Montreal accused of neglecting its heritage as 19th-century pumphouse awaits demolition

A Montreal heritage advocacy group says the city has to stop neglecting historic buildings until they're so far gone, they need to be demolished for safety reasons.

The Craig Pumping Station is a case in point.

It was built in 1887, the year after spring flooding caused by ice jams on the St. Lawrence River left the city's financial district submerged. The pumping station housed four centrifugal pumps and the four coal-powered steam engines to run them — state-of-the-art technology in their day.

"This may not be a church, but for the population of Montreal in the 19th century, it was a great accomplishment," said Dinu Bumbaru, the policy director for Heritage Montreal.

"We should pay homage."

Slated for demolition

Now fenced in and marooned on a traffic island in the shadow of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, the pumphouse is in danger of collapse.

I-beams bolted to the sides of the pumphouse keep the stone walls from buckling. Window panes are broken, and the chimney that once spewed the soot and smoke of 300 tonnes of coal each year appears ready to topple on the trucks and cars that rumble by.

The city says that spire-like chimney and part of the roof need to be dismantled soon, they are so unsafe — but eventually, the entire building will have to be demolished as the area is redeveloped.

Bumbaru blames the city for allowing the pumphouse and its sister station on Riverside Street, built at the same time, to get to the point where they are almost beyond repair.

"They are great buildings, and they have been left abandoned," he said. "That raises a number of questions [about] the sincerity and commitment of the administration of the City of Montreal toward the heritage buildings."

The exterior of the pumphouse has notable touches, such as the sculpted Montreal crest.

"They didn't do a shabby building, like a plug to fix something temporarily. They asked for good architecture and good engineering," said Bumbaru.

New neighbourhood on the way

The industrial neighbourhood where the Craig pumphouse sits stranded is on the verge of redevelopment, as the old Molson brewery is slated for demolition.

The site is to be transformed into a new waterfront neighbourhood with as many as 4,000 homes, a park, community centre and a promenade along the river.

With that redevelopment poised to happen, Bumbaru says now is the time to save the old pumphouse as a testament to its history.

For generations, the pumphouse stood in a residential area, until entire neighbourhoods were torn down in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make way for the CBC building, Maison Radio-Canada.

"You have to imagine: this area was very lively. There was a church. There were schools. It was a whole neighbourhood, and what we got left are a few landmark buildings," Bumbaru said.

He suggests the city repurpose the pumphouse so people can experience the past — seeing the aged machinery inside and the skilled craftsmanship on the outside.

"Maybe the best people to make use of it with imagination are artists, not just city managers who clearly did not put it very high on their Excel chart."

No hope for Craig pumping station

Coun. Robert Beaudry, the executive committee member in charge of economic and commercial development, said he agrees Montreal's heritage buildings should be preserved.

The city owns many historic buildings it does not have a master list detailing the structural state of each of them, he said.

Beaudry said he has asked city services to find a way to document each building's condition and what it would take to fix them. He said a local heritage action plan is in development and will be unveiled soon.

However, Beaudry said, preserving historic buildings doesn't come cheap, and the city will need to lobby the provincial and federal governments for funding to do it.

As for the Craig pumping station, Beaudry said it will not be saved.

"We are really disappointed and concerned about the further deterioration of the station," he said. "There has been a lack of investment for decades, and the condition of the Craig station is, unfortunately, a consequence of that."

With the redevelopment of the neighbourhood, streets will be redesigned, and at that point, the building is going to have to be dismantled, Beaudry said.

There will be an effort to preserve what can be salvaged from the site, he said.

Listen to Dinu Bumbaru and Coun. Robert Beaudry discuss the Craig pumphouse, on CBC's Let's Go: