Montreal Geography Trivia No. 78

Where is this?

UPDATE: Chris gets this right: It’s Papineau Ave., looking north at the Des Carrières overpass. A (really smelly) staircase connects the two streets for pedestrians who don’t want to walk all the way to Rosemont and back. But only for one side of Papineau. The other side is boarded off because the stairs are in an advanced state of decay.

14 thoughts on “Montreal Geography Trivia No. 78

  1. Maria Gatti

    Oh, I missed this one. What a ghastly underpass. I used to take it a lot when I lived on Chabot between Laurier and Masson, often heading up to “Italo” superette or Iasenza. The staircase was much smellier and more menacing when it was all enclosed.

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  2. Jack Ruttan

    That’s funny. I always thought that “Tunnel of Death” was my personal nickname for the St. Joseph/d’Iberville tube. Always noted the occasionally renewed bunches of flowers at that one pillar, presumably to memorialise some dead cyclist or another.

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  3. Singlestar

    For a long time, the stairs were’nt exposed to the outside. The wall of the underpass was also the wall of staircase. But the City held some hearings about Women and the City and various safety issues were raised and as a result, some of these not-visible staircases became more visible and thus user-friendly.

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  4. Maria Gatti

    St-Joseph between the Plateau and Rosemont has been called le tunnel de la mort for decades. I think it has actually been upgraded somehow.

    I confess that the one in the photo is among the places I illegally ride on the sidewalk, as there are almost never pedestrians and the street is scary.

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  5. Stu Lowndes

    A long, long time ago, when I was five years old in 1950, I took my coaster to this tunnel on Papineau and had one helluva ride down this hill to Masson, and near where I lived on Cartier Street.

    Later, these ugly cement and totally enclosed (now windowed) darkened walkups were used by local gangs as hangouts. It was scary then, and it is scary now.

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