A historical tour of Montreal Chinatown

Palais des congrès esplanade

A friend of mine, Trevor Fraser, organised a historical tour of Chinatown last summer for a few of us. Starting at where the Palais des congrès plaza currently is, he explained that the Catholic Centre on Viger was built after the city signified that they were going to destroy the church on De la Gauchetière and Jeanne-Mance. Of course, the church is still where it should be, as the city reversed its decision, but the Centre was built anyways and still used today.

On our way there, we stopped by a strip of buildings facing the infamous Guy-Favreau building, which was constructed at the cost of a block of Montreal Chinatown (as seen on Radio-Canada’s digital archives website).

Back on De la Gauchetière, we noticed the names of the people/families that built the houses, on panels holding on top of the buildings.

Trevor Fraser

Here are notes (Google Docs format) that Trevor provided us with.