Thursday Doors – May 24, 2018

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below.

Caserne No. 30 – Fire Station 30 – Mile-End Neighbourhood, Montréal

As a contrast to last week’s rural post from the countryside east of Québec City, this week I thought I’d take you into the heart of one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Montréal: Mile-End.

Sitting on the northwestern corner of St-Laurent Blvd and Ave. Laurier W. in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough, Fire Station #30 has been one of the most noticeable structures in Montréal’s Mile-End neighbourhood for a little over a century.

Station 30 was designed in 1898 by architect and city engineer Joseph-Émile Vanier. Meant to be the new municipal building and City Hall for the then burgeoning town of St-Louis-du-Mile-End, construction began in 1904 and the building was completed in December of 1905.

The Chateau-style building originally consisted of a city council room, a fire station, a police station, municipal court, dormitory, stables, and an attic; talk about multi-tasking! It would serve these functions for barely five years, when the town of Saint-Louis was annexed by the city of Montréal in 1910.

Major renovations were done to the building in the early 1950’s and today this old municipal building is home to the city’s Fire Station 30.

I have to say that the little kid in me found that watching big shiny bright red fire trucks going in or coming out of those lovely arched doors was a sight to behold 😁

Since 1980, part of the building also houses Montréal’s Auxiliary Firefighter’s Museum – Musée des pompiers auxiliaires de Montréal.

The museum is only open on Sundays and unfortunately I have not had a chance to visit it yet. Based on the info on their website the museum provides an interesting peek into the history of the Montréal fire service and contains an extensive collection of old photographs and fire-fighting equipment.

If I do make it back when it’s open I will be sure to do a follow-up post, but for now let’s finish my usual once-around the building to see what we can find.

An interesting ghost door for starters.

A street-art mural in honour of one of Mile-Ends favourite sons, novelist Mordecai Richler.

Here are some of the side doors.

A turret and tower.

And of course, the main door money shots

As always, thanks so much for dropping by 🙂

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