Documents: Pictures: Photo of Failed Pilings

These pilings are in the basement of the Pointe-a- Calliere, Montreal's Museum of Archeology and History. They formerly supported a nineteenth century office building on the same site. When the architects wanted to support the new (1990s) museum on the foundations of the previously existing building, they found that the pilings in this section could no longer be used because they had rotted away; this section of the museum is stabilized by the new elevator tower. The museum is in Old Montreal at approximately the location of the first European settlement near where the St. Lawrence River was joined by a now filled in stream.