Griffintown

This guide to Griffintown in Montreal starts with the Lachine Canal, cut through solid rock by hand beginning in 1821 by roughly eight hundred to a thousand laborers, most of them Irish immigrants living in the neighborhood's shanties. You'll hear how the canal drew foundries and machine shops, including the Darling Brothers, who cast parts that ran half the city from a plant a few streets from here. It follows the neighborhood through the canal's decline after the Saint Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959 and into its rise as condominium towers. Stand here to see what still remains of the industrial brick beneath the glass.