THE NARROWEST STREET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE NARROWEST STREET.

QUEBEC'S SUB LE CAP,

Quebec is believed to have the narrowest street on the American Continent. It is called Sur le Cap, and its width from house to house is seven feet. There are no sidewalks. It is a crooked little thoroughfare and very short. A small wooden bridge at one point joins its upper reaches. Clothes lines stretch across its width at various places, but the sun does not find its way into the street.

Sur Ie Cap has small inhabitants whose only knowledge of English is the one word '-penny," which the urchin repeats over and over again with outstretched hand.

There are many other narrow streets in Quebec, notably Little Champlain Street —wide enough for an automobile to pass through. The houses along these streets have all the charm of Old World habitations—little balconies, dormer windows, green shutters, scrubbed steps, with here and there bright oilcloth extending right into the street, covering the two or three steps below the doorway.

At one end of Little Champlain Street are the famous '""Breakneck Steps" —a long, broad flight of iron stairs which bring one down from the upper city. Fortunately it is not to walk up, unless one is so minded, for there is an elevator which works on an inclined cable. The French children have a way all their own of descending the Breakneck. Stairs —via the long hand-rails in the accepted maimer. The railings have a high polish from much friction.