Merchants Bank building, ca. 1913. Taken from The North End, Montreal, 1913. Archives de la Ville de Montréal, CA M001 P028-Z.
5060 Saint-Laurent Boulevard
At the beginning of the 20th century, Saint-Louis town council worked to set up a prestigious municipal centre around Lahaie Park: Saint-Enfant Jésus church was enlarged with a new façade in 1903; Saint-Joseph Boulevard, an upscale residential artery, was inaugurated in 1905; after the widening of Saint-Laurent Boulevard, modern buildings replaced wooden village houses; and also in 1905, a new chateau-style town hall opened on the northwest corner of Laurier Avenue. Opposite, on the south side of the intersection, the Merchants Bank participated in this scheme by erecting a remarkable structure for its Mile End branch.
Founded in 1864 by transportation magnate Sir Hugh Allan, the Merchants Bank was the second largest Canadian financial institution, after the Bank of Montreal, at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1900, the bank opened a branch in Saint-Louis, initially by leasing the former office of the Banque Ville-Marie, which had failed spectacularly the previous year. This was on the ground floor of a building belonging to merchant Arménie Chevalier, a former municipal councillor. In October 1903, Chevalier sold this property on the southwest corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Laurier Avenue to the Merchants Bank for $12,000.
The bank was then undergoing rapid expansion and opening numerous branches in several Canadian cities. The name of the architectural firm that designed the new Mile End building is not known with certainty, but it was probably Taylor, Hogle & Davis. Specialists in bank design, they drew the plans of several other Merchants Bank branches in the same period, some of them in a similar style. The new Mile End branch building opened in 1905; its design is careful, its proportions are handsome, and its limestone details, including several sculpted elements, are impressive. Upstairs was the bank manager’s apartment, while the top floor held a reception hall used for concerts, public meetings and private events. It was originally surmounted by a magnificent vault, as seen in the 1913 photo, which was removed sometime mid-century.
When the Merchants Bank merged with the Bank of Montreal in 1922, the building’s ground floor became a branch of the latter bank. In 2000, the property was purchased by architect Dobro Miljevic, who transformed the 2nd floor into offices for his firm and the 3rd floor into a residence for his family. The Bank of Montreal continued to occupy the ground floor as a lessee. Dobro Miljevic sold the building in 2022 to a real estate management firm. The bank then moved its branch to the southwest corner of Laurier and Park Avenues, a space previously occupied by a branch of the City & District Savings Bank (renamed Banque Laurentienne in 1987). Since spring 2023, the ground floor of the building on Saint-Laurent Boulevard is used by a branch of the Société québécoise du cannabis; the second floor is offices and the third is a beauty salon.
L’édifice de la Banque des Marchands en 2024. Photo : Yves Desjardins
Updated and expanded 2024 : research and writing, Yves Desjardins – revision and translation, Justin Bur
Taken from a poster produced in 2011 by Friends of Saint-Laurent Boulevard in collaboration with Mile End Memories as part of the project The Main, Forever in Tune
Research: Susan D. Bronson et Annie Tétreault (as part of course work supervised by Susan D. Bronson à la Faculté de l’aménagement de l’Université de Montréal, 2004-2006)
Text: Susan D. Bronson