By the time 1966 rolled around,our neighborhood had taken pretty much the same form as it has today.All of the house that are still there were completed,and most of the neighbors around us were in their homes.In fact,the next door neighbors on either side were to remain the same until long after I left.The Clark family is still there.
Northwest Moncton was one of the newest areas in the mid 1960s,essentially a product of the demographic changes brought about by World War II.It was nearing the end of the post war Baby Boom,and there was a large demand for more,and more modern housing,and services to supply those living in those houses.So our community grew up as a kind of more or less uniform suburb.
For the most part the houses around us all looked similar,if not alike.Cookie cutter houses,with only a few different floor plans,put up as quickly as they could be.In fact,there the majority of the houses would have been a variation of a single floor plan,the variation consisting of how they were oriented on their lots,which for the most part were all the same size.The houses were all bungalows,one story,with front and back doors,more or less in the center of the house,and approximately opposite one another.The living rooms,dining rooms and kitchens were set to one side of the front door,the bedrooms and bathroom to the other.Some of the houses would have bedrooms to the left of the door,some to the right,but in either case the floor plan was essentially the same.A few of the houses had set so that their ends faced the street,but again,the basic layout was the same.There was the odd L shaped house as well.
When Northwest Moncton was built,it was not undertaken in the same way as things are done today.The big difference is that today a sub division would be proposed and all of the land acquired to build it.Anything older that was still standing would be bought up,not giving any choice to those who did not wish to sell,and houses would be erected and sold.But,in our neighborhood,there were a number of houses that were there before the building of that sub division,and they were left in place,so that along with the 1960s style bungalows,there are a number of older houses,and those houses were allowed to remain and are still standing today,for the most part.The Duffys just down and across the street lived in one such house,as did the Flanigans,at the beginning of the next block down.There were a couple of much larger houses at the end of Watson Avenue too,on our side of the street just before Mountain Road.The other streets around had quite a few older houses compared to our street.
There were a couple of houses in the neighborhood that are no longer there.One was located in the field between Watson Avenue and Crandall Street,the other at the corner of Whitney and Lorne. Both houses were home to people who gave every appearance of being much poorer than the house around them,and I'd always heard people complain how the houses wee eyesores and should be torn down.The one up on Whitney,a low slung and leaning shack with asphalt shingles and a sinkhole for a yard was torn down a few years later.The house in the field burned down one night.
Northwest Moncton was one of the newest areas in the mid 1960s,essentially a product of the demographic changes brought about by World War II.It was nearing the end of the post war Baby Boom,and there was a large demand for more,and more modern housing,and services to supply those living in those houses.So our community grew up as a kind of more or less uniform suburb.
For the most part the houses around us all looked similar,if not alike.Cookie cutter houses,with only a few different floor plans,put up as quickly as they could be.In fact,there the majority of the houses would have been a variation of a single floor plan,the variation consisting of how they were oriented on their lots,which for the most part were all the same size.The houses were all bungalows,one story,with front and back doors,more or less in the center of the house,and approximately opposite one another.The living rooms,dining rooms and kitchens were set to one side of the front door,the bedrooms and bathroom to the other.Some of the houses would have bedrooms to the left of the door,some to the right,but in either case the floor plan was essentially the same.A few of the houses had set so that their ends faced the street,but again,the basic layout was the same.There was the odd L shaped house as well.
When Northwest Moncton was built,it was not undertaken in the same way as things are done today.The big difference is that today a sub division would be proposed and all of the land acquired to build it.Anything older that was still standing would be bought up,not giving any choice to those who did not wish to sell,and houses would be erected and sold.But,in our neighborhood,there were a number of houses that were there before the building of that sub division,and they were left in place,so that along with the 1960s style bungalows,there are a number of older houses,and those houses were allowed to remain and are still standing today,for the most part.The Duffys just down and across the street lived in one such house,as did the Flanigans,at the beginning of the next block down.There were a couple of much larger houses at the end of Watson Avenue too,on our side of the street just before Mountain Road.The other streets around had quite a few older houses compared to our street.
There were a couple of houses in the neighborhood that are no longer there.One was located in the field between Watson Avenue and Crandall Street,the other at the corner of Whitney and Lorne. Both houses were home to people who gave every appearance of being much poorer than the house around them,and I'd always heard people complain how the houses wee eyesores and should be torn down.The one up on Whitney,a low slung and leaning shack with asphalt shingles and a sinkhole for a yard was torn down a few years later.The house in the field burned down one night.
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