Modernizing Mount Royal Park : Montréal’s Jungle in the 1950s
During the 1950s, the municipal authorities, under pressure from the Police Department, called for the clearing of a section of Mount Royal Park—the so-called “Jungle” (composed mainly of undergrowth, bushes, and trees)—where a community of undesirable Park patrons had established themselves. This cohort of undesirables was understood as being composed mainly of alcoholics, thugs, perverts and most importantly homosexuals. Their eradication was undertaken through a threefold plan which would simplify the techniques of surveillance used by the Police Department; this would be achieved through (1) increased lighting, (2) clearing the Jungle, (3) construction of a roadway, now known as the Camillien-Houde roadway, thus making the Park more accessible and safe. The cuts, known as the Morality Cuts, had a lasting effect on the environmental and ecological composition of the Park, with the immediate repercussion of “balding” the Park, thereby giving it the nickname of Mount Baldy.  Yet Mount Royal Park’s transformation was not limited to its Jungle. In fact, the transformation was undertaken in a number of the Park’s sections which were deemed undeveloped. The development Mount Royal Park and of its Jungle were therefore acts of development, under the umbrella of Montréal’s modernist postwar planning. Indeed, the re-planning of Mount Royal Park testifies to the unbounded will of the authorities to instill morality and modernity within the city, going to lengths that ultimately altered the ecological composition of the Park. This would in the end lead to an all out campaign named the Save-the-Mountain Movement, which sought to end the modernist encroachment of this space and rehabilitate the Park as a wooded and tranquil environment.
Jungle Montréal Mount Royal Park Mount Baldy Modernity Morality Homosexuality Urban History Environmental History Camillien-Houde