La Petite-Bourgogne

The portrait

History of Little Burgundy

Before the streets, there was tall grass. In 1893, archivist Édouard-Zotique Massicotte wrote that before the factories, this corner of the island was a savanna stretching as far as Chaboillez Square. It was called la Petite Bourgogne.

Then the Lachine Canal was dug, and factories lined up along its banks. South of rue Notre-Dame, the Montreal Rolling Mills, later Stelco, rolled iron and made bolts and nuts. Around the factories grew the working-class village of Sainte-Cunégonde. On rue Coursol, the industrial middle class built Victorian houses.

Porters and jazz

In the evening, at the station, men in uniform stepped down from the sleeping cars. From the 1880s on, the railway companies recruited Black porters from the United States, Ontario, the Maritimes and the Caribbean, and Montreal's English-speaking Black community made Little Burgundy its heart.

On Sundays, people sang at Union United Church, just across Atwater Avenue. That is where Oscar Peterson and Oliver Jones made their debuts at the piano. At the corner of des Seigneurs and Saint-Jacques, the Jazz Born Here mural shows Oscar Peterson, larger than life.

What the factories left behind

Then the furnaces went cold and the canal fell silent. In 1965, the City launched a sweeping renewal program; by its own account, a great deal was demolished. Thousands of residents left, and the social housing and townhouses that followed still shape many of the streets.

The factories found another life. On rue Charlevoix, by the water, bolts were once made: at Les Cours Charlevoix, people now live under wooden ceilings of 10 to 14 feet. On rue Sainte-Cunégonde, Lofts des Éclusiers kept its solid wood beams and a rubble-stone wall at street level. On rue Duvernay, facing the park, Les Cours Dominion gathers lofts and townhouses around a fountain courtyard.

Living in Little Burgundy

Saturday morning. Coffee at September on rue Notre-Dame Ouest, then the Lachine Canal bike path as far as the Saint-Gabriel Lock. In the evening, a table at Joe Beef, Le Vin Papillon or Candide, in a former presbytery.

Little Burgundy suits people who want downtown on foot, a good table around the corner and a neighbourhood that has not forgotten its music.

Every property has a story. In Little Burgundy, it has been set to music for more than a century. 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 Little Burgundy closely and work with buyers and sellers across Montreal.