Walking through Moncton's mature neighbourhoods a treat

Published Friday May 9th, 2008
A20

There's nothing like walking to get the feel of a neighbourhood. Paul Mowrer used to say that absorbing a new landscape was a bit like appreciating a piece of music -- it must be taken at the right tempo.

Caption
Bill Robb/This Week
Henry Street has lovely old homes, many sustaining years of wear and tear and others restored or given new siding and windows.

He's right. Even a bicycle goes too fast, and a car just whizzes past all the nuances and sounds that make any neighbourhood special. This week I visited a mature part of Moncton, the cluster of streets in the neighbourhood of Moncton High School.

The photograph shows Henry Street, which stretches parallel to Church Street, but a block north. It has lovely old homes, many boldly sustaining the years of wear and tear and others painstakingly restored or given new looks with siding and windows.

The street ends at a children's playground where the sounds of laughter echo through the neighbourhood now that spring is here. Where Henry reaches Fernand Landry Street, you can turn left and walk behind the Department of Fisheries and Oceans building (once College Notre Dame D'Acadie, an all-girls' school. Walk past Robinson to Lutz and head back up to Mountain Road for a long walk.

On Lutz, on your right where there is now a huge vacant lot, the old Lane's Bakery stood for many years, filling the air with the wonderful smell of baking bread. This is a charming and historic part of the City of Moncton, and one worthy of a closer look. It is a perfect example of an older neighbourhood in the process of reinventing itself.

There is a tremendous convenience to living in this part of town of course, since one can easily walk to Main Street, but also to the Dr. Georges Dumont Hospital and other downtown institutions.

I like these streets especially, because you can't get lost if you just keep walking on parallel streets, with all leading back to Mountain Road.

It reminds me of the great Abraham Lincoln, one of the world's most famous walkers, who admitted: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards."

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