Square Saint-Louis

This guide to Square Saint-Louis opens with a question: why did children spend their summers splashing in an empty water tank built to save Montreal from fire? It traces the reservoir dug here in 1849 to supply the city's hydrants, the fire that broke out while it sat closed for repairs, and the decades it took before the drained basin became walking paths, trees, and finally the secondhand cast-iron fountain installed in 1931. Listen for how neighborhood children ended up wading where the reservoir's floor once sat, and what that empty tank once decided for the whole city.