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Quebec City's Sous-le-Cap Street

Broadcast Date: Feb. 21, 1940

Underneath a canopy of overhead walkways and fluttering clotheslines runs a street scarcely wide enough for a single car. This is Sous-le-Cap Street, a curving laneway in the Lower Town of old Quebec City, and it's a popular draw for tourists. A gaggle of children tags along behind any visitor, demanding pennies and singing on request. In this clip, a local shopkeeper tells CBC Radio's Canadian Snapshots about the history of Sous-le-Cap Street.

Quebec City's Sous-le-Cap Street

• A 1929 book, The Storied Streets of Quebec, says of the street: "Queer, thick walls, and crooked doorways line Sous-le-Cap since the days when its only footing was on the narrow strand between the rock and the river. Little is there here to recall the days of its old time splendour when highborn ladies and officers of the garrison shopped and gossiped between its grey walls."

• Some time in the 1940s, a sign was posted on the street reading: "Notice. Please refrain from giving money to children in order to avoid accidents. By order of police."
• In 1946, economist Maurice Lamontagne described Quebec's Lower Town as the worst slum in the city. Residents were few, most having left for the Upper Town, and those that remained lived in poverty.

• Another streetscape unique to Quebec City is L'Escalier Casse-Cou, or Breakneck Stairs. This narrow 170-step staircase links the Upper and Lower Towns on Petit-Champlain Street.

Quebec City's Sous-le-Cap Street

Medium: Radio

Program: Canadian Snapshots

Broadcast Date: Feb. 21, 1940

Guest(s): M. Mercier

Duration: 5:43

Last updated:
July 13, 2009