Maisonneuve Park
4601 Sherbrooke East
514-872-6555
defined by Viau, Rosemont, Sherbrooke and the Botanical Garden; the public nine-hole golf course is across Viau behind the Olympic Village
Maisonneuve Park, properly speaking, also includes the Montreal Botanical Garden, but the entities and purpose of the two are very different so they will be described separately.
Maisonneuve Park is a rolling 118-hectare piece of green space in east-end Montreal. The simple greenery of the park is a welcome contrast to the more intensively landscaped Botanical Garden and the concrete complexity of the stadium and its surrounding structures, both of which adjoin the park.
Named after Montreal’s founder Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve (1612-1676), the park was meant to be a tremendous asset to the eponymous town of Maisonneuve. A well-planned suburb, this town was chartered in 1883. The mayor of Maisonneuve wanted to grace his city with a grand boulevard leading to a major park and this piece of land was chosen and named in 1910, with Morgan Boulevard - still rather stately - in its wake. But the city of Maisonneuve became part of Montreal in 1918.
A part of the original Maisonneuve Park was set aside in 1936 to become the Botanical Garden. Plans to use the southern parts of the park for athletic purposes, floated before World War II, later materialized with the construction of Maurice Richard Arena and the Maisonneuve Sports Centre in the late 1950s. The sports concept went on to take massive form when then-Mayor Jean Drapeau sold the city and the world on the notion of the 1976 summer Olympics.
Maisonneuve Park is essentially an open space with nicely groomed lawns and clumps of trees, crossed north-south by a major bike path and crossed here and there by footpaths. Close to Sherbrooke Street there is a chalet, and close to Rosemont, on the north end, some room is given to community gardening. But mostly, you have room to walk, cycle or run, or simply veg out for a picnic.
In wintertime the park is used for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, and there are skating rinks.
To get to Maisonneuve Park it’s probably simplest to go to Viau metro and walk up the hill. The 185 bus gets you closest: it starts out at Frontenac metro and runs eastward. The park is also on the bike path that runs along Rachel Street eastward. To drive there, go east on Sherbrooke and when you’re next to the giant sloping mast, there you are: there are pay parking lots attached to the park.
There are no shops and not many services in or close by the park, but east of Viau there are some restaurants and strip malls.