Apartment for rent in Saint-Jean-Baptiste: neighbourhood guide

The Saint-Jean suburb dates back to the French Regime, west of the fortified Upper Town. Today’s rue Saint-Jean was laid out as a road in 1667, on land largely held by the Ursulines and the Hospitallers of the Hôtel-Dieu. A hamlet of craftsmen began to be subdivided there in 1722 and had about thirty houses by 1740. In 1775, during the American invasion, the British army razed the suburb to clear the fortifications.

The suburb was rebuilt after 1780. In 1783, the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu had surveyor Vondenvelden subdivide their land, and he laid out streets at right angles. The Berthelot market, opened in 1825, made the suburb more self-sufficient, and the population passed 9,000 residents in 1840. From the 1830s, families of Irish origin settled in the neighbouring Saint-Louis suburb, around rues Saint-Patrick, O’Connell and Scott.

Three major fires swept the area in the 19th century. On June 28, 1845, nearly 1,300 houses burned; in 1876, about 500 more were lost; in 1881, fire again levelled the suburb and its church. The church was rebuilt in 1884 to plans by architect Joseph-Ferdinand Peachy. Houses were then rebuilt in brick, and flat-roofed buildings appeared around 1900 to make room for apartments on a third floor.

The neighbourhood passed 23,000 residents in 1921. In the 1950s and 1960s, the modernization of Parliament Hill completely transformed the former Saint-Louis suburb, and thousands of residents left for the suburbs. The 1970s and 1980s saw dozens of housing and food co-ops founded, including the Faux-Bourg co-op in 1976. Shared streets, such as rue Sainte-Claire, now calm traffic in the area.