Shaughnessy Village (sometimes referred to as the Concordia Ghetto) is a
neighbourhood of
Montreal,
Quebec,
Canada, located on the western side of the
Ville-Marie borough. It is bounded by
Guy Street to the east,
Atwater Street to the west,
Sherbrooke Street to the north, and
René Lévesque Boulevard and the
Ville-Marie Expressway
Route 136 (R-136), formerly Autoroute 720, known as the Ville-Marie Expressway (English) or Autoroute Ville-Marie (French) is an Autoroute highway in the Canadian province of Quebec that is a spur route of Autoroute 20 in Montreal. Its western ...
to the south.
This neighbourhood is the most densely populated area of Quebec, due to the large number of high-rise apartment towers built in the 1960s and 1970s. The area is characterized by high-density residential housing and small-businesses, typically owned and operated by immigrants living in the neighbourhood, concentrated at its core, with stately Victorian grey-stone row houses and
beaux-arts styled apartment blocks at the edges of the neighbourhood. It is a primarily institutional neighbourhood, with a university, junior college, seminary, hospital and architecture museum among many private schools, colleges and technical schools.
In 1981, local citizens named the neighbourhood after Shaughnessy House, built in 1874 for
Thomas Shaughnessy, president of the
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
. The house was declared a
National Historic Site of Canada in 1974, and is now part of the
Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Other notable landmarks in the area include the
Montreal Forum, the former site of the
Montreal Children's Hospital on
Atwater Avenue
Atwater Avenue (officially in french: avenue Atwater) is a major north–south street located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It links Doctor Penfield Avenue in the Ville-Marie borough to the north, and Henri Duhamel Street in the Verdun borough to ...
, and ''Le Faubourg Sainte-Catherine'' shopping mall and
Cabot Square.
History

Prior to
Expo '67 and the Olympics, this neighbourhood was considered the city's second Gay Village (mostly by anglophones).
Demographics
It is thus one of the more cosmopolitan neighbourhoods in the city, as well as being generally more
English-speaking than the rest of Montreal. There is a sizeable population of
Chinese-Canadians
, native_name =
, native_name_lang =
, image = Chinese Canadian population by province.svg
, image_caption = Chinese Canadians as percent of population by province / territory
, pop = 1,715,7704.63% of the ...
living in the area, so much so that part of the informally named Concordia Ghetto is also sometimes referred to as ''New Chinatown / Chinatown West''. Much like Montreal's main
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
, it is pan-Asiatic, rather than uniquely Chinese.
The area is home to numerous small independently owned and operated restaurants, bars, bistros and cafés.
Public transit
The neighbourhood is served by two
Montreal Metro
The Montreal Metro (french: Métro de Montréal) is a rubber-tired underground rapid transit system serving Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, ...
stations. In the north of the neighbourhood, on the
Green Line
Green Line may refer to:
Places Military and political
* Green Line (France), the German occupation line in France during World War II
* Green Line (Israel), the 1949 armistice line established between Israel and its neighbours
** City Line ( ...
,
Guy-Concordia and
Atwater stations are located. The area is also well-served by numerous bus lines terminating at Atwater Station that connect
Westmount,
Côte-des-Neiges, and much of the rest of the urban core. The
Claire-Morissette bike path on
De Maisonneuve Boulevard cuts through the centre of the neighbourhood, and the area is well served by
BIXI Montréal stations.
References
External links
*
Shaughnessy Village - City of MontrealShaughnessy Village AssociationMontrealbits.com:Shaughnessy Village
{{Authority control
Neighbourhoods in Montreal
Student quarters
LGBT culture in Montreal
LGBT history in Canada
Gay villages in Canada
Ville-Marie, Montreal