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The Golden Square Mile (French: ''Le Mille Carré Doré'') or more simply the "Square Mile" is the nostalgic name given to a small neighbourhood developed principally between 1850 and 1930 at the foot of Mount Royal, in the west-central section of downtown Montreal, Canada. In its day, those who lived there and Montrealers alike, referred to the area as 'Uptown' or 'New Town'.〔Discover Montréal: an architectural and historical guide - Joshua Wolfe, Cécile Grenier, 1991〕 It was only from the 1930s that Montrealers began to refer to it as the "Square Mile". The addition of 'Golden' was a comparatively modern twist, added from the 1950s by Montreal's real estate brokers, but this was long after its golden era had passed. From the 1790s, the anglophone business leaders of Montreal, who included and succeeded the men of the Beaver Club, started to look beyond Old Montreal for spacious sites on which to build their country homes. They developed the farmland of the slopes of Mount Royal north of Sherbrooke Street, then nothing more than a quiet country lane. The mansions they built there came to represent a period of prosperity when Canada was at its economic peak and Montreal was its unrivalled cultural and financial capital. The owners and operators of the overwhelming majority of Canadian rail, shipping, timber, mining, fur and banking industries consisted of a small group of about fifty men who called the Square Mile 'home'. An often-cited statistic is that from about 1870 to 1900, 70% of all wealth in Canada was firmly in the hands of this small group. By 1900, the Bank of Montreal's assets and transactions were equal to any of its counterparts on the New York Stock Exchange, and those assets were twice that of the Bank's nearest Canadian competitor.〔''The Canadian Corporate Elite'' (Toronto, 1975), Wallace Clement〕 The Square Mile was a neighbourhood of architectural audacity never before seen in Canada. But, by 1930, following the Great Depression, and with the dawn of the automobile and a demand for more heat-efficient houses, the younger generations of the families that had built these homes largely left and headed for Westmount.〔("Canada's Richest Neighbourhoods, 2013" ), ''Canadian Business''〕〔http://globalnews.ca/news/370804/income-by-postal-code/〕 During the Quiet Revolution, the businesses created in Montreal, on whose fortunes the Square Mile had been built, uprooted and moved to Toronto. In this period, demolition of the former grand houses reached its peak. The face of the Square Mile was changed irreversibly, catalyzing the formation of Heritage Montreal to preserve architecture in the city. Vestiges remain, but the neighbourhood's life, grandeur and elegance have long since disappeared. By 1983, only 30% of the mansions in the northern half of the Square Mile had survived demolition; and only 5% survived south of Sherbrooke Street.〔Rémillard, François; & Brian Merrett (1987). ''Mansions of the Golden Square Mile.'' Meridian Press. ISBN 2-920417-25-8〕 Those remaining, which were once framed by tree-lined streets and avenues, are today mostly owned by McGill University. These structures are found interspersed on tree-less streets, dwarfed by concrete tower blocks. ==Borders== In principle, the neighbourhood had precise borders measuring roughly a square mile, covering the area between Boulevard René-Lévesque at the southern end; Pine Avenue at the foot of Mount Royal at the northern end; University Street at the eastern end, and Guy Street at the western end. In effect, however, the 'Square Mile' was contained within a far smaller area, between Sherbrooke Street and Pine Avenue, and Guy and University, covering scarcely nine streets on the north-south axis. From east to west: McTavish Street, Peel Street, Stanley Street, Drummond Street, Mountain Street, Ontario Avenue (now Avenue du Musée), Redpath Street, Simpson Street, and Guy Street; and three streets on the east-west axis, from south to north: Sherbrooke St. West, McGregor Street (now Doctor Penfield Avenue) and Pine Avenue. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Golden Square Mile」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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