The Historian · Marguerite · Montréal
Site of the former Red Light District (Rue Sainte-Catherine Est / Saint-Laurent)
The respectable city would rather forget this, which is why it matters. From the 1920s through the 1950s, this zone around the lower Main was the Red Light District — brothels, gambling dens, and the jazz clubs that made Montreal North America's open city during American Prohibition and after. The 1950s reform crusade (led by a young Jean Drapeau) shut it down. Now it's the sanitized Quartier des Spectacles. Read the erasure.
The lower Main and Sainte-Catherine Est, once Montreal's notorious Red Light District — the jazz, gambling, and vice that earned the city its 'Sin City' reputation.
— Marguerite, The Historian
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