Maisonneuve Park

Maisonneuve Park is a rolling 63-hectare piece of green space in east-end Montreal. The simple greenery of the park is a welcome contrast to the intensively landscaped Botanical Garden and the concrete complexity of the Olympic park, both of which adjoin it. Named after Montreal’s co-founder Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve (1612-1676), the park was meant to be a tremendous asset to the eponymous town of Maisonneuve. A well-planned suburb, this town was chartered in 1883. The mayor of Maisonneuve wanted to grace his city with a grand boulevard leading to a major park and this piece of land was chosen and named in 1910, with Morgan Boulevard – still rather stately – in its wake. But the city of Maisonneuve became part of Montreal in 1918. A part of the original Maisonneuve Park was set aside in 1936 to become the Botanical Garden. Plans to use the southern parts of the park for athletic purposes, floated before World War II, later materialized with the construction of Maurice Richard Arena and the Maisonneuve Sports Centre in the late 1950s. The sports concept went on to take massive form when then-Mayor Jean Drapeau successfully obtained the 1976 summer Olympics for Montreal. Maisonneuve Park is essentially an open space with nicely groomed lawns and clumps of trees, crossed north-south by a major bike path and crossed here and there by footpaths. Part of the existing park was a golf course years ago, which encouraged a certain kind of landscaping, but golf has not been played here for years. The city's golf course is now over on the far side of Viau.