Ville Marie District

Montreal Red Light

The vanishing historical Montreal Red Light used to be bordered by Sherbrooke to the north, St-Denis to the east, de Bleury to the west and the Old Montreal to the south.

The Quartier des spectacles is a virtual district that is slowly growing and taking form. It’s the new against the old, the old being the Red Light District of Montreal.

Hustlers, strippers, runaways, ladies-of-the-night, they all have been parading at the crossroads of Montreal's two most famous streets, Ste-Catherine and St-Laurent, for more than a century.

The Sex Machine is gone, replaced by a vacant lot and most of the local hookers have left for other parts of the city.

The peep shows and other "adult" businesses are gone. Gone are the discordant “Ongles Glamour», «Peep Show», «Danseuses XXX», “Miami Pizza” and «DVD-VHS” shop.

Times have changed. More than a hundred escort agencies are now listed in the yellow pages and hundreds of men and women offer their services in local newspapers, in magazines and on the Internet. Something like 500 prostitutes still work on the streets.

As little as 10 years ago, this small stretch of the Main was the heart of a once thriving Red District. Up until last year, there has been an on-going joke among Montrealers that you can't walk three blocks without hitting a strip bar.

For the most part it is still true. Along Montreal's major downtown drag, the Ste-Catherine Street, you still can see neon signs advertising the cheapest and hottest dancers at almost every intersection.

No matter what your interests or money-spending habits are, with so many to choose from, there’s bound to be a strip club that is made up just for you.

Peep shows are another Montreal novelty, with dozens of cinemas at every major section of the city. Some of them sell erotic DVDs while others have a liquor license. In Montreal it's not hard to find, it's hard to choose.

If La maison de l’image et de la photographie succeeds in moving its offices to the new building that will be built on Ste-Catherine corner of St-Laurent, in the new Quarter des spectacles, the photo exhibition called Le coin will be exposed on a permanent basis in memory of the Montreal Red Light.

Thank you for visiting Montreal Red Light.
More to come soon.

Ville Marie District / Ville Marie Borough
Local Street Map of the Borough (PDF)

Web Sites We Like
Montreal Mirror News - Turning on the red light
Quartier libre - Lumière sur le Red Light de Montréal
UMA - La maison de l’image et de la photographie

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