Phillips Square will become a ‘green oasis,’ Plante says
$50-million redesign of Phillips Square will restore its original character, Plante says
Phillips Square will become larger, greener and more of a people place under a $50-million renovation plan announced Tuesday by Mayor Valérie Plante.
“With the redesign of Phillips Square and the area around it, we are providing a green oasis where Montrealers and tourists can stop and take full advantage of everything downtown has to offer,” Plante said at a press conference in the newly renovated Hotel Birks next to the square.
The square, across from The Bay on Ste-Catherine St. W., will be enlarged by 35 per cent, from 2,300 square metres to 3,110 square metres. The kiosks in the park that used to sell flowers and maple products at the corner of Ste-Catherine St. W. and Union Ave are gone, because they took up valuable space in the park, the mayor said.
The number of trees will increase to 75 from only a dozen now, to ensure a verdant canopy that will counteract heat islands.
The design also calls for a 76-percent increase in benches, where passersby can relax.
To enlarge the park, the city is eliminating 61 parking spots on surrounding streets.
Plante said that shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, since 80 per cent of people who go to Ste-Catherine St. arrive by public transit and there are 11,000 parking spots available in private garages under major buildings in the downtown core.
“It’s not a location that is difficult to access by public transportation,” she said.
Plante said the redesign will restore the park’s original character as an English-style square and allow people to enjoy the wonderful architecture all around it — from the 1893 Birks building to the former Morgan’s store — now The Bay — the first department store to open on Ste-Catherine St.
The plans also include an overhaul of the Place du Frère André, which will double in size and have twice as many trees as now.
Work will start in two weeks and be completed by the end of 2021.
BIRTH OF A SQUARE
An 1846 map of Montreal shows Phillips Square as a tree-lined park, with few buildings in the vicinity. Beginning in about 1840, rich merchants like Thomas Phillips (17711842) a construction entrepreneur and city councillor, sub-divided rural properties in what is now downtown Montreal, creating a suburban neighbourhood for the wealthy. When Phillips died in 1842, his widow donated the park to be used as a memorial to her late husband, writes historian and former Gazette journalist Alan Hustak in Downtown Montreal: An Opinionated Guide to the City’s Squares, Churches, & Underground City (Vehicule Press, 2004).
An 1869 photograph shows a horse pulling a sleigh in the square, then surrounded by large villas with expansive grounds.
In 1879, the Art Association of Montreal opened Canada’s first purpose-built art museum on the east side of the square. In 1910, the association began construction of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, completed in 1912.
NEW SHOPPING DISTRICT
The arrival of Morgan’s department store heralded Ste-Catherine St.’s commercial era, when businesses began to relocate there from Old Montreal. Glasgow native Henry Morgan opened his first dry-goods store in the old quarter with a partner, David Smith, in 1845. In 1886, he decided to move the business uptown after a major flood in Old Montreal and Griffintown ruined much of his inventory.
The red sandstone department store stands on the site previously occupied by the home of publisher John Lovell. Confederate leader Jefferson Davis sent his family to live there during the American Civil War.
The Bay bought out Henry Morgan & Co. in 1960.
Architect Edward Maxwell, who later designed the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, designed the magnificent Birks building on the west side of Phillips Square. The four-storey building in buff-coloured Miramichi sandstone is inspired by the Romanesque and Italian Renaissance styles, with arched windows and doorways and a rounded corner.
Last fall, it reopened as a boutique hotel whose ground floor brasserie preserves Maxwell’s glorious interior.
On the south side of the square is the Canada Cement building. Built in 1921, it was Montreal’s first office tower entirely built of reinforced concrete and had the city’s first underground garage.
WAR AND PEACE
The bronze statue of Edward VII by Quebec sculptor Louis-Philippe Hébert was unveiled in 1914. The theme of the work is the role of Edward, who died in 1910, as a peacemaker. Ironically, it was unveiled at the start of the First World War.
Edward was remembered in Montreal for his 1860 visit, when he inaugurated the Victoria Bridge. mscott@postmedia.com