Rosemont
From the Angus Shops to flowering laneways
Rosemont is family Montreal: brick duplexes with winding staircases, laneways where laundry dries in summer, Promenade Masson serving as main street. The neighbourhood breathes easy, with the Botanical Garden at its edge and a park every ten streets or so. Nothing spectacular at first glance — and that’s exactly its strength: a complete neighbourhood life, with no set dressing and no pose.
Good to know
- 1Spot the remnants of the Angus Shops in the Technopôle: the industrial memory is built right into the new district, down to the street names.
How the neighbourhood came to be
Rosemont was born of the railway: in 1904, Canadian Pacific opened the Angus Shops, a gigantic complex where thousands of workers built locomotives and railcars — and, in wartime, tanks. Developer Ucal-Henri Dandurand named the neighbourhood in honour of his mother, Rose. The closure of the shops in 1992 could have taken everything down with it; their conversion into an eco-district and the vitality of the shopping streets did the opposite.
Did you know?
- 1The name “Rosemont” honours Rose Phillips, mother of developer Ucal-Henri Dandurand.
- 2Canadian Pacific’s Angus Shops employed thousands of workers and produced tanks during the world wars.
- 3The Montreal Botanical Garden, founded in 1931 under the guidance of Brother Marie-Victorin, ranks among the most important in the world.
