Stacked brick duplex rows fill a narrow grid between the Lachine Canal and an elevated rail line, and The Point filmed on these streets in 2006 with a cast of local teenagers.
What Pointe-Saint-Charles looks like
A grid of narrow residential streets runs between the Lachine Canal and an elevated CN Rail line that crosses the neighbourhood. Stacked brick duplexes fill most of the blocks, one flat set directly over another behind a shared front stair. Most date from the 1860s through the early 1900s, the same era as the earliest surviving example on .
Flat rooflines run the length of each block, and the same window bays repeat from one building to the next with little variation. Street signs along the grid still read Rue Saint-Patrick and Rue d'Hibernia. , a fieldstone farmhouse rebuilt in 1698 with an oak frame and ash beams, stands apart from the duplex rows in its own grounds off Place Dublin.
Industrial buildings sit along the canal and the rail corridor. , a former electronics factory on Rue Richardson, rises eight storeys in red brick with continuous rows of windows. On Bridge Street, a former stockyards administration building in red brick still stands, closed in now by a Costco parking lot.
The marks the grid's western edge, on Rue Centre. A few blocks north on Rue Grand Trunk, rises over the duplex rooftops with a pair of green domes.
Shot in Pointe-Saint-Charles
The Point, a 2006 film, was shot on location in the neighbourhood with a cast of forty local teenagers. The production does not identify a specific street.
The Point, 2006
The film plays out across the neighbourhood's own streets. The production does not identify a specific street.
What Pointe-Saint-Charles can double for
Corktown in Toronto, Ontario
Corktown's brick-fronted terraced rowhouses on streets like Bright Street date from the same decades as the neighbourhood's own stacked duplexes and sit close to the rail lands that shaped both areas. The two-storey scale and narrow lot widths read almost interchangeably in a tight street frame. Corktown's houses are side-by-side rowhouses rather than stacked duplexes, so a wide shot showing separate doors at ground and upper level gives the difference away. Keep close to one building face to hold the match. Try searching brick terraced rowhouses now.
Kensington's continuous blocks of two-storey brick rowhouses share the flat roofline and unbroken street wall of the Montreal rows, both built for a similar rail and mill labour force. Marble stoops and painted trim set the Philadelphia version apart in close shots. Philadelphia rowhouses run side-by-side rather than stacked, so counting doorways in a wide shot reads differently. A tight frame on the brick and window line holds the match better than a full block. Try searching Philadelphia rowhouses block now.
Ancoats grew as brick terraced housing for mill workers along the Rochdale Canal, the same canal and worker housing pairing as the rows beside the Lachine Canal. The back-to-back terrace form there is denser and lower than the Montreal duplex. English brick runs darker and the terraces sit closer to the street with no front step, so dress in a stoop or shift to a canal facing frame to hold the illusion. Try searching canal brick terraces now.
