Visitor Information

The main information center for visitors in Montréal is the large and efficiently organized Infotouriste Centre, at 1001 rue du Square-Dorchester (tel. 877/266-5687 from anywhere in Canada and the U.S., or 514/873-2015), between rue Peel and rue Metcalfe in the downtown hotel and business district. To get there, take the Métro to the Peel stop. The office is open daily from late June through early September from 8:30am to 7:30pm, and early September through May from 9am to 5pm (closed Christmas, New Year's Day, and Easter Sunday). Employed by the Québec Ministry of Tourism, the bilingual staff workers are quite knowledgeable, and the center is a useful information resource for dining, accommodations, and attractions throughout the province and in Montréal itself. In addition to the large number of brochures and publications on hand, there are counters for tour companies, hotel reservations, currency exchange, and car rental. There is an Internet terminal for use with cash or credit cards. You'll find a cafeteria and restrooms downstairs.

The city has its own convenient Montréal-specific information bureau in Vieux-Montréal (Old Montréal) at 174 rue Notre-Dame (corner of place Jacques-Cartier), near the monument to Lord Nelson (tel. 514/871-1595). It's open daily early June through early October from 9am to 7pm; mid-October through June from 9am to 5pm.

City Layout

For the duration of your visit, it makes sense to accept local directional conventions, strange as they may seem. The city borders the St. Lawrence River. As far as its citizens are concerned, that's south, looking toward the United States, although the river in fact runs almost north and south at that point, not east and west. For that reason, it has been observed that Montréal is the only city in the world where the sun rises in the south. Don't fight it: Face the river. That's south. Turn around. That's north. When examining a map of the city, note that such prominent thoroughfares as rue Ste-Catherine and boulevard René-Lévesque are said to run "east" and "west," with the dividing line being boulevard St-Laurent, which runs "north" and "south." To ease the confusion, the directions given throughout the Montréal section conform to local directional tradition. However, the maps in this book have the true compass on them rather than the Montreal-specific compass.

Main Arteries & Streets -- In downtown Montréal, the principal streets running east-west include boulevard René-Lévesque, rue Ste-Catherine (rue is the French word for "street"), boulevard de Maisonneuve, and rue Sherbrooke; the north-south arteries include rue Crescent, rue McGill, rue St-Denis, and boulevard St-Laurent, which serves as the line of demarcation between east and west Montréal (most of the downtown area of interest to tourists and businesspeople lies to the west). In Plateau Mont-Royal, northeast of the downtown area, major streets are avenue du Mont-Royal and avenue Laurier. In Vieux-Montréal, rue St-Jacques, rue Notre-Dame, and rue St-Paul are the major streets, along with rue de la Commune, which hugs the park that borders the St. Lawrence River.

Neighborhood street plans are found inside the free tourist guide supplied by Tourisme Montréal (tel. 514/844-5400; www.tourisme-montreal.org) and distributed at the information bureau described in "Visitor Information," above. The Infotouriste Centre (described at the beginning of this chapter) provides a free large foldout city map.

Finding an Address -- Boulevard St-Laurent is the dividing point between east and west (est and ouest) in Montréal. There's no equivalent division for north and south (nord and sud) -- the numbers start at the river and climb from there, just as the topography does. When you're driving along boulevard St-Laurent and passing no. 500, that's Vieux-Montréal, near rue Notre-Dame; no. 1100 is near boulevard René-Lévesque; no. 1500 is near boulevard de Maisonneuve; and no. 3400 is near rue Sherbrooke. Even numbers are on the west side of north-south streets and the south side of east-west streets; odd numbers are on the east and north sides, respectively.

In earlier days, Montréal was split geographically along ethnic lines: Those who spoke English lived predominantly west of boulevard St-Laurent, and French speakers were concentrated to the east. Things still do sound more French as you walk east: Street names and Métro station names change from Peel and Atwater to St-Laurent and Beaudry. While boulevard St-Laurent is the east-west dividing line for the city's street-numbering system, the "ethnic split" comes farther west, roughly at avenue de Bleury/avenue de Parc.

The Neighborhoods in Brief

Downtown This area contains the most striking elements of the dramatic Montréal skyline and includes the main railroad station, as well as most of the city's luxury and first-class hotels, principal museums, corporate headquarters, and largest department stores. This area 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. Downtown Montréal incorporates the neighborhood formerly known as "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 politics 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, often converted to institutional use. At the northern edge of the downtown area is the urban campus of prestigious McGill University, which retains its Anglophone identity.

The Underground City During Montréal's long winters and humid summers, life slows on the streets of downtown as people escape down escalators and stairways into la ville souterraine, which amounts to a parallel subterranean universe. Down there, in a controlled climate that's eternally spring, it's possible to arrive at the railroad station, check into a hotel, go out for lunch at any of hundreds of fast-food counters and full-service restaurants, see a movie, attend a concert, conduct business, go shopping, and even take a swim -- all without unfurling an umbrella or donning an overcoat.

This underground "city" evolved when major building developments in the downtown area such as Place Ville-Marie, 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 in place, these spaces became connected with Métro stations and with each other. It became possible to ride long distances and walk the shorter ones, through mazes of corridors, tunnels, and plazas. There are now more than 1,600 shops, 40 banks, 200 restaurants, 10 Métro stations, and about 30 cinemas down there.

Admittedly, the term "underground city" is not entirely accurate, because some parts -- such as Place Bonaventure and Complexe Desjardins -- define their own spaces, which may have nothing to do with "ground level." In Place Bonaventure, passengers may leave the Métro and then wander around on the same level only to find themselves, at one point, peering out a window several floors above the street.

The city beneath the city has obvious advantages, including the elimination of traffic accidents and avoidance of the need to deal with 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 at times. There are plenty of signs, but it's wise to make careful note of landmarks at key corners along your route in order to get back to your starting point. Expect to get lost anyway -- but, being that you're in an underground maze, that's part of the fun.

Rue Crescent One of Montréal's major dining and nightlife districts lies in the western shadow of the massed phalanxes of downtown skyscrapers. It holds hundreds of restaurants, bars, and clubs of all styles between Sherbrooke and René-Lévesque, centering on rue Crescent and spilling over onto neighboring streets. From east to west, the Anglophone origins of the quarter are evident in the surviving street names: Stanley, Drummond, Crescent, Bishop, and MacKay. The party atmosphere that pervades after dark never quite fades, and it builds to crescendos as weekends approach, especially in warm weather, when the quarter's largely 20- and 30-something denizens spill out into sidewalk cafes and onto balconies in even greater numbers than during the winter months.

Vieux-Montréal The city was born here in 1642, down by the river at Pointe-à-Callière, and today, especially in summer, activity centers around place Jacques-Cartier, where cafe tables line narrow terraces and sun worshipers, flower sellers, itinerant artists, street performers, and strolling locals and tourists congregate. The area is larger than it might seem at first, bounded on the north by rue St-Antoine, once the "Wall Street" of Montréal and still home to some banks, and on the south by the Vieux-Port (Old Port), a linear park bordering rue de la Commune that gives access to the river and 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 architectural heritage of the district has been substantially preserved. The restored 18th- and 19th-century structures have been adapted for use as shops, boutique hotels, studios, galleries, cafes, bars, offices, and apartments. Take a walk through the district in the evening, when many of the finer buildings are illuminated.

St-Denis Rue St-Denis, from rue Ste-Catherine est to avenue du Mont-Royal, is the thumping central artery of Francophone Montréal, running from the Latin Quarter downtown and continuing north into the Plateau Mont-Royal district. Thick with cafes, bistros, offbeat shops, and lively nightspots, it is to Montréal what boulevard St-Germain is to Paris, and indeed, once you're here, it isn't difficult to imagine that you've been transported to the Left Bank. At the southern end of St-Denis, 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. Farther north, above Sherbrooke, a raffish quality persists along the facing rows of three- and four-story Victorian row houses, but the average age of residents and visitors nudges past 30 here. Prices are higher, too, and some of the city's better restaurants are located here. This is a district for taking 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 most of 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 cafe au lait at any of the numerous terraces that line the avenue.

Plateau Mont-Royal Northeast of the downtown area, this may be the part of the city where Montréalers feel most at home -- away from the chattering pace of downtown and the crowds of heavily touristed Vieux-Montréal. 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, this area has a vibrant ethnicity that fluctuates with each new surge in immigration. Rue St-Denis runs the length of the district, but boulevard St-Laurent, running parallel to rue St-Denis, has a more polyglot flavor. Known to all as "The Main," it was the boulevard first encountered by foreigners tumbling off ships at the waterfront. They simply shouldered their belongings and walked north on St-Laurent, peeling off into adjoining streets when they heard familiar tongues, saw people who looked like them, or smelled the drifting aromas of food they once cooked in the old country. New arrivals still come here to start their lives in Montréal, and in the usual pattern, most work hard, save their money, and move to the suburbs. But some stay on. Without its people and their diverse interests, St-Laurent would be another urban eyesore. But ground-floor windows here are filled with glistening golden chickens, collages of shoes and pastries and aluminum cookware, curtains of sausages, and even the daringly farfetched garments of those designers on the 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, and their often-garish signs draw eyes from the still-dilapidated upper stories above.

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 avenue Laurier on the south. Although it is outside the usual tourist orbit, it has a growing number of retail attractions, including stores selling designer clothing, furniture and household goods, and secondhand books and music. There has been a surge in worthwhile eateries in recent years, too, several of which are reviewed in chapter 5. The remnants of what some still call Greektown are found along avenue du Parc, largely in the form of social clubs and taverns.

Parc Du Mont-Royal Not many cities have a mountain at their core. Okay, reality insists that it's just a tall hill, not a true mountain. Still, Montréal is named for it -- the "Royal Mountain" -- and it's a soothing urban pleasure to drive, walk, or take a horse-drawn calèche to the top for a view of the city, the island, and the St. Lawrence River, especially at dusk. The famous American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who created Manhattan's Central Park and Brooklyn's Prospect Park, among others, designed Parc du Mont-Royal, which opened in 1876. On its far slope are two cemeteries -- one used to be Anglophone and Protestant, the other Francophone and Catholic -- reminders of the linguistic and cultural division that persists in the city. With its skating ponds and trails for hiking, running, and cross-country skiing, the park is well used by Montréalers, who refer to it simply and affectionately as "the mountain."

Chinatown Just north of Vieux-Montréal, south of boulevard René-Lévesque, and centered on the intersection of rue Clark and rue de la Gauchetière (pedestrianized at this point), Montréal's pocket Chinatown is mostly restaurants and a tiny park, with the occasional grocery, laundry, church, and small business. For the benefit of outsiders, most signs are in French or English as well as Chinese. Community spirit is strong -- it has had to be to resist the bulldozers of commercial proponents of redevelopment -- and Chinatown's inhabitants remain faithful to their traditions despite the encroaching modernism all around them. Concerned investors from Hong Kong, wary of their uncertain future as part of mainland China, have poured money into the neighborhood, producing signs that the neighborhood's shrinkage has been halted, and even reversed. Signaling that optimism, there are new gates to the area on boulevard St-Laurent, guarded by white stone lions.

The Village The city's gay and lesbian enclave, one of North America's largest, runs east along rue Ste-Catherine from rue St-Hubert to rue Papineau. A small but vibrant district, it's filled with clothing stores, antiques shops, bars, dance clubs, and cafes, and houses the Gay and Lesbian Community Centre, at 1301 rue Ste-Catherine est. A rainbow, symbolic of the gay community, marks the Beaudry Métro station, in the heart of the neighborhood. Two major annual celebrations are the Diver/Cité (the gay pride festival) in August and the Black & Blue Party in October.

Ile Ste-Helene & 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 opened, construction crews reshaped the island and doubled its surface area with landfill, then went on to create beside it an island that hadn't existed before, Ile Notre-Dame. Much of the earth needed to do 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. The city built bridges and 83 pavilions. When Expo closed, the city government preserved the site and a few of the exhibition buildings. Parts were used for the 1976 Olympics, and today Ile Ste-Hélène is home to Montréal's popular casino and an amusement park, La Ronde.