's street lamps. On rue William, Lowney made chocolate. In a stable on rue Ottawa, draught horses were kept for nearly 150 years; the last of them pulled the calèches of Old Montreal.

In 1963, the City zoned the neighbourhood for industry. Houses came down one by one, and St. Ann's Church, the church of the Irish, was demolished. Its foundations still show in parc du Faubourg-Sainte-Anne.

What the factories left behind

The brick walls stayed. In the former Lowney chocolate factory, on rue William and rue de l'Inspecteur, people live under the original wood beams, with ceilings of 9 to 12 feet. On rue des Seigneurs, a former leather-belt factory holds 17 brick-and-timber lofts.

Around them, the cranes took over: close to 9,600 homes were built between 2007 and 2023, according to the Office de consultation publique de Montréal. By the canal, the new towers of Les Lofts Gallery sur le Canal borrow the language of the loft: exposed concrete ceilings.

Living in Griffintown

Eight o'clock, rue Murray. Coffee at Café BRUT, a croissant from La Bête à Pain on rue Young, then the Lachine Canal bike path. In the evening, rue Notre-Dame Ouest lights up its tables, from Foxy to Bruce, and rue Ottawa has its regulars at Mano Cornuto.

Griffintown suits people who want downtown on foot, in a new building or a former factory, on a street grid drawn more than two centuries ago.

Every property has a story. In Griffintown, it begins with a woman who lost her court case, but not her name. Our job is to help you find the one that becomes yours. Olivier Mailloux, real estate broker, and Amélie Flanagan, real estate broker, follow the lofts and condos of Griffintown closely and work with buyers and sellers across Montreal.