Peel and St. James: today's barren intersection was once abuzz with trains

  Peel Street (aka Windsor St.) was blocked at the bottom of the hill until about 1950.
  It might be hard to visualize what's now a wide-wide-wide empty street once filled with important stuff.
  But it was.
  So you'd cruise down the hill and be forced to stop by a gloriously whimsical blockage in the form of Bonaventure train station.
  Once you arrived at St. James and Peel your progress would be halted by the side of venerable old Bonaventure Station, which would force you down Inspector Street further east.
   Another way to circumnavigate Bonaventure Station was to scoot down one-block Railroad Street to Chaboillez Square (actually a triangle) and then angle over to Inspector.

 The buzzing intersection of Peel and St. James sat a stone's throw from such hotels as the Queen's, Carslake Hotel and Carleton (with Mother Martin's restaurant) and the main post office.
  So what's now a lame duck corner of cold breezes and solitude was once important, buzzing and quirky.
  Nowadays the demolished area looks like a moonscape or like suburban Iqaluit, flanked by the sad old abandoned Planetarium begging to be set alight to put it out of its misery.
   One cannot blame authorities for
scrapping the Grand Trunk Railroad's Bonaventure Station.
    The Bonaventure Station, although venerable, it was no architectural gem and there were too many damn railway tracks, with the much posher Windsor Station one block north and the newer Central Station a little further east fulfilling all of the city's needs by 1950
    Scrapping Bonaventure Station and the tracks recovered a lot of land for development, but sadly nothing much good came of it as the structures that went up at the corner and all along to St. Henry aren't much to look at.