Saint-Laurent, Boulevard

Major thoroughfare within the city of Montréal, Québec, running from the St Lawrence River across the Île de Montréal to the Rivière des Prairies. It has traditionally marked the division between English-speaking (west) and French-speaking (east) districts of the city centre.

When Montréal was split into east and west wards in 1792, Saint-Laurent became the dividing line, and still separates east and west addresses. Since the late 19th century the boulevard itself has been home to immigrants, who are said to have walked up it from the port. Russian Jews, who arrived from the 1880s onwards, made it a famous ethnic and cultural zone; they were later followed by Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and East Europeans. At the St Lawrence end (south of Rue Sherbrooke), the boulevard was once notorious as the city's red-light district, but is now becoming increasingly fashionable as a residential and retail area. North of the Plateau Mont Royal, the ethnic atmosphere of the street has recently been diluted by the proximity of the affluent, francophone district of Outremont.