Neighborhoods in Brief

Centre Ville/Downtown This area contains the Montréal skyline's most dramatic elements and includes most of the city's large luxury and first-class hotels, principal museums, corporate headquarters, main transportation hubs, and department stores.

The district is loosely bounded by rue Sherbrooke to the north, boulevard René-Lévesque to the south, boulevard St-Laurent to the east, and rue Drummond to the west.

Within this neighborhood is the area often called "the Golden Square Mile," an Anglophone district once characterized by dozens of mansions erected by the wealthy Scottish and English merchants and industrialists who dominated the city's political and social life well into the 20th century. Many of those stately homes were torn down when skyscrapers began to rise here after World War II, but some remain.

At downtown's northern edge is the urban campus of prestigious McGill University, which retains its Anglophone identity.

Vieux-Montréal The city was born here in 1642, down by the river at Pointe-à-Callière. Today, especially in summer, most people converge around Place Jacques-Cartier, where cafe tables line narrow terraces. This is where street performers, strolling locals, and tourists congregate.

The area is larger than it might seem at first. It's bounded on the north by rue St-Antoine, once the "Wall Street" of Montréal and still home to some banks. Its southern boundary is the Vieux-Port (Old Port), a waterfront promenade bordering rue de la Commune that provides welcome breathing room for cyclists, in-line skaters, and picnickers. To the east, Vieux-Montréal is bordered by rue Berri and to the west, by rue McGill.

Several small but intriguing museums are housed in historic buildings, and the district's architectural heritage has been substantially preserved. Restored 18th- and 19th-century structures have been adapted for use as shops, boutique hotels, studios, galleries, cafes, bars, offices, and apartments. In the evening, many of the finer buildings are beautifully illuminated. In the summer, sections of rue St-Paul and rue Notre Dame turn into pedestrian-only walkways. The neighborhood's official website is www.vieux.montreal.qc.ca; at press time, it included a live webcam of Place Jacques-Cartier.

Plateau Mont-Royal This is where Montréalers feel most at home -- away from downtown's chattering pace and the more touristed Vieux-Montréal. It's where they come to shop, dine, and play.

Bounded roughly by boulevard St-Joseph to the north, rue Sherbrooke to the south, avenue Papineau to the east, and rue St-Urbain to the west, the Plateau has a vibrant ethnic atmosphere that fluctuates with each new immigration surge

Rue St-Denis runs the length of the district and is to Montréal what boulevard St-Germain is to Paris, while boulevard St-Laurent, running parallel, has a more polyglot flavor.

Known as "the Main," St-Laurent was the boulevard first encountered by foreigners tumbling off ships at the waterfront. They simply shouldered their belongings and walked north, peeling off into adjoining streets when they heard familiar tongues or smelled the drifting aromas of food reminiscent of the old country. New arrivals still come here to start their lives in Canada.

Without its gumbo of languages and cultures, St-Laurent would be an urban eyesore. But its ground-floor windows are filled with glistening golden chickens, collages of shoes and pastries and aluminum cookware, curtains of sausages, and the daringly far-fetched garments of those designers on the forward edge of Montréal's active fashion industry.

Many warehouses and former tenements have been converted to house this panoply of shops, bars, and high- and low-cost eateries, their often-garish signs drawing eyes away from the still-dilapidated upper stories.

Parc du Mont-Royal Not many cities have a mountain at their core. True, reality insists that Montréal doesn't either, as what it calls a "mountain" most other people would call a large hill. Still, Montréal is named for this outcrop -- the "Royal Mountain."

It's a soothing urban pleasure to drive, walk, or take a horse-drawn calèche to the top for a view of the city and its river.

The famous American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed Parc du Mont-Royal, which opened in 1876.

On its far slope are two cemeteries, one that used to be Anglophone and Protestant, the other Francophone and Catholic -- reminders of the linguistic and religious division that persists in the city.

With its trails for strolling, hiking, and cross-country skiing, the park is well used by Montréalers, who refer to it simply and affectionately as "the Mountain."

Rue Crescent One of Montréal's major dining and nightlife districts lies in the western shadow of the massed phalanxes of downtown skyscrapers. While a few streets on its northern end house luxury boutiques in Victorian brownstones, its southern end holds dozens of restaurants, bars, and clubs of all styles between Sherbrooke and René-Lévesque, and spilling over onto neighboring streets.

The quarter's Anglophone origins are evident in the street names: Stanley, Drummond, Crescent, Bishop, and MacKay.

The party atmosphere that pervades after dark never quite fades, and builds to crescendos as weekends approach, especially in warm weather, when the area's largely 20- and 30-something denizens spill out into sidewalk cafes and onto balcony terraces.

The Village Also known as the Gay Village, the city's gay and lesbian enclave is one of North America's largest. This compact but vibrant district is filled with clothing stores, antiques shops, dance clubs, and cafes.

It runs east along rue Ste-Catherine from rue St-Hubert to rue Papineau and onto side streets.

In 2008, for the first time, the city made the entire length of rue Ste-Catherine in the neighborhood pedestrian-only for the entire summer, and bars and restaurants built ad-hoc terraces into the street.

A rainbow, the symbol of the gay community, marks the Beaudry Station, which is on rue Ste-Catherine in the heart of the neighborhood.

St-Denis Rue St-Denis, which runs from the Latin Quarter downtown near rue Ste-Catherine est and continues north into the Plateau Mont-Royal district, is the thumping central artery of Francophone Montréal, thick with cafes, bistros, offbeat shops, and lively nightspots.

At its southern end, near the concrete campus of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), the avenue is decidedly student oriented, with indie rock cranked up in the inexpensive bars and clubs, and kids in jeans and leather swapping philosophical insights and telephone numbers. It is rife with the visual messiness that characterizes student and bohemian quarters.

Farther north, above Sherbrooke, a raffish quality persists along the rows of three- and four-story Victorian houses, but the average age of residents and visitors nudges past 30. Prices are higher, too, and some of the city's better restaurants are here.

This is a district in which to take in the pulse of Francophone life, not for absorbing art and culture of the refined sort, for there are no museums or important galleries on St-Denis, nor is the architecture notable. But, then, that relieves visitors of the chore of obligatory sightseeing and allows them to take in the passing scene -- just as the locals do -- over bowls of café au lait at any of the numerous terraces that line the avenue.

Mile End Adjoining Plateau Mont-Royal at its upper west corner, this blossoming neighborhood is contained by rue St-Laurent on the east, avenue Du Parc on the west, rue Bernard in the north, and boulevard St-Joseph on the south. Though it's outside of the usual tourist orbit, it has a growing number of retail attractions, including designer clothing stores and places at which to buy household goods.

Mile End has pockets of many ethnic mini-neighborhoods, including Italian, Portuguese, Armenian, Hassidic, and Greek. An area some still call Greektown is along avenue du Parc, largely in the form of restaurants and taverns.

Mile End has seen a surge of worthwhile restaurants in recent years, several of which are reviewed in chapter 7.

Ile Ste-Hélène & Ile Notre-Dame St. Helen's Island in the St. Lawrence River was altered extensively to become the site of Expo 67, Montréal's very successful world's fair. In the 4 years before the Expo, construction crews doubled its surface area with landfill and then went on to create beside it an island that hadn't existed before, Ile Notre-Dame. Much of the earth for this was dredged up from the bottom of the St. Lawrence River, and 15 million tons of rock from the excavations for the Métro and the Décarie Expressway were carried in by truck.

When the world's fair was over, the city preserved the site and a few of its exhibition buildings. Parts were used for the 1976 Olympics, and today, Ile Ste-Hélène is home to an amusement park, La Ronde, as well as the popular Casino de Montréal.

Every June, the Grand Prix of Canada is held on the racing track on Ile Notre-Dame.

Connected by two bridges, the islands now comprise the recently designated Parc Jean-Drapeau, which is almost entirely car-free and accessible by Métro.

Quartier International When Route 720 was constructed some years ago, it left behind a desolate swath of derelict buildings, parking lots, and empty spaces smack-dab between downtown and Vieux- Montréal.

Bounded, more or less, by rue St-Antoine on the south, avenue Viger on the north, rue St-Urbain on the east, and rue University on the west, this no-man's land is slowly being spruced up with new parks, office buildings, and a recently expanded Palais des Congrès (Convention Center).

A small plaza, opposite the convention center's west end, is named for Jean-Paul-Piopelle, a prominent Québec artist, since one of his sculptures stands there.

The Quartier incorporates the World Trade Center Montréal, a complex of brokerage houses, law firms, and import-export companies.

Chinatown Tucked just north of Vieux-Montréal, centered on the intersection of rue Clark and the pedestrianized section of rue de la Gauchetière, Chinatown is mostly comprised of restaurants and a tiny park. The fancy gates to the area on boulevard St-Laurent are guarded by white stone lions.

Community spirit is strong and inhabitants remain faithful to their traditions despite the encroaching modernism all around them.

The Underground City During Montréal's long winters, life slows on the streets of downtown as people escape into la ville souterraine, a parallel subterranean universe. Down there, in a controlled climate that recalls an eternal spring, it's possible to arrive at the railroad station, check into a hotel, shop, go out for dinner, see a movie, attend a concert -- all without donning an overcoat or putting on snow boots.

This underground city evolved when major downtown developments -- such as Place Ville-Marie (the city's first skyscraper), Place Bonaventure, Complexe Desjardins, Palais des Congrès, and Place des Arts -- put their below-street-level areas to profitable use, leasing space for shops and other enterprises. Over time, in fits and starts and with no master plan, these spaces became connected with Métro stations and then with each other. It became possible to ride long distances and walk the shorter ones, through mazes of corridors, tunnels, and plazas. Today, there are 938 retailers, 362 eateries, and 13 cinemas in or connected to the network.

Admittedly, the term "underground city" is not entirely accurate because of how some complexes funnel people through their own spaces. In Place Bonaventure, for instance, passengers may leave the Métro and wander on the same level only to find themselves peering out a window several floors above the street.

The city beneath the city has obvious advantages, including no traffic accidents and avoidance of winter slush (or summer rain). Natural light is let in wherever possible, which drastically reduces the feeling of claustrophobia that some malls evoke. However, the underground city covers a vast area, without the convenience of a logical street grid, and can be confusing. There are plenty of signs, but it's wise to make careful note of landmarks at key corners along your route. Expect to get lost anyway -- but, being that you're in an underground maze, consider it part of the fun.