Saint-Henri got its name from a church, but its character from the tanneries, the leather-curing workshops that set up along the old Lachine road three centuries ago because the resulting odours kept it from being more centrally located. That origin story tracks, because this has always been the neighbourhood where Montreal put its labour, from the tanneries to the factories that lined the Lachine Canal through the industrial golden age, and the working-class identity that grew out of all that never fully washed out.
What's happened over the past few decades is the part everyone knows: waves of new investment, new residents, new restaurants, and a rate of change fast enough that Saint-Henri has become one of the city's go-to examples of gentrification, discussed as often as it's dined in. The tension is real as rising costs have displaced longtime residents, and the neighbourhood grapples with what that means even as its main strip earns national attention.
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