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Places in Montreal
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Downtown Montreal Downtown Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal, most of which is a major urban park, and extends toward the St Lawrence River. It is located entirely within the Ville Marie borough. The Downtown area contains dozens of notable skyscrapers — which bylaws restrict to the height of Mount Royal — including the aforementioned 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque. The Tour de la Bourse (Stock Exchange Tower) is also another significant building in Montreal, and is home to the Montreal Exchange, which trades in derivatives such as futures contracts and options. The Montreal Exchange was the first stock exchange in Canada. In 1999 all stock trades were transferred to Toronto in exchange for exclusivity in derivatives trading. Place Ville-Marie, an I. M. Pei-designed cruciform office tower built in 1962, sits atop an underground shopping mall that forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, businesses, museums and universities, as well as metro stations, train stations, bus terminals, and tunnels extending all over downtown. The central axis for downtown is Saint Catherine Street, Canada's busiest commercial artery. Other major streets include Sherbrooke, René Lévesque, Peel, de la Montagne, de Maisonneuve and Crescent. The Montreal Skyline panorama includes two islands, and Île Notre-Dame. The man-made Notre Dame island hosts the Canadian Grand Prix Formula One auto race, as well as NASCAR racing. La Ronde, the sole amusement park in the Montreal area, is located on Île Ste. Hélène and is home to the Montreal Fireworks Festival in the summer. Old Montreal Just southeast of downtown is Old Montreal (Vieux-Montréal), an historic area with such attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, the Marché Bonsecours, Place d'Armes, Pointe-à-Callière Museum, and the Notre-Dame Basilica. Architecture and cobbled streets in Old Montreal have been maintained or restored to keep the look of the city in its earliest days as a settlement, and horse-drawn calèches help maintain that image. Old Montreal is accessible from the downtown core via the underground city and is served by several STM bus routes and metro stations, ferries to the South Shore and a network of bicycle paths. Old Port Shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the riverside area of Old Port/Vieux-Port adjacent to Old Montreal as a recreational and historical area now maintained by Parks Canada. Champs de Mars This large public expanse surrounded by trees is a perfect place to relax and soak up the sun. It also offers a superb view of downtown Montréal and fascinating historical remains. The two lines of stone running across the surface like a double backbone are one of the few spots in present-day Montréal where you can still see physical evidence of the fortified town of yesteryear. Underground City Montreal's Underground City (French: La ville souterraine) is the set of underground city complexes in and around downtown. It is also known as the indoor city (ville intérieure), as not all of it is underground. With over 32 kilometres (20 mi) of tunnels spread over an area of twelve square kilometres (4.6 sq mi), the 60 residential and commercial complexes comprise 3.6 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi) of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. Services include shopping malls, hotels, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a bus terminal and the Bell Centre hockey arena. There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Some 500,000 people use the underground city every day, especially to escape the traffic and/or Montreal's harsh winter. Because of the Underground City, Montreal is often referred to as "Two Cities in One." Olympic Park The Olympic installations site lies six kilometres (3.7 mi) next to Metro Viau, from downtown in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, and is comprised of several buildings designed by French architect Roger Taillibert. The Olympic Stadium is ovoid shaped with a distinctive 'ribbed' look, and has the world's tallest inclined tower at 175 metres (575 ft) high; it leans at 45 degrees. The complex includes the Montreal Biodome (originally a fully-functional Velodrome), the Montreal Insectarium, municipal golf course Le Village, and the Montreal Botanical Garden, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world, second only to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in England. Two pyramidal towers, known as the Olympic Village, were built to house athletes but now serve as apartments and offices. The Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics were successful, but construction problems and corruption created a massive financial burden for citizens. At the opening, the tower and the retractable roof were incomplete. The tower was completed years later but the retractable roof was never completed as originally planned by Taillibert. Anglo locals refer to the stadium as the "Big O" due to its shape, but also as the "Big Owe" — a reference to the Olympic Park's exorbitant total cost, which was only paid off thirty years later with the help of a special tobacco tax. The stadium was also home to the Expos from 1977 until the team moved to Washington, D.C. after the 2004 season, and has sometimes been home for the Montreal Alouettes. Today, Montreal's Olympic Park hosts limited professional sports events and is mainly a tourist and cultural attraction. Montréal recently hosted the 2006 1st World Outgames holding the opening/closing ceremonies and many of the events at the Olympic Stadium. The event drew over 10,000 participants celebrating diversity. Most were Gay athletes, but many participated in other cultural events such as ballroom dancing. Opening ceremonies brought international athletes, local politicians, and entertainers to keep the night festive. Museums and cultural centres Montreal is the centre of Quebec culture and a major centre of Canadian culture in general. It has many specialized museums such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the Musée d'art contemporain (MAC), the Redpath Museum, the , the McCord Museum of Canadian History, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Place des Arts cultural complex houses the MAC and several theatres, and is the seat of the Montreal Opera and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, although the latter is slated to receive a new concert hall adjacent to Place des Arts. The Museum Quarter’s historical and architectural richness, spilling over into surrounding streets, creates a special ambiance that leaves a lasting impression on visitors. Crescent, de la Montagne and Sherbrooke Streets are the hub of the district’s vibrant business life. High-end, designer fashion and décor boutiques, international shops, art galleries, jewellers and exquisite fine dining never fail to win visitors over. Religious sanctuaries Nicknamed "la ville aux cent clochers" (the city of a hundred belltowers), Montreal is renowned for its churches. As described by Mark Twain, "This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window." The city has four Roman Catholic basilicas: Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, the aforementioned Notre-Dame Basilica, , and Saint Joseph's Oratory. The Oratory is the largest church in Canada, with the largest dome of its kind in the world after that of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Other well-known churches include the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours, which is sometimes called the Sailors' Church, and the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, which was completely excavated and suspended in mid-air during the construction of part of the Underground City. All of the above are major tourist destinations, particularly Notre-Dame and the Oratory. An impressive number of other churches, synagogues and mosques can be found, and church steeples are a familiar view all over the city and island. Little Italy Montreal has the second largest Italian population in Canada after Toronto. There are around 250,000 Montrealers of Italian ancestry living within its Metropolitan Area. Montreal's Little Italy, located on Saint Lawrence Boulevard between Jean-Talon and St. Zotique, is home to Montreal's original Italian Canadian community. Although many Italians in Montreal have since moved to other parts of town, Montreal's Little Italy has not lost its heritage, as it is home to a large collection of Italian restaurants, bars, and shops. Saint Leonard (Città Italiana) There is also a very prominent Italian Canadian community in the Montreal borough of Saint Leonard, nicknamed Città Italiana. This borough is located further east on Jean-Talon Boulevard. Città Italiana can be considered Montreal's second Little Italy. Many Italian cultural centres, such as the The Leonardo Da Vinci Centre, are located in Saint Leonard. Its services are offered in English, French and Italian. This cultural building contains theaters, gyms, bocce playing areas, and a cafe. Greektown Montreal's Greektown has historically been located in the district of Parc Extension. Jean-Talon Boulevard, which runs through Parc Extension, is home to many Greek restaurants and shops. The same can be said for Parc Avenue. Thousands of Greek Canadians took to the streets and celebrated in Greektown after Greece defeated Portugal in the 2004 European Football Championship. Parc Extension Parc Extension or 'Parc-Ex' as it is known by the locals, is a key location of the city. It is set in the middle of Montreal and has two metro stations along with 3 of the main bus routes crossing through it. It's name derives from the fact that it is the neighborhood that begins at the end of a main city street; Parc avenue, therefore extending the reach of the long avenue. Some of the most notable things about Parc Extension is that it is home to a little over 100 different ethnicities yet is mostly known for its Greek community which helped make the district what it is today. 'Parc-Ex' has also come under criticism for its increasing gang related violence in the past decade. Little Portugal Montreal has a modest Portuguese population, some of which is concentrated in Little Portugal, which is at the corner of Saint Lawrence Boulevard and Rachel street. Portuguese businesses can be found along several blocks of Saint-Lawrence between Pine and Marie-Anne. The Portuguese area has largely absorbed what used to be the traditional Jewish neighbourhood. Griffintown and Goose Village District directly southwest of Downtown Montreal and just west of Old Port, today it's considered part of the larger Pointe-Saint-Charles neighbourhood in the Le Sud-Ouest district of the city. In the 19th Century Griffintown and adjacent Goose Village were home to thousands of Irish immigrants (mostly of the Catholic faith), many of whom worked for the railway and on massive local projects such as the Victoria Bridge, or the Northern Telecom building. Griffintown was the initial stop-off point for many Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century. It became a multi-ethnic neighbourhood by the turn of the twentieth century, consisting of French, Anglo-Protestants (and later, Italians and others), but majority Irish Catholics. The Irish community claims the neighbourhood as a lieu du memoire because of its significance as one of the original sites of Irish immigration in North America. Many of the immigrants who arrived on "fever ships" or "coffin ships" during the Irish Catholic diaspora resulting from potato famine and British colonialism, suffered from typhoid or other diseases and were quarantined in hastily constructed wooden "fever sheds" at Grosse-Ile outside Quebec City and in Griffintown and Goose Village. Roughly six thousand Irish immigrants died in fever sheds at nearby Windmill Point. They are commemorated by a black rock near the Victoria Bridge. The Irish Catholics in Montreal mostly evaded the level of conflict with Protestants occurring elsewhere because of the Catholicism of the French population. Irish Catholics joined together with the French population in revolt against British colonialism in the Patriote Rebellions. Nevertheless, life in Griffintown was violent, dirty (massive pollution which remains in the soil) and poverty-laden. A tight-knit culture developed amongst the Irish Catholics, mostly through social participation at St. Ann's Church and through the perpetuation of Irish Catholic traditions, such as plays, dancing, songs, etc. This culture became pervasive and was adopted either wittingly or unwittingly by other Catholic immigrant groups and even by some of the French who lived in the area. Women were very active in church life and pushed their husbands towards social functions run by the Church to keep them away from the saloons. Carousing sailors from the nearby Port of Montreal were another flash point for violence. Workers organized against corrupt bosses in the two major Lachine Canal strikes and a real class conscious ethos developed partly around local tavern culture (see Joe Beef's Tavern). One of the developments that ensued was the opening up of hockey to working class participation through the Montreal Shamrock Hockey Club. Hockey had been a game played by elites and later the middle classes as an amateur, exclusive club sport. The profitability of the sport soon opened the eyes of its middle class purveyors and ultimately led to its professionalization. The post-war collapse of heavy industry and closure of the Lachine Canal created poor economic conditions, and since then it has been a low-income neighbourhood that is now undergoing some gentrification and renewal. However, in order to purchase property today, you must first pay to clean up the soil, an expensive environmental regulation which has so far limited the renewal of the neighborhood to large development projects along its periphery, mostly condos. Chinatown Montreal has a small but active Chinatown just south of downtown, featuring many Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as a number of Vietnamese establishments. Several of these restaurants offer dim sum from as early as 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and can be quite crowded, especially on Sundays. The principal axis of Chinatown are Saint Laurent Boulevard and La Gauchetière Street. Gay Village Montreal is known as a queer or gay-friendly city. Its pride festival, Divers/Cité, is claimed to be one of the largest in North America; organizers estimate that it [http://fugues.vortex.qc.ca/main.cfm?p100&Article_ID3224 drew 1.4 million people] in 2002. It benefits from financial support from all three levels of government. Montreal is home to one of the largest gay villages in the world, centred around the downtown Beaudry metro station (known in French as le Village gai). Montreal is a centre of Queer life and culture in Canada and hosts several circuit parties every year. As the local gay publication is in French, an alternative for English visitors is GAYroute with details about Montréal's gay community in English. The 2006 World Outgames were held in Montreal. The 2001 census recorded that 6.3% of couples in the city were same-sex, the fourth highest percentage for cities in Canada. Point St. Charles An area located in the South-West borough, south of downtown between the Lachine Canal and the St. Lawrence River. Often referred to as 'The Point', it was originally a mainly English-speaking Irish working-class neighbourhood developed around factories and other Victorian-era industry. Changes in economic fortune in the mid-20th Century led Point St. Charles into a decline that has only recently begun to change as a wave of gentrification has given the area new life. The neighbourhood has a documented reputation as one of the poorest in Montreal, and one of the roughest in Canada. Its inhabitants have been the subject of several National Film Board of Canada documentaries. Playwright David Fennario hails from the district. Plateau-Mont-Royal Montreal's trendy and colourful Plateau Mont Royal neighbourhood is located on the twin North-South axes of Saint Laurent Boulevard and Saint Denis Street, and East-West axes of Mount Royal Avenue and Sherbrooke Street. The granite-paved, pedestrian-only Prince Arthur Street is also located in this neighbourhood. In the summer, nightlife often seems as active as in the day in this area. The Plateau boasts the highest population density of all Montreal and the greatest number of creative people in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. The same source also states that it is the urban place where the most people travel mainly by foot, bicycle or public transport. The Plateau Mont-Royal has been dubbed the "coolest neighbourhood in North America" by magazine. The exterior staircase is a distinctive feature of the city's architecture. Mile End The tiny "Mile End" district, officially part of the Plateau borough but generally considered distinct, is home to many Montreal artists and filmmakers. The city's two famous bagel emporia, the Fairmount and St-Viateur bakeries, are located on the streets of the same names. Fairmount Street is also home to Wilensky's (right), immortalized in the Mordecai Richler novel and film of the same name The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Saint-Viateur is the site of several cafés of note. The area has become noticeably more cash-rich in recent years, due in part to the presence of the Ubisoft studios in the district, on Saint Laurent Boulevard. As well, as of late it has been the home of many art galleries, designers, and boutiques. Mile End is also where William Shatner spent some time growing up in addition to Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Mount Royal Mount Royal is Montreal's outstanding urban park, designed in 1876 by Frederick Law Olmsted, best known as the designer of New York's Central Park. Mount Royal's features include the Chalet and the Kondiaronk Belvedere overlooking downtown Montreal (the most famous view of the city), and man-made Beaver Lake (Lac aux Castors) with its recently renovated pavilion. Mount Royal is topped by an illuminated cross that has become a Montreal landmark. Observant hikers on the park's many trails will find an abundance of small wildlife. In the winter, the park is the site of numerous cross-country ski trails and a new, refrigerated skating rink near Beaver Lake. Once, a funicular railroad brought sightseers to its peak, but has long since disappeared. A tramway also went up the mountain on the north side, replaced in the late 1950s by the Camillien Houde Parkway, which now bisects the mountain (the parkway is named for long-time but controversial former mayor, jailed during World War II for his opposition to conscription in Canada). The "11-Montagne" bus line perpetuates the route of the tram. Every Sunday in the summer, hundreds of people gather at the statue of Confederation co-founder George-Étienne Cartier at the foot of Mount Royal for several hours of drumming, dancing, and juggling (among many other activities), in an event that has come to be known as the . It is unclear how this event started; but, as it has no formal organization and has carried on both in a lively and peaceful way since at least the late 1980s, it remains a popular event. The intersection of Avenue du Parc and Avenue des Pins, just to the south, formerly a winding urban interchange (inspired by the New York parkways of Robert Moses), is also undergoing a major transformation to become more pedestrian-friendly. Parc Jean-Drapeau .]] Located in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, Parc Jean-Drapeau consists of the islands of Sainte-Hélène and the manmade Notre-Dame, which hosted Expo 67. A large green space with diverse attractions and events, Parc Jean-Drapeau is accessible by métro, car, bicycle or boat. The islands are a popular destination for Montrealers due to their green spaces and sports and cultural activities. Île Notre-Dame The Floralies gardens are located at the centre of the island. Île Notre-Dame also has a network of canals, and, further west at the lake, offers a beach and other water sports. The Montreal Casino and a youth hostel are also located here. The Montreal Grand Prix takes place here at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which in winter is used as a skating rink. Île Sainte-Hélène Dominated by the geodesic dome of the Biosphère and the rollercoasters of Six Flags La Ronde, the island is also home to the Hélène de Champlain restaurant and the De Lévis tower. Built in 1814, the Fort on Saint Helen's Island houses the , dedicated to the history of New France. The island also contains several large public works of art, such as the imposing “Man”, sculpted in steel by artist Alexander Calder. Buses run every 15 minutes from the Jean-Drapeau metro station to La Ronde. West Island The West Island has a multicultural look with modern buildings and country homes side by side. The region boasts large green spaces bordering rivers and lakes, bike trails, nature parks, museums, cross-country ski trails, ecological farms, golf courses and cultural sites. As a testimony to its 300-year-old history, residents and visitors alike will discover fascinating 18th-century buildings. The shores of Lake Saint-Louis offer a unique setting with café-terrasses, restaurants and boutiques filled with quaint old world charm. See Also
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