Name: Snapshots of Sheffield Street: Reconstructing Saint John’s “Unsavoury Precinct” by Gemma Marr
Start: 2026-03-14T13:00:00-03:00
End: 2026-03-14T14:30:00-03:00
Location: Stone Church - St. John's Church

$Snapshots of Sheffield Street: Reconstructing Saint John\u2019s \u201cUnsavoury Precinct\u201d by Gemma Marr$

In 1906, The Evening Times published a series of articles focused on reforming Sheffield Street. Located in the South end of Saint John, Sheffield Street (now Broadview Avenue) was bordered by the railway, the port, and the army barracks, and home to an abundance of beer shops, dance halls, and “houses of ill repute.” On September 25th, the paper noted: “Sheffield street is a plague spot;” yet, its distance from “respectable” neighbourhoods means “It is a menace only to those who go out of their ordinary way to reach its unsavoury precincts.” That is, though Sheffield Street is “bad,” it is contained as a go-to district for those who seek vice.
This presentation will offer a snapshot of Sheffield Street at the turn of the twentieth century using newspaper records, data from city directories, police documents, and cartographic material. The presentation also works to centre a group of women who lived and worked in this “unsavoury precinct.” In doing so, this project aims to address gaps in our understanding of life in Saint John in this period. This presentation speaks to a larger project, which aims to blend the historic with the artistic through the creation of a graphic novel titled "There is a Moral in This."
Speaker Gemma Marr is a writer, researcher, and educator based in Saint John. She teaches in the Department of Humanities and Languages at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, and is the coordinator of the Lorenzo Society, an arts and culture organization housed in the Faculty of Arts. She received her PhD in English Language and Literature from Carleton University in 2022 and held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Historical Studies at UNB Fredericton from 2023-2025. Her research focuses on histories and representations of sexuality in the Atlantic region, particularly in New Brunswick. Her fiction explores themes of belonging, desire, and place.
This is a free event, open to the public.
Art work: K.C. Wilcox