A shoutout this morning to a reader who quickly solved the mystery posed here yesterday concerning the location of the Friends Meeting House shown in a pair of photos taken nearly 50 years ago. In a comment left yesterday morning, “Janet” correctly identified the location of the mystery Friends Meeting House.

Following her lead to Google Maps, it was easy to find a street view of a block of row houses, and 2196 is the one with the white door, street number still in the same place as the photos from nearly 50 years ago.

In her comment Monday morning, Janet wrote:

I found the location, it’s 2196 Maisonneuve Blvd W in Montreal. I googled “Centre Quaker” Montreal, went to images, and found a website “Montreal Quaker Assembly” that states they used to be on Maisonneuve Blvd W. From there I went to google maps and just typed in 2196 from the house number in your photo.

Unfortuantely, I was led in a different direction when I launched a similar search using the English terms, “Friends Meeting House.”

That eventually led me to an article, “History of the Montreal Meeting, 1929-1964,” which is available online among materials from the Montreal Quaker Meeting.

On just the second page, in a quick review of the Montreal Quakers from 1929 into the 1960s, a different street address is given, 2196 St. Luke Street.

And that sent me to Google Maps for the address on St. Luke Street, which proved to be a dead end. I then send a link to yesterday’s post with the photos to the current Montreal Friends email address seeking information. I did not receive an immediate reply, certainly no surprise.

Would I have come around a second time doing the same sequence of searches for “Centre Quaker”? I hope so, but I just hadn’t gotten that far.

But I dug down a bit more and found the apparent explanation of the two different street names in a magazine article about the history of De Maisonneuve Boulevard, which was originally known as Western Avenue. That right away suggests a clue–street names can and do change.

The years that followed tell a story of controversies, traffic disruptions and end with a tragedy. Beginning in 1963, work commenced on Montreal’s metro system, with a portion running under Western Avenue from Wood to Greene Avenues.

Two years later, the City of Montreal adopted a By-law, giving the name of de Maisonneuve Boulevard to de Montigny, Burnside, St-Luc and Western Avenues.

Montreal’s St-Luc Avenue was, in the English oriented history that I had relied on, was written out as St. Luke Street. Had I searched for “St-Luc” in Montreal I might have had more success, although the name change would still have posed hurdles.

This emerges as an instructive lesson. Sometimes a seemingly simple choice (to search for “Centre Quaker” or “Friends Meeting House”) can make a big difference. And variables like street names can and will change over time.

In any case, Janet gets a tip of the hat and the “Sleuth of the Week” award! Now I’ll have to come up with some kind of prize!