map drawn by
François Dollier de Casson in 1672 A main thoroughfare passing through
Old Montreal, the street was first opened in 1672. The portion between McGill Street and place Saint Henri was originally called Bonaventure Street (
rue Saint-Bonaventure). This name has passed down to
Place Bonaventure,
Bonaventure Expressway, and
Bonaventure Metro station, despite the disappearance of their original referents. In the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, St. James Street was the centre of Montreal's financial district and where several major English insurance, banking, and trust companies built their Canadian head offices. Prior to
World War I, Canadian, provincial, and major municipal governments along with important industries such as the
railways,
public utility and
canal companies obtained most of their capital financing in the
United Kingdom or the
United States. At the end of the War, St. James Street grew rapidly and although by the 1920s there were
stock exchanges in
Toronto,
Winnipeg,
Calgary and
Vancouver, St. James Street's
stock brokerage houses and the
Montreal Stock Exchange were the most important in all of Canada. At the time of its construction in 1928, the
Royal Bank of Canada's
new headquarters at 360 St. James Street was the tallest building in the
British Empire. The St James St. area was also the
head office of the Bank of Montreal, and the informal head office of the
Bank of Nova Scotia. It was also home to the major brokerage houses such as
Nesbitt, Thomson and Company,
Pitfield, MacKay, Ross,
Royal Securities Corporation and others. Some companies, past and present, located on St. James Street are: • 50 :
Ottawa Hotel, Montreal • 60 : Versailles Building • 100 :
New York Life Insurance Company • 105–107 :
Royal Trust • 119 :
Bank of Montreal – main Montreal branch • 201–215 :
Canadian Pacific Express • 210–212 :
Yorkshire Insurance Company • 215 :
McMaster Meighen, lawyers • 225 :
National Trust Company • 231–235 :
Montreal Star • 240 :
Guardian Trust Company –
The Dominion Bank • 244 :
Royal Securities Corporation • 249–251 :
Jones-Heward Financial Services • 262–266 :
Montreal City and District Savings Bank • 265 :
Canadian Bank of Commerce • 275 :
Canada Life • 278–288 :
Molson Bank • 355 :
Merchants Bank of Canada • 360 :
Royal Bank of Canada • 388–390 : Sovereign Bank of Canada then Union Bank and Commercial Union Assurance Co. • 393 :
Crown Trust Company • 437 :
Eastern Townships Bank then the Commercial Union Assurance Co. and the
Bank of Nova Scotia East of
Place d'Armes square, the street was home to two French-Canadian financial institutions, the
Banque Canadienne Nationale and the
Banque du Peuple, long gone now.
Decline A number chose to gradually move their official head offices to
Toronto, Ontario, while others shifted all future expansion to Toronto or other major Canadian centres. As a result, the St. James Street financial district has all but disappeared.
Recent history During the 1990s, the
Montreal Expos baseball club unveiled plans to build a new stadium in downtown Montreal, right off St. Jacques Street, just south of the
Bell Centre. When provincial funding for the new building fell through, the Expos did not continue with their plan and sold the property to developers. That stretch of Saint Jacques is now undergoing considerable
gentrification. Today, the stretch of St. Jacques Street between McGill Street and
Saint Laurent Boulevard is still notable mostly for its grand
Neo-Classical buildings on the part of the street running through the Old Montreal district. These include
Bank of Montreal's domed
Montreal Main Branch, the former headquarters of
Royal Bank of Canada, the
Canadian Bank of Commerce, the
Molson Bank and the
Canada Life Insurance Company. More modern buildings include the
Montreal World Trade Centre and the
Stock Exchange Tower. Farther west, St. Jacques Street runs through the residential neighbourhoods of
Little Burgundy,
Saint-Henri,
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and
Lachine, as well as the suburb of
Montreal West, where it is instead known as Avon Road.
Square-Victoria–OACI,
Lionel-Groulx and
Place-Saint-Henri Metro stations are located on St. Jacques, to the west, it gives access to
Autoroute 20 in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where it passes through a largely industrial and large-surface commercial district at the top of the
Falaise Saint-Jacques. The
McGill University Health Centre superhospital fronts Saint-Jacques in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. ==Buildings of St James Street==