Montreal

 

(mŏn'trēôl') , Fr. Montréal (môNrāäl'), city (1991 pop. 1,017,666), S Que., Canada, on Montreal island, surrounded by St. Lawrence River and Rivière des Prairies. Montreal is the second largest metropolitan area in Canada, after Toronto, and is a cultural, commercial, financial, and industrial center. It is one of the largest French-speaking cities in the world, though most of its inhabitants also speak English.

Economy

Montreal has an excellent harbor on the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the city to the great industrial centers of the Great Lakes. As Canada's most important port, it is a transshipment point for oil, grain, sugar, machinery, and manufactured goods. It is also an important railway hub, and has two international airports, Dorval and Mirabel. Its underground rail system, the Métro, was inaugurated in 1966. The city's industries include pharmaceuticals, high-technology, steel, electronic equipment, refined petroleum, transportation equipment, textiles, clothing, food and beverages, printed materials, and tobacco. It is also a financial service center, which greatly expanded in the 1980s.

Once Canada's preeminent city, Montreal has been eclipsed by Toronto as the country's economic center. Tensions over Quebec's insistence on enforcing its francophone culture have caused an outmigration of English-speaking people to Ontario and to the growing western provinces. Despite these changes, Montreal remains one of North America's great cosmopolitan cities.

Landmarks and Institutions

The city lies at the foot of Mt. Royal, which is the source of its name and around which extends a large wooded park in the center of the city. To the south fronting the river is the area of Old Montreal, which draws visitors to the boardwalk on the site of the Old Port and to Place Jacques-Cartier, St. Sulpice Seminary (1685), the Château de Ramezay (1705), and the Gothic Church of Notre Dame (c.1820). Beginning in the 1960s, following a period of neglect, Old Montreal underwent extensive renovation and gained commercial, government, and private tenants. Located in the downtown area is the Place Ville Marie, an innovative commercial complex built in 1962; around it stretches the Underground City, which provides protected access, both above and below street level, to shopping, restaurants, offices, and other commercial enterprises and to transportation links. Montreal has a museum of fine arts, a museum of contemporary arts, an environmental museum and insectarium, and large botanical gardens. An amusement center and casino occupy the site of Expo '67. The city is the seat of McGill Univ., the Univ. of Montreal, the Univ. of Quebec at Montreal, and Concordia Univ. The National Hockey League's hallowed Canadiens and the Canadian Football League's Alouettes play in the city.

History

A stockaded Native American village, Hochelaga, was found on the site (1535) by Cartier, and the island was visited in 1603 by Champlain, but it was not settled by the French until 1642, when a band of priests, nuns, and settlers under Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, founded the Ville Marie de Montréal. The settlement grew to become an important center of the fur trade and the starting point for the western expeditions of Jolliet, Marquette, La Salle, Vérendrye, and Duluth. It was fortified in 1725 and remained in French possession until 1760, when Vaudreuil de Cavagnal surrendered it to British forces under Amherst. Americans under Richard Montgomery occupied it briefly (1775–76) during the American Revolution.

The city's growth was aided by the opening in 1825 of the Lachine Canal, making possible water communications with the Great Lakes. From 1844 to 1849, Montreal was the capital of United Canada. The Canadian Pacific Railway established its headquarters here in the 1880s. Montreal held the much-praised international exposition of 1967, known as Expo '67, and further increased its international stature by hosting the 1976 Summer Olympics, although the provincial debt incurred in undertaking the latter was not retired until 2006.

Bibliography

See E. A. Collard, Montreal Yesterdays (1962); J. I. Cooper, Montreal, A Brief History (1969); L. Roberts, Montreal: From Mission Colony to World City (1969); J.-C. Marsan, Montreal in Evolution (1981); P.-A. Linteau, Montreal (1992).

Ville de Montréal City of Montreal
Flag Coat of arms
Nickname: 5-1-4, MTL, Heavy MTL, Mount Real, Real City
Motto: Concordia Salus ("well-being through harmony")
Coordinates: 45°30′N 73°40′W / 45.5, -73.667
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Montréal
Founded	1642
Established	1832
Government
- Mayor	Gérald Tremblay
Area [1][2][3]
- City	km²  ( sq mi)
- Urban	km² ( sq mi)
- Metro	km² ( sq mi)
Population (2006)[1][2][3]
- City	{{formatnum:1,620,693 (Ranked 2nd)}}
- Density	/km² (/sq mi)
- Urban
- Metro
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Postal code span	H
Area code(s)	(514) and (438)
Website: Ville de Montréal

Montreal, or Montréal in French,^[4] (pronounced /ˌmʌntɹiˈɑːl/ (help·info) in Canadian English,/mɒ̃ʀeal/ (help·info) in Quebec French, and /mɔ̃ʀeal/ (help·info) in European French) is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie (literally 'City-Mary', translated 'Mary's City' or 'City of Mary'), the city takes its present name from the Mont Réal (as it was pronounced in Middle French ^[5], or Mont Royal "royal mountain" in present French), the three-head hill at the heart of the city, which was also initially given to the island on which the city stands.

Formerly the largest metropolis of Canada, it is one of the largest French-speaking cities in the world along with Paris and Kinshasa.^{[citation needed]} As of the 2006 Canadian Census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city of Montreal proper.^[1] The population of the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (also known as Greater Montreal Area) was 3,635,571 at the same 2006 census. In 2007, Montreal was ranked as the 10th cleanest city in the world.^[6]

History

Main article: History of Montreal

Archeological evidence suggests that various nomadic native peoples had occupied the island of Montreal for at least 2,000 years before the arrival of Europeans.^[7] With the development of the maize horticulture, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians established the village of Hochelaga at the foot of the Mount Royal.^[8] The French explorer Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, claiming the St. Lawrence Valley for France.^[9] He estimated the population to be "over a thousand".

Seventy years later, French explorer Samuel de Champlain reported that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and their settlements had disappeared altogether from the St. Lawrence valley, likely due to inter-tribe wars, European diseases, and out-migration.^[8] Champlain established in 1611 a fur trading post on the Island of Montreal, on a site initially named La Place Royale, at the confluence of Saint-Pierre river and St-Lawrence river, where present-day Pointe-à-Callière stands.^[10].

In 1639, Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière obtained the Seigneurial title to the Island of Montreal in the name of the Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal to establish a Roman Catholic mission for evangelizing natives. Ville-Marie, the first permanent French settlement on the Island, was founded in 1642 at Pointe-à-Callière. Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve would act as governor of the colony, and Jeanne Mance built the Hôtel-Dieu, Montreal's first hospital.

By 1651, Ville-Marie had been reduced to less that 50 inhabitants by relentless attacks by Iroquois. Maisonneuve returned to France that year with the intention of recruiting 100 men to bolster the failing colony. He had already decided that should he fail to recruit these settlers, he would abandon Ville-Marie and move everyone back downriver to Quebec City. (Even 10 years after its founding, the people of Quebec City still thought of Montréal as "une folle enterprise" - a crazy undertaking.)^[11] These recruits arrived on 16th November 1653 and essentially guaranteed the evolution of Ville Marie and of all New France.^[12]. Marguerite Bourgeoys would found the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Montreal's first school, in 1653. In 1663, the Sulpician seminary became the new Seigneur of the island.

Complementing its missionary origins, Ville-Marie became a centre for the fur trade and a base for further French exploration in North America. The bloody French and Iroquois Wars would threaten the survival of Ville-Marie until a peace treaty (see the Great Peace of Montreal^[13]) was signed at Montreal in 1701. With the Great Peace, Montreal and the surrounding seigneuries nearby (Terrebonne, Lachenaie, Boucherville, Lachine, Longueuil, ...) could develop without the fear of Iroquois raids.^[14] Ville-Marie remained a French colony until 1760, when Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal surrendered it to the British army under Jeffrey Amherst during the French and Indian War.

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the Seven Years' War and ceded eastern New France to the Kingdom of Great Britain. American Revolutionists under General Richard Montgomery briefly captured the city during the 1775 invasion of Canada.^[15] United Empire Loyalists and Anglo-Scot immigrants would establish the golden era of fur trading centred in the city with the advent of the locally owned North West Company, rivaling the established Hudson's Bay Company.^{[citation needed]} The English-speaking community built one of Canada's first universities, McGill, and the wealthy merchant classes began building large mansions at the foot of Mount Royal in an area known as the Golden Square Mile.^{[citation needed]}

Montreal was incorporated as a city in 1832. The opening of the Lachine Canal permitted ships to bypass the unnavigable Lachine Rapids, while the construction of the Victoria Bridge established Montreal as a major railway hub. These linked the established Port of Montréal with continental markets and spawned rapid industrialization during the mid 1800s. The economic boom attracted French Canadian labourers from the surrounding countryside to factories in satellite cities such as Saint-Henri and Maisonneuve. Irish immigrants settled in tough working class neighbourhoods such as Point Saint Charles and Griffintown, making English and French linguistic groups roughly equal in size. Montreal would surpass Quebec City and Saint John, New Brunswick as the seat of financial and political power for both English and French speaking communities of Canada, a position it held for many years.^{[citation needed]} By 1852, Montreal had 60,000 inhabitants; by 1860, it was the largest city in British North America and the undisputed economic and cultural centre of Canada.

Montreal was the capital of the Province of Canada from 1844 to 1849, but lost its status when a Tory mob burnt down the Parliament building to protest passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill.

After World War I, the Prohibition movement in the United States turned Montreal into a haven for Americans looking for alcohol.^[16] Unemployment remained high in the city, and was exacerbated by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. Canada began to recover from the Great Depression in the mid-1930s, when skyscrapers such as the Sun Life Building began to appear.

During World War II, Mayor Camillien Houde protested against conscription and urged Montrealers to disobey the federal government's registry of all men and women. Ottawa was furious over Houde's insubordination and held him in a prison camp until 1944, when the government was forced to institute conscription (see Conscription Crisis of 1944).

After Montreal's population surpassed one million in the early 1950s, Mayor Jean Drapeau laid down plans for the future development of the city. These plans included a new public-transit system and an underground city, the expansion of Montreal's harbour, and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Tall, new buildings replaced old ones in this time period, including Montreal's two tallest skyscrapers up to then: the 43-storey Place Ville-Marie and the 47-story Tour de la Bourse. Two new museums were also built, and in 1966, the Montreal Metro system opened, along with several new expressways.

The city's international status was cemented by Expo 67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics.

The mid-1970s ushered in a period of wide-ranging social and political changes, stemming in large part from the concerns of the French-Canadian majority about the conservation of their culture and language, given the traditional predominance of the English-Canadian minority in the business arena. The October Crisis and the election of the separatist political party, the Parti Québécois, resulted in major political, ethnic and linguistic shifts. The extent of the transition was greater than the norm for major urban centres, with social and economic impacts, as a significant number of (mostly anglophone) Montrealers, as well as businesses, migrated to other provinces, away from an uncertain political climate. Bill 101 was passed in 1977 and gave primacy to French as Quebec's (and Montreal's) only official language for government, the main language of business and culture, and enforced the exclusive use of French for public signage and business communication.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Montreal experienced a slower rate of economic growth than many other major Canadian cities. By the late 1990s, however, Montreal's economic climate had improved, as new firms and institutions began to fill the traditional business and financial niches. As the city celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1992, construction began on two new skyscrapers : 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque. Montreal's improving economic conditions allowed further enhancements of the city infrastructure, with the expansion of the metro system, construction of new skyscrapers and the development of new highways including the start of a ring road around the island. The city also attracted several international organisations to move their secretariats into Montreal's Quartier International: IATA, ICSID, Icograda, International Bureau for Children's Rights (IBCR), International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). With developments such as Centre de Commerce Mondial (World Trade Centre), Quartier International, Square Cartier, and propsed revitalization of the harborfront, the city is regaining its international position as a world class metropolis.

Montreal was merged with the 27 surrounding municipalities on the Island of Montreal on 1 January 2002. The merger created a unified city of Montreal which covered the entire island of Montreal. This move proved unpopular, and several former municipalities, totalling 13% of the population of the island, voted to leave the newly unified city in separate referendums in June 2004. The demerger took place on 1 January 2006, leaving 15 municipalities on the island, including Montreal.

In 2006, the city was recognized by the international design community as a UNESCO City of Design, one of the three world design capitals.

Geography

Montreal is located in the southwest of the province of Quebec, approximately 275 kilometres (168 miles) southwest of Quebec City, the provincial capital, and 190 kilometres (118 mi) east of Ottawa, the federal capital. It also lies 550 kilometres (335 mi) northeast of Toronto, and 625 kilometres (380 mi) north of New York City.

The city rests on the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which is the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes into the Atlantic Ocean. Montreal is bordered by the St. Lawrence river on its south side, and by the Rivière des Prairies on the north. The city is named after the most prominent geographical feature on the island, a three-head hill called Mount Royal.

Montreal lies at the confluence of several climatic regions. Usually, the climate is classified as humid continental ^[17] or hemiboreal (Köppen climate classification Dfb).

Precipitation is abundant with an average snowfall of 2.25 metres (84 in) per year in the winter. It snows on average more in Montreal than in Moscow, Russia, and each year the city government spends more than C$100 million on snow removal.^{[citation needed]} . Regular rainfall throughout the year averages 900 mm (35.3 in). Summer is the wettest season statistically, but it is also the sunniest.

The coldest month of the year is January which has a daily average temperature of −10.4 °C (13 °F) — averaging a daily low of −14.9 °C (5.2 °F), colder than either Moscow (-10 °C) or Saint Petersburg (-6 °C). Due to wind chill, the perceived temperature can be much lower than the actual temperature and wind chill factor is often included in Montreal weather forecasts. The warmest month is July which has an average daily high of 26.3 °C (79.3 °F); lower nighttime temperatures make an average of 20.9 °C (69.6 °F) thus air exchangers often achieve the same result as air conditioners. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −37.8 °C (−36.0 °F) on 15 January 1957 and the highest temperature ever was 37.6 °C (99.7 °F) on 1 August 1975.^[18] High humidity is common in the summer which makes the perceived temperature higher than the actual temperature. In spring and autumn, rainfall averages between 55 and 94 millimetres (2.2 and 3.7 in) a month. Some snow in spring and autumn is normal. Similarly, late heat waves as well as "Indian summers" are a regular feature of the climate.^[19]

Weather averages for Montreal, Quebec
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C	-5.7	-3.9	2.2	10.7	19.0	23.6	26.2	24.8	19.7	12.7	5.3	-2.2
Average low °C	-14.7	-12.9	-6.7	0.6	7.7	12.7	15.6	14.3	9.4	3.4	-2.1	-10.4
Precipitation mm	78.3	61.5	73.6	78.0	76.3	83.1	91.3	92.7	92.6	77.8	92.6	81.3
Average high °F	21.7	25.0	36.0	51.3	66.2	74.5	79.2	76.6	67.5	54.9	41.5	28.0
Average low °F	5.5	8.8	19.9	33.1	45.9	54.9	60.1	57.7	48.9	38.1	28.2	13.3
Precipitation inch	3.1	2.4	2.9	3.1	3.0	3.3	3.6	3.6	3.6	3.1	3.6	3.2
Source: Environment Canada[18] 18 Dec 2006

Demographics

Island of Montreal Population by year

1931 - 1,003,868 1941 - 1,116,800 1951 - 1,329,232 1961 - 1,747,696 1971 - 1,959,140 1976 - 1,869,585 1981 - 1,760,122 1986 - 1,819,670 1991 - 1,815,202 1996 - 1,775,846[20] 2001 - 1,812,723[21] 2006 - 1,854,442[21]

Main article: Demographics of Montreal

According to Statistics Canada, at the 2006 Canadian census the city of Montreal proper had 1,620,693 inhabitants.^[1] However, 3,635,571 lived in the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) at the same 2006 census, up from 3,451,027 at the 2001 census (within 2006 CMA boundaries), which means a population growth of +1.05% per year between 2001 and 2006.^[3] In the 2001 census, children under 14 years of age (618,855) constituted 18.06 percent, while inhabitants over 65 years of age (442,720) numbered 12.92 percent of the total population. Some 13.55 percent of the population are member of a visible minority (non-white) group. Black people contribute to the largest visible minority group in Montreal Proper, numbering some 160,000 (8.16% of Montreal inhabitants), which is the second-largest community of Blacks in Canada, after Toronto. Other groups, such as Arabs, Latin American, South Asian, and Chinese are also large in number. (Chart on ethnicity on the left includes multiple responses^[22]

Language most spoken at home
in the Montreal metropolitan area (CMA)

	1996 [23]	2001 [24]
French	71.2%	72.1%
English	19.4%	18.5%
Other language	13.4%	13.1%
Note that percentages add up to more than 100% because some people speak two or more languages at home.

In terms of first language learned (in infancy), the 2001 census reported that on the island of Montreal itself, 53% spoke French as a first language, followed by English at 18%. The remaining 29% percentage is made up of many languages including Italian (3.6%), Arabic (2.1%), Spanish (1.9%), Chinese (1.24%), Greek (1.21%), Creole (predominantly of Haitian origin) (1.02%), Portuguese (0.86%), Romanian (0.70%), Vietnamese (0.60%), and Polish (0.40%). In terms of additional languages spoken, a unique feature of Montreal throughout Canada, noted by Statistics Canada, is the working knowledge of both French and English by most of its residents. For this reason, it is often considered a bilingual city rather than a French speaking city.^[25]

Ethnic origin	Population
Canadian	1,885,085
French	900,485
Italian	224,460
Irish	161,235
English	134,115
Scottish	94,705
Jewish	80,390
Haitian	69,945
Greek	55,865
German	53,850
Portuguese	41,050
Romanian	32,540
Armenian	25,439
Polish	23,890

The city of Montreal is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, however, church attendance in Quebec is among the lowest in Canada.^[26]. Historically Montreal has been a centre of Catholicism in North America with its numerous seminaries and churches, including the Notre-Dame Basilica, the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde, and Saint Joseph's Oratory. Some 84.56 percent of the total population is Christian,^[27] largely Roman Catholic (74.51%), which is largely due to French, Irish, and Italian origins. Protestants which include Anglican, United Church, Lutheran and other number 7.02%, while the remaining 3.03% consists mostly of Orthodox Christians, fuelled by a large Greek population. Due to the large number of non-European cultures, there is a diversity of non-Christian religions. Islam is the largest non-Christian group, with some 100,000 members, the second-largest concentration of Muslims in Canada, constituting 2.96%. The Jewish community in Montreal has a population of 93,000.^[27] In cities such as Cote St. Luc and Hampstead, Jewish people constitute the majority,^[28] or a substantial part of the population. As recently as the 1960s the Jewish community was as high as 130,000. The political and economic uncertainties led to many to leave Montreal and the Quebec province.

Administration

The head of the city government in Montreal is the mayor, who is first among equals in the City Council. The mayor is Gérald Tremblay, who is a member of the Union des citoyens et des citoyennes de l'Île de Montréal (English: Montreal Island Citizens Union). The city council is a democratically elected institution and is the final decision-making authority in the city, although much power is centralized in the executive committee. It consists of 73 members from all boroughs of the city. The Council has jurisdiction over many matters, including public security, agreements with other governments, subsidy programs, the environment, urban planning, and a three-year capital expenditure program. The City Council is also required to supervise, standardize or approve certain decisions made by the borough councils.

Reporting directly to the City Council, the executive committee exercises decision-making powers similar to that of cabinet in a parliamentary system and is responsible for preparing various documents including budgets and by-laws, submitted by the City Council for approval. The decision-making powers of the executive committee cover, in particular, the awarding of contracts or grants, the management of human and financial resources, supplies and buildings. It may also be assigned further powers by the City Council.

Standing committees are the council's prime instruments for public consultation. They are responsible for the public study of pending matters and for making the appropriate recommendations to the council and its five constituent parts. They also review the annual budget forecasts for departments under their jurisdiction. A public notice of meeting is published in both French and English daily newspapers at least seven days before each meeting. All meetings include a public question period. The standing committees, of which there are seven, have terms lasting two years. In addition, the City Council may decide to create special committees at any time. Each standing committee is made up of seven to nine members, including a chairman and a vice-chairman. The members are all elected municipal officers, with the exception of a representative of the government of Quebec on the public security committee.

The city of Montreal is only one component of the larger Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal (English: Montreal Metropolitan Community or MMC), which is in charge of planning, coordinating, and financing economic development, public transportation, garbage collection and waste management, etc., across the metropolitan area of Montreal. The president of the CMM is the mayor of Montreal. The CMM covers 3,839 square kilometres (1,482 sq mi), with 3,635,700 inhabitants in 2005.

Montreal now constitutes its own region of Quebec.

See also: Districts of Montreal and Montreal borough

Culture

Main article: Culture of Montreal

See also: Festivals and parades in Montreal

A cultural heart of classical art and the venue for many summer festivals, the Place des Arts is a complex of different concert and theatre halls surrounding a large open-spaced square in the downtown. The Place des Arts harbours the headquarters of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM: Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal), which performs in its halls regularly. The OSM is one of the world's foremost orchestras, most remembered for the quality of its performance of the repertoire of Maurice Ravel under conductor Charles Dutoit. Since 2006, the OSM has a new conductor, the American Kent Nagano. L'orchestre métropolitain and the chamber orchestra I Musici de Montréal are two other well-regarded Montreal orchestras. Also performing home at Place des Arts is the Opéra de Montréal and the city’s chief ballet company Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In contemporary dance, Montreal has been active, particularly since the 80s. Internationally recognized avant-garde dance troupes such as La La La Human Steps, O Vertigo, and the Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault have toured the world and worked with international popular artists on videos and concerts. The intelligent integration of multi-discipline arts in choreography of these troops has paved the way to the success of the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil.

Montreal is the cultural centre of Quebec, and of French-speaking North America as a whole. The city is Canada's centre for French language television productions, radio, theatre, film, multimedia and print publishing. The Quartier Latin is a neighbourhood crowded with cafés animated by this literary and musical activity. The local English-speaking artistic community nevertheless contributes dynamically to the culture of Montreal, and intense collaborations exist between all Montreal communities. The result is a dynamic musical scene, ignited by the presence of numerous musical festivals, that melts different musical styles and traditions. English theatre struggled but survived with the Centaur Theatre. Ethnic theatre, by the 70s, began to be a force with the Black Theatre Workshop, the Yiddish Theatre established at the Saidye Bronfman Centre and the Teesri Duniya Theatre. In the late 90s, Montreal started becoming a veritable hotspot for low-budget independent English theatre with companies such as MainLine Theatre, Gravy Bath Theatre, Sa Booge, Persephone, Pumpkin Productions, and Tableau D'Hôte Theatre warming up the once lackluster scene.

Festivals

The plaza on Place des Arts is the home of the most important events during several musical festivals, including the Montreal International Jazz Festival and Montreal Francofolies, a festival of French-speaking song artists. During the seven-to-ten days that last each of the two festivals, shows are held in a wide variety of venues, from relatively small clubs to the large halls of Place des Arts. Some of the outdoor shows are held on cordoned-off streets while others are on terraced parks. The most popular festival, in terms of attendance, is the Just For Laughs Festival. A comedy festival held in both languages, it features comedians, humourists, and stand-ups from all over the world. The Montreal Fireworks Festival also attracts a lot of attention. On the evenings of competition, tens of thousands of people watch the fireworks for free on their roofs or from locations nearby the competition. Other festivals in Montreal include Pop Montreal, The Fringe festival and Nujaz. Annual family-oriented events promoting health and cycling are also organized in the streets of Montreal. Parades are also popular in downtown Montreal.

The city is increasingly becoming known for its mainstream rave festivals such as the Black and Blue Festival attracting thousands of ravers to the city every Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, as well as the Bal en Blanc held every Easter Sunday, also attracting over 15,000 attendees every year. (Both events are organized by Bad Boys Club Montréal, which raises money for HIV/AIDS-related causes and gay and lesbian community groups.)

Night life

During the period of Prohibition in the United States, Montreal became well-known as one of North America's "sin cities" with unparalleled nightlife, a reputation it still holds today. In part, its bustling nightlife is attributed to its relatively late "last call" (3 a.m.), and its many restaurants and after hours clubs that stay open well on into the morning. The large university population, the drinking age of 18, and the excellent public transportation system (a network of night buses, some with service every 15 minutes, replaces the metro between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m.) combine with other aspects of the Montreal culture to make the city's night life unique.

Crescent

Crescent Street is "party central" for Montreal's tourist population, lying at the edge of the Concordia University campus. Throughout the summer, it features street fairs and festivals. The Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix unofficially starts off Montreal's non-stop festival season in the summer. Crescent Street also features many clubs and bars. The clientele of Crescent nightclubs and bars are mostly students, tourists and in general a younger crowd looking for exhilaration and excitement. Most venues will play Top 40 music. The nearest subway stops are Peel and Guy-Concordia.

"The Main"

Boulevard Saint-Laurent (Saint Laurent Boulevard, known locally as "The Main" or "Saint Lawrence Boulevard") is one of the best places to find nightlife, with many bars and nightclubs and a wide range of restaurants. Saint-Laurent street night spots are often less mainstream than those on Crescent street, with a great variety: from Top 40 and urban music to electronica and techno, from underground and alternative rock to live bands. South of Prince Arthur Street, toward Sherbrooke Street, one is likely to encounter a "posher" clientele. From Prince Arthur Street north (to Avenue Mont-Royal and beyond), one should expect to rub shoulders with an "edgier" crowd. The nearest subway stops are Saint-Laurent and