Saint Lawrence Boulevard - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For the Ottawa road, see St. Laurent Boulevard. For the Gatineau road called "Boulevard Saint-Laurent", see Boulevard des Allumettières.

Saint Lawrence Boulevard or boulevard Saint-Laurent (its official name, in French) is a major street in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. A commercial artery and cultural heritage site, the street runs north-south through the near-centre of city and is nicknamed The Main.

The Main

Beginning at De la Commune Street at the edge of the Saint Lawrence River

Saint Lawrence River

The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...

, it crosses the whole island through the boroughs of Ville-Marie, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal

Le Plateau-Mont-Royal

Le Plateau-Mont-Royal is a borough of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.The Plateau-Mont-Royal takes its name from its location on relatively flat terrain north of Sherbrooke Street and downtown, and east of Mont-Royal...

, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension

Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension

Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension is a borough in the city of Montreal, Quebec. It has a population of 145,485 and an area of 16,05 km².-Location:...

, and Ahuntsic-Cartierville

Ahuntsic-Cartierville

Ahuntsic-Cartierville is a borough of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-Geography:The borough is located in the northern part of Montreal along the banks of the Rivière des Prairies, and includes some islands in the river such as Île aux Chats, Île Perry, and Île de la Visitation...

to Rue Somerville at the edge of Rivière des Prairies

Rivière des Prairies

The Rivière des Prairies is a delta channel of the Ottawa River in southwestern Quebec, Canada....

–-a total length of about 11.25 km.

St. Laurent Street became a boulevard in 1905 and is affectionately referred to as The Main by many Montrealers. It serves as the city's physical division of east and west. Street numbers begin at Saint Lawrence and continue outward, with street names being suffixed by Ouest (West) or Est (East), depending on their orientation.

The street traditionally divides Montreal by language, ethnicity, and class. Saint Lawrence Street was for generations the symbolic dividing line for the city, with the predominantly English-speaking population to the west, French-speaking population to the east, and immigrant communities in between along the Main and Park Avenue. The Main runs through many of Montreal's ethnic communities, a first stop for immigrant communities for over 100 years — initially Jewish, Chinese and Italian, and later Portuguese, Greek, Arab, Haitian and others.

The southern section of the street in downtown Montreal and the Plateau

Le Plateau-Mont-Royal

is lined with trendy shops and restaurants, and is the site of many street-fairs and festivals. What were once run-down factories have been turned into expensive lofts. Saint Lawrence Boulevard is representative of Montreal's shift out of the economic decline in the 1980s and 90s.

National Historic Site

In 2002, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada named Saint Lawrence Boulevard as The Main National Historic Site of Canada. Then Minister of Heritage, Sheila Copps

Sheila Copps

Sheila Maureen Copps, PC is a former Canadian politician who also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada from November 4, 1993 to April 30, 1996 and June 19, 1996 to June 11, 1997....

, speaking at the ceremony, said: "our country does not belong to just two founding peoples. It belongs to all Canadians. [This is] a first step toward a new story of Canada that includes all of our partners as equals."

Historic Jewish quarter

The Jewish community on the Main sprang up after the heavy immigration of the early to mid-1900s. Jewish settlement occurred first on the lower Main, in an section that now is part of Montreal's Chinatown

Chinatown, Montreal

Chinatown in Montreal is located in the area of De la Gauchetière Street in Montreal. The neighborhood contains many Asian restaurants, food markets, and convenience stores as well being home to many of Montreal's East Asian community centres, such as the Montreal Chinese Hospital and the Montreal...

.

By 1871, a Jewish enclave numbering just over 400 people had formed by the corner of St. Lawrence and Dorchester Street, with the first Jewish educational institution, the Talmud Torah, located at the corner of Saint Urbain Street

Saint Urbain Street

St. Urbain Street is a major one-way street located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The street has historically been home to Montreal's well-established Jewish community, who settled in the area at the turn of the 20th century. Writer Mordecai Richler often documents what life was like on this street...

and De la Gauchetière Street

De la Gauchetière Street

De la Gauchetière Street is a street in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, running through downtown Montreal, the Quartier international and Chinatown....

. Middle class members of the community were already beginning to move up the Main towards Sherbrooke

Sherbrooke Street

Sherbrooke Street is a major east-west artery and at in length, is the second longest street on the Island of Montreal. The street begins in the town of Montreal West and ends on the extreme tip of the island in Pointe-aux-Trembles, intersecting Gouin Boulevard and joining up with Notre-Dame...

and Prince Arthur Streets, while further north, a small number of well-off Jews lived near McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

.

The main axes of Jewish quarter were Saint Laurent Boulevard, Clark Street, Saint Urbain Street

Saint Urbain Street

, Esplanade Street and Park Avenue, Montreal. By the 1920s and 30s, dozens of synagogues were in the area. Landmarks on Saint Laurent that bear witness to this historic community include Schwartz's

Schwartz's

Schwartz's, also known as the Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen is a delicatessen established in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz, a Jewish immigrant from Romania. It is a landmark at 3895 Saint-Laurent Boulevard and the most famous Montreal-style smoked meat restaurant. Schwartz's often has a line extending...

Delicatessen.

Yiddish was the common language in the Jewish district on Saint Laurent Boulevard, with many Jewish immigrants working in clothing factories, once the street's main industry. Overall, Montreal was the main destination for the 125,000 Jews that settled in Canada between 1905 and 1920, making the area a centre of Yiddish language and culture. Despite Canada's poor record of Jewish immigration between 1933 and 1948, Montreal would also become home to the world’s third-largest concentration of Holocaust survivors, most of them Yiddish speakers.

Culture

Montreal featured the third largest population of Yiddish speakers in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, after New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

and Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

; by 1930, 60,000 Yiddish speakers lived on or around The Main. The district was home to the second largest Yiddish theatre in North America from 1896 to the 1940s, with shows at vaudeville houses along the Main, as well as the Monument-National

Monument-National

The Monument-National is a historic Canadian theatre located at 1182 Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal, Quebec. Erected between 1891 and 1894, it was originally the Cultural centre of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society.-Yiddish theatre:...

, now a National Historic Site and part of the National Theatre School of Canada

National Theatre School of Canada

The National Theatre School of Canada is a private college located in Montreal, Quebec.Established in Montreal in 1960, the National Theatre School of Canada offers professional training in English and French in a setting that unites all the theatre arts: acting, playwriting, directing, set and...

.

The Main was also a centre of Jewish publishing. In 1907, a young Polish Jewish immigrant Hirsch Wolofsky

Hirsch Wolofsky

Hirsch Wolofsky , was a Canadian Yiddish author and business owner.- Biography :Wolofsky was born in Shidlovtse, Poland, into an ḥasidic community to which his father was crown rabbi. He received a traditional Jewish education until orphaned at 15...

started the Yiddish language daily newspaper Keneder Adler (English: Canadian Eagle). The paper was initially published from an office on Saint Laurent near Ontario Street. However, with the success of the Keneder Adler, Wolofsky soon moved his paper to its own building at 4075 Saint Laurent, near Duluth Street. The paper would publish for more than 50 years. Today, Wolofsky is remembered with a small park in his honour at the corner of nearby De Bullion and Roy streets.

Politics

The poor Jewish quarter had a distinctly left-wing slant. Fred Rose

Fred Rose (politician)

Fred Rose was a Communist politician and trade union organizer in Canada. He was born in Lublin in what is now Poland, part of Russia at the time. He emigrated to Canada as a child in 1916. He became involved with the Young Communist League of Canada, and then joined the Communist Party of Canada...

represented the Main’s Cartier riding until 1947, when he was expelled from the House of Commons after a controversial conviction on charges of spying for the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. To this day, the Main remains the only part of Canada ever represented in Parliament by an openly Communist MP.

Area city councillor Joseph Schubert, a Romanian Jew, was a socialist and admirer of Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

. Elected to Montreal City Council in 1924, he was the council’s most prominent advocate of worker’s rights for 15 years. In 1931, he built a public bathhouse at the corner of Bagg and St. Lawrence, which still stands today as the Schubert Bath (official French name: Bain Schubert).

Decline

By the 1950s, many Jews had moved to other communities and most shuls were demolished or converted to other uses. Former prominent Jewish-run businesses on the street included Ida Steinberg’s grocery store, founded in 1917 on St. Lawrence near Mount Royal, which went on to become Steinberg's

Steinberg's

Steinberg's was a Canadian grocery store chain that mainly operated in the province of Quebec. In addition to its flagship supermarket chain, the company operated several subsidiaries across the country...

, Quebec’s largest supermarket chain. Another supermarket, Warshaw's, was recently the subject of controversy when the city of Montreal was forced to pay damages after first approving and then rejecting changes to its iconic storefront. As of 2003, fewer than 10 Jewish-owned and family-run businesses remained on the Main between Sherbrooke Street

Sherbrooke Street

and Mount Royal Avenue

Mount Royal Avenue

Mount Royal Avenue is a street in Montreal. The main part of the street transects the borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, from Park Avenue at the foot of Mount Royal, for which the road is named, to rue Frontenac. Another section in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie runs from rue Molson to Pie-IX Boulevard...

Neighbourhoods

Today, Saint Lawrence is home to Little Italy

Little Italy, Montreal

Montreal's Little Italy is located on Saint Laurent Boulevard between Jean-Talon and St. Zotique Streets and is home to one of Montreal's original Italian Canadian communities...

(between Saint-Zotique and Jean-Talon streets), Mile End between Mount Royal

Mount Royal Avenue

and Van Horne Avenues, Montreal's Little Portugal

Little Portugal, Montreal

Montreal has a modest Portuguese population. Its historical population in Montreal is located in Little Portugal, which is situated in the western portion of the Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood....

, clustered around Duluth and Rachel Streets, Montreal's Chinatown

Chinatown, Montreal

(between Viger Street and René Lévesque Boulevard

René Lévesque Boulevard

René Lévesque Boulevard is one of the main streets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.It is a main east-west thoroughfare passing through the downtown core in the borough of Ville-Marie. The street begins on the west at Atwater Avenue and continues until it merges with Notre Dame Street East just east...

), a bar district (roughly between Sherbrooke and Duluth streets), and a small red-light district

Red-light district

A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...

Famous residents

The Main has produced many of Canada's most prolific individuals in the arts and has acted as a memory space. Novelists Mordecai Richler

Mordecai Richler

Mordecai Richler, CC was a Canadian Jewish author, screenwriter and essayist. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation" and a pivotal figure in the country's history. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Barney's Version,...

and Michel Tremblay

Michel Tremblay

Michel Tremblay, CQ is a Canadian novelist and playwright.Tremblay grew up in the Plateau Mont-Royal, a French-speaking neighbourhood of Montreal, at the time of his birth a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect, something that would heavily influence his work...

and poets Irving Layton

Irving Layton

Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made enemies. As T...

, A. M. Klein

A. M. Klein

Abraham Moses Klein was a Canadian poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer, and lawyer. He has been called "One of Canada's greatest poets and a leading figure in Jewish-Canadian culture."...

and Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

were all influenced by this area. Canada's most prestigious award for fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize

Scotiabank Giller Prize

The Scotiabank Giller Prize, or Giller Prize, is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries...

, was named after journalist Doris Giller

Doris Giller

Doris Giller was a Canadian journalist, who was best known as a literary editor for the Montreal Gazette and the Toronto Star....

, a native to the area.

Depictions in popular culture

Sass Jordan

Sarah "Sass" Jordan is a Canadian, Juno Award winning, rock singer/songwriter who grew up in Montreal.- Biography :...

's 1992 hit single "Going Back Again" also depicts Saint Lawrence Boulevard as the dividing line between Montreal's English and French cultures, expressing the hope that "Someday we will come together Lord/Reach across this great divide". Trevanian

Trevanian

Rodney William Whitaker was an American film scholar and writer who wrote several successful novels under the pen name Trevanian. Whitaker also published works as Nicholas Seare, Beñat Le Cagot and Edoard Moran...

's 1976 novel The Main is set in the more run-down district of the sixties, before the modern renaissance.

Businesses and attractions

Numerous art galleries and other cultural organizations make their home on the Main. including La Centrale/Powerhouse (Canada's oldest women's artist-run centre), Théâtre Espace Go

Théâtre Espace Go

Théâtre Espace Go is a theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1985 as the feminist Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes, the company changed its name to Théâtre Espace Go in 1994 and broadened its mandate.In 1988, it received the Grand Prix from the Conseil des arts de Montréal for its...

(since 1995), Ethnik-art, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma

Festival du Nouveau Cinéma

The Festival du Nouveau Cinéma was known as the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media until 2004. Founded in 1971, by Claude Chamberlan and Dimitri Eipides, it is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal and features independent films from around the world...

, Festival International Nuits d'Afrique, the Montreal Fringe Festival, Image & Nation Festival, My Hero Gallery, the Society for Arts and Technology and Sensation Mode. Many well-known music venues can be found on the Main, including Casa del Popolo

Casa del Popolo

Casa del Popolo is a notable bar, bistro, and music venue in Montreal, on Saint Laurent Boulevard. Its name is Italian for "House of the People".It was established in September 2000 by Mauro Pezzente and his partner Kiva Stemic...

, Sala Rosa, Club Soda, , Jupiter Room, , Club Lambi, The Academy Club and Divan Orange. The street is also home to the National Theatre School of Canada

National Theatre School of Canada

as well as the EXcentris arts complex, adjacent to the offices of Softimage. Gastronomic highlights include Schwartz's

Schwartz's

deli, serving Montreal-style smoked meat

Montreal-style smoked meat

Montreal-style smoked meat, Montreal smoked meat or simply smoked meat in Montreal , is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices...

, as well as the Montreal Pool Room

Montreal Pool Room

The Montreal Pool Room is a Montreal hot dog and French fry restaurant, located in the city's small red-light district on Saint Laurent Boulevard, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada....

, serving Montreal hot dog

Montreal hot dog

The Montreal hot dog is one of several variations of hot dogs served as a fast food staple at restaurants and diners in Montreal and other parts of Quebec...

s since 1912.

Twice each summer, a street fair closes The Main from Sherbrooke Street

Sherbrooke Street

to Mount Royal Avenue

Mount Royal Avenue

, once to begin the season in mid-June, and a second time to close it the weekend before Labour Day.

The Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent (SDBSL) is a merchant's association the promoting economic, social and cultural development of Saint-Laurent Boulevard between Sherbrooke Street and Mont-Royal Avenue.

Redevelopment and construction

The corner of Saint Lawrence and Saint Catherine

Saint Catherine Street

This article is about the street in Montreal called the rue Sainte-Catherine in French. For other streets of this name, see Rue Sainte-Catherine ....

streets is still known as a red-light district

Red-light district

A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...

, although its days appear numbered as a proposed $167-million development is slated to transform the area, now part of the city's new Quartier des Spectacles

Quartier des Spectacles

Quartier des Spectacles is an entertainment district located in the eastern section of Downtown Montreal. The area is currently undergoing gentrification and urban renewal that will turn it into the centre for Montreal's cultural events and festivals....

.

In 2007-2008, the street underwent extensive and lengthy construction work, which forced some businesses to close.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.