List of neighbourhoods in Montreal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is the list of the neighbourhoods (or districts) in the city of Montreal. They are sorted by the borough they are located in. They were created for electoral purposes and are based on historical boundaries of neighborhoods and former towns or cities.
[edit] Ahuntsic-Cartierville
[edit] Anjou
- Anjou-Centre
- Anjou-Est
- Anjou-Ouest
[edit] Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
- Côte-des-Neiges
- Darlington
- Loyola
- Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
- Snowdon
[edit] Lachine
- Lachine Canal
- Ville Saint-Pierre
- Fort-Rolland
- J.-Émery-Provost
[edit] LaSalle
- Cecil-P.-Newman
- Sault-Saint-Louis
[edit] Le Plateau-Mont-Royal
[edit] The Plateau
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 Wallpaper* magazine[citation needed]. The exterior staircase is a distinctive feature of the city's architecture.
[edit] 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[1] and St-Viateur[2] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Other neighbourhoods
- DeLorimier
- Jeanne-Mance
- Mile End
- McGill Ghetto
[edit] Le Sud-Ouest
[edit] Griffintown and Goose Village
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- See also: Goose Village, Montreal
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.
[edit] Pointe-Saint-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[1]. Playwright David Fennario hails from the district.
[edit] Other neighbourhoods
- Saint-Henri
- Little Burgundy
- Ville-Saint-Paul
- Ville-Émard
[edit] L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève
- Denis-Benjamin-Viger
- Jacques-Bizard
- Pierre-Foretier
- Sainte-Geneviève
[edit] Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- Mercier-Ouest
- Tétreaultville (Mercier-Est)
[edit] Montréal-Nord
- Marie-Clarac
- Ovide-Clermont
[edit] Outremont
- Claude-Ryan
- Jeanne-Sauvé
- Joseph-Beaubien
- Robert-Bourassa
[edit] Pierrefonds-Roxboro
- Pierrefonds-Roxboro-Est
- Pierrefonds-Roxboro-Ouest
[edit] Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles
- La Pointe-aux-Prairies
- Pointe-aux-Trembles
- Rivière-des-Prairies
[edit] Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie
[edit] 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.
[edit] Other neighbourhoods
- Étienne-Desmarteaux
- Marie-Victorin
- Saint-Édouard
- Vieux-Rosemont
[edit] Saint-Laurent
- Bois-Franc
- Côte-de-Liesse
- Normand-McLaren
[edit] Saint-Léonard
[edit] 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.
[edit] Via Italia
[edit] Verdun
- Champlain — L'Île-des-Soeurs
- Desmarchais-Crawford
[edit] Ville-Marie
[edit] 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, Île Ste. Hélène 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 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. [2]
[edit] Other neighbourhoods
[edit] Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension
[edit] Park 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Other neighbourhoods
- Saint-Michel (former Ville Saint-Michel)
- Villeray
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