City Of St. John's - Duckworth Street

St. John's, NF

Mile One Stadium, located on New Gower Street opened on 24 May 2001.

It is the home of the St. John's Maple Leafs, the farm team for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Mile One hosted the 2002 Juno Awards on 14 April 2002, and has a Molson Canadian Theatres section for smaller, more intimate concerts.

Across New Gower Street is the St. John's Convention Centre, which features a beautiful sculpture of our past.

No tour of St. John's would be complete without a stroll through George Street. This tour is a sample only, and therefore not complete. Let's move onto Duckworth Street.

Duckworth Street is the second oldest street in Newfoundland and Labrador. Duckworth Street was once known as the upper path. Now Duckworth Street is home to many law office, I assume because of the proximity to the Court House, a lot of restaurants, some shopping and some more pubs and clubs and bars. The first apothecary in St. John's resided and opened his business in this lane, now called McMurdo's Lane, after the pharmacist. McMurdo's Lane is now the home of the Duke of Duckworth, and Junctions.

According to several sources, the character of Henry Higgins, from the famous George Bernard Shaw play, Pymalion and later, movie, My Fair Lady is partly based on a man named Melville Bell. Melville Bell was the father of Alexander Graham Bell and worked here, at McMurdo's pharmacy. Bell was the inventor of "visible speech" and taught elocution during his time in St. John's.

The Anglican Cathedral of St John the Baptist is the oldest Anglican parish in Canada, dating back to 1699. Unfortunately, the Cathedral was destroyed in the fires. The newest cathedral is built in the neo-gothic style.

The Resource Centre for the Arts is housed in the old LSPU Hall. It was purchased from the Longshoreman's Protective Union in 1976, and is the core of performing and visual arts in downtown St. John's.

The CODCO comedy troupe, and Mary Walsh and Cathy Jones from the long-running CBC production This Hour Has 22 Minutes all got there start here at "The Hall."

A lot of the colourful business on Duckworth Street across from the former National War Memorial were built just after the Great Fire of 1892.

The four houses on Temperance Street are beautiful to look at but the history is even more enchanting. These houses were built by Samuel Garrett, a man who was involved with the building of Cabot Tower. He used surplus from Cabot Tower and ruble from an old hospital. He had four daughters, and on the wedding day of each of his daughters, he gave them one of these houses. Two of the houses were never actually occupied by Garrett's daughters, but Number 33 is today the residence of his great-graddaughter.

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