Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve

Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is a borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada located in the southeastern end of the island. See Mercier and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve articles for a more detailed histories of respective areas Hochelaga was founded as a village in 1870, and annexed to Montreal in 1883. In response, dissatisfied landowners founded the village of Maisonneuve to the east. Maisonneuve grew rapidly and became known as the Pittsburgh of Canada for its heavy industry, before finally being annexed to Montreal in 1918. These factories hired many workers, including immigrants and people from the surrounding countryside. They worked in the shoe, textile, tanning, slaughterhouse, tobacco, food, and shipbuilding industries. In 1920, many factories closed and moved east to Mercier. Mercier was an agglomeration of old villages: Beau-Rivage, Longue-Pointe and Tétreaultville. It was previously annexed to Montreal in 1910, before Maisonneuve. In 1960, the construction of the Autoroute 25 saw the demolition of many residential buildings in Mercier and divided it into two districts: Mercier-Ouest and Mercier-Est. Starting in the 1980s, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve suffered significant economic and social decline, gaining a bad reputation for poverty, unemployment and organized crime. In recent years, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and to a much lesser extent Mercier, has experienced significant change and gentrification. Located in the east end of the Island of Montreal, it was part of the City of Montreal prior to the 2002 municipal mergers. It is composed of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Mercier-Ouest (Longue-Pointe) and Mercier-Est (Tétraultville) areas. Each area has roughly the same population, but they differ in their commercial and social characteristics. The largely oblong borough is bordered to the west by Ville-Marie (Centre-Sud), northwest by the borough of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, on the northeast by Saint Leonard and Anjou, and to the east by Montréal-Est. To the south is the Saint Lawrence River.