Here is a pic of a 1907 St. Henri cafe which I found on on the Vivre en Ville site.
It’s called the Westmount Cafe and is on the corner of Greene Ave.
Edith Nicholson roomed on Greene in 1910-1912. You would think that it would be a comfort to have a cafe so close to where you roomed back then. A place to go when lonely. And Edith’s letters of the time suggested she despised being shut in.
Well, no. It is not likely Edith went to this cafe. Women alone weren’t welcome in ‘restaurants’ of the time.
There was at least one tea room for women in Montreal at the time. I saw the ad. Still, I am not certain a woman without escort was allowed to eat there.
In New York this activity was illegal, but some women’s social activists were fighting for the right of women to eat alone!
This interior shot shows that this restaurant is not a ‘tea room.’
Here’s an era pharmacy in St. Henri. Maybe Edith popped in here to buy her ‘tonics’ for her many many colds. It is likely she shopped up town in Westmount though. Or on St Catherine West.
This pharmacy was likely run by French people.
I can’t tell what’s in the cabinet, but just like today, this pharmacy seems to sell more than medicines. Maybe they sold rouge de theatre. There seems to be a display of bow ties.
