Shaughnessy Village (sometimes referred to as the Concordia
Ghetto) is a
neighbourhood
A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...
of
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
,
Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
, 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 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 () , 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 Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
. 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
Montreal Forum () is a historic building located facing Cabot Square, Montreal, Cabot Square in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Called "the most storied building in hockey history" by ''Sporting News'', it was an indoor arena which served as the home o ...
, the former site of the
Montreal Children's Hospital on
Atwater Avenue, 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 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, 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 stations. In the north of the neighbourhood, on the
Green 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
LGBTQ culture in Montreal
LGBTQ history in Montreal
Gay villages in Canada
Ville-Marie, Montreal