More than history casts shadow over square

A magnificent opportunity was missed at Place d’Armes in 1965

It’s not the biggest public square in the city, or even the oldest. But none, surely, is more celebrated in Montreal than Place d’Armes. None so inescapably reflects this city and its people.

Curiously, our first Place d’Armes was a few blocks west of the one we know today. It was called Place d’Armes et du Marché, which became Place de la Douane, or Customs House Square, early in the 19th century.

The Place d’Armes now familiar to us started taking shape in the late 17th century when the first Notre Dame Church was completed in front of the site of today’s basilica. By the 1720s, the open area flanking the church had come to be known by two names, Place d’Armes and Place de la Hauteville — which would have been confusing enough even if there still weren’t that pesky, earlier Place d’Armes a short distance away.

Two names for one location, and one name for two different locations: the danger a Montrealer of 1792 risked when asking a friend to meet him in Place d’Armes is obvious. Sanity finally prevailed in 1865 when the city officially settled on Place d’Armes tout court for the second, newer square.

Over the centuries, Place d’Armes has been many things to Montrealers. At first, the original Notre Dame was there, of course, but so were the Sulpician seminary (still standing), two cemeteries, a public well and a scattering of private houses. For a time, a wood-and-hay market occupied the centre of the square. By the end of the 1700s, however, the character of Place d’Armes began to change. The cemeteries disappeared and private enterprise started pushing out the private residences. As the new century dawned, the barons of commerce began to move into the area in earnest.

In 1819, the Bank of Montreal transferred its headquarters to the site of today’s main post office on the square’s north side. Throughout the 19th century, other banks, insurance companies and financial institutions took space on the square. Even Canadian Pacific had its headquarters there for a time, until Windsor Station was ready for use in 1889.

The church and the bank — God and mammon, if you will — occupying opposite sides of the square are a handy symbol for the city. Montreal was founded as a gesture of faith, an attempt to take the word of God into the wilderness, but in time it became not just a city of churches but also the commercial and industrial capital of the country.

The statue of Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, in the centre of the square is a stirring reminder of the French origins of this city and indeed this country. It was meant to be ready for Montreal’s 250th birthday in 1892, but wasn’t unveiled until Dominion Day three years later.

Presumably, Maisonneuve is saluting the church and shunning the temples of commerce behind him — though anyone with an eye for symbolism may think it odd that the old warrior of God should turn his back to the enemy.

Today, the tour buses idling in front of Notre Dame flaw the dignity of the square. Far worse — and, sadly, nothing can be done about them — are the 1960 Bank of Montreal tower and the black and brooding Banque canadienne nationale tower, monstrously out of scale with its neighbours.

When the stately office buildings along the west side of the square were demolished in 1965 to make way for this second tower, a movement briefly sprang up to persuade the BCN to build just to the west of the site, doubling the size of Place d’Armes. But it was not to be, and a magnificent opportunity to lessen the brutal impact of the new building was lost. History is not alone in casting long shadows over the square.