Apartment housing then and now: vignettes from Toronto and Montreal (Le logement en appartement alors et aujourd’hui: vignettes de Toronto et de Montréal)

Abstract

Apartment houses were controversial insertions into the built environment of Canadian cities in the early twentieth century. More recently, some early apartments have been demolished and replaced by high-rise or non-residential buildings, but others have acquired heritage status. Small-scale, originally walk-up apartments on inner suburban residential streets are praised for their domestic and homely characteristics, precisely what they were thought to lack when first erected. Through a series of brief case studies, this article traces the changing fortunes of pre-First World War apartment houses in Toronto and Montreal. It charts both their ‘real’ experience of neglect, abandonment, reuse, conservation or renovation, and their representation in literature and on screen: as ‘bohemian’, ‘modern’, home to dysfunctional or marginal characters, or complex mixtures of semi-public and semi-private space. While survival or demolition has sometimes been a matter of chance, it is also evident that geography is critical in determining their fate.