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St. Lawrence Boulevard
Montreal's residential area
Festival
| "I don't like this city [Montreal]. You can't throw a stone without breaking a church window" (Mark Twain qut in 57) |
Immigrants -- early: Italian, Greek, Portuguese and Eastern European Jews recent: Blacks (e.g. Haitians)
St. Lawrence Boulevard & Two solitudes:
"The line that divides east from west in Montreal is St. Lawrence Boulevard. Ethnic communities have flourished along "the Main," as it is known for decades, and it is no coincidence that this thoroughfare and its adjacent neighborhoods are among the most lively and interesting in Montreal." ((Sobol 59)
--traverses Montreal's Chinatown
--red-light district
--the trendy areas (e.g. chic cafes, clothes stores, etc.) on Sherbrook
"Look a little harder, and perhaps a block or two further north, jammed between these new arrivals you can still find plenty of old-timers. You'll find them in their Hungarian sausage shops, Jewish jewlery stores, Polish parcel-service booths and vitamin dispensaries. . .
-- Place des Ameriques,
--Parc du Portugual
(excerpted from (Sobol pp. 59-61)
- "Historically western English Montreal [e.g. Westmount] has been far more prosperous than eastern French Montreal." ((Sobol 53)
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Tenants more than house owners
". . . most Montreal neighborhoods have rows of brick duplexes and triplexes."
"the majority of Montrealers are tenants rather than home-owners, and moving from one apartment to another is a common ritual, even for families. On 1 July, Montreal's traditional moving day, the streets are filled with cars and vans in transit from one dwelling to another, . . . " (Sobol 53)
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- The importance of festival (fete)
". . . the real key to understanding Montreal is the recognition that Montrealers simply love to congregate, period" (Sobol 72).
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