C is for “City Centre”
City Centre vs. Shopping Centre: How the spirit of downtown Three Rivers was smothered
City Centre vs. Shopping Centre
By Phyllis Knox
This blog is part of a very special series created and written by Phyllis Knox, “Alphabetic Musings”, whereby she chooses a word starting with a particular letter from the alphabet and injects it with her storytelling magic.
The old city of Three Rivers suffered from the consequences of a major fire in 1908 when its original beauty disappeared, and that catastrophe destroyed over 800 buildings on many city blocks situated within the port area, from du Fleuve over to Royale and down to St. Georges and beyond.
As a child, I can remember going shopping ‘downtown’ with my parents in the late 1950’s, and as a teenager in the early 1960’s with my friends. It was an experience shared by hundreds of shoppers; a major part of the social life of our city. Friday evenings and Saturdays (everything was closed on Sundays!) promised us incredible adventures. There was an A&P grocery store (Atlantic & Pacific) as well as an ABC dry cleaners shop on Hart Street, a drugstore on the corner of des Forges and Notre Dame streets, the small St-Louis hotel near the family-owned drugstore, and also another small one, the Hotel St. Maurice, on St-Antoine and Badeaux, only a block away. There were three movie theatres: the Rialto, the Imperial, and the Capitol, with all of them showing French and English language films. One could catch a provincial bus to Quebec City to the East and to Montreal to the West; La Tuque to the North, and Drummondville to the South. The bus station was situated down by the ferry (the Laviolette Bridge wasn’t built until the late 60’s) on the waterfront, in a prominent and very busy location. People were constantly coming and going. This movement gave a lively feeling to the city. The train station was and still is situated within walking distance from the city center, on Champflour Street. In the 1970’s, passenger trains were no longer in service, but earlier, there were trains travelling to Halifax in Eastern Canada and Vancouver in Western Canada. At that time, we were part of and connected to the world!
The post office on Notre Dame Street was considered a very important area of town, because at the time, it was the only place to buy stamps and to send letters and packages. There was a huge farmers’ market in the hub of all that on our busiest street: des Forges. There was a much smaller than today’s Canadian Tire store across from the post office, which was one block over on Laviolette Street. Next to the store stood the Chateau de Blois. It was a beautiful Victorian-style hotel which added a special touch to the neighbourhood.
There seemed to be a bank on every corner for the shoppers’ convenience. There were many small restaurants, like Child’s and The Blue Bird to name just two, as well as food counters at Woolworth’s and Kresge’s. A row of department stores dominated the block on des Forges near Notre Dame heading north towards the market and from there on to two of the theatres. There was a Reitman’s, a Zeller’s, a Woolworth’s, a Kresge’s, a Greenberg’s, and an A L Green serving the public. Two stores dominated the whole scene: one was called Pollack’s – a very high-end family-style grand department store (situated where the farmers’ market had once stood), and the other was Fortin’s – a three-story store on Notre Dame. Both were the heart and soul of the shopping traffic at that time. They were Quebec-owned stores that sold high-end clothes and shoes as well as furniture and appliances of all kinds.
With the Cathedral and a small city park, called Champlain, in the background to add to the atmosphere, people could stop to talk and share their lives with one another.
Life seemed slower and yet more intense and more social. City buses ran constantly as people went downtown to get everything they needed while using that service. Parking was therefore not a problem!
Then, everything changed! Three shopping centres were built, and the exodus began, continuing until all the above-mentioned stores, restaurants, and movie theatres were gone. The bus station closed and the post office became almost obsolete. The huge parking lots and the one-stop shopping idea took over. Over the course of that process, our city lost its unique atmosphere. The downtown area had gone from a lively, beautiful area to a quiet version of what it had used to mean to tens of thousands of people. Three Rivers had gone from having a vibrant city core to a forgotten and lifeless cluster of abandoned buildings.
Suddenly, outdoor restaurants became popular, and so storefronts were changed and then many became meeting areas. There are many such outdoor eating facilities on the streets where stores and banks and grocery stores and hotels and movie theatres once stood and once thrived. Owners of these bars and restaurants have June, July, August, and September to make their money. Business comes to an almost complete halt during colder months of the year.
Nothing ever stays the same. Evolution is inevitable, they say. But, as we change, do we really improve our lives? Maybe, yes; maybe, no – EH? Shopping centres are now having a hard time competing with huge companies such as Amazon. People now prefer to order everything they need or want without ever leaving their homes, without ever dealing with a salesperson, without ever communicating with other citizens of our great city! Time will tell how all this works itself out but, from my point of view, no shopping compares to the rush hours spent on Friday evenings and during the daytime on Saturdays, socializing on the main drag of the downtown core of Three Rivers in the 50’s and 60’s.
Phyllis Knox
