Discover a wealth of interesting, entertaining and informative stories in each issue, delivered to you six times per year. The second busiest grain-shipping port in North America, Montreal could be called the New York of Canada, and when you have such a large city like this, you also have crime and poverty. In the early part of the 20 th century, people were coming in from all over the world, and then the temperance leagues in the United States gained momentum in banning the sale of alcohol.
At the time, in both Canada and the United States, alcohol was becoming an enormous social problem that touched most of the working class. The American temperance leagues wanted to create social change, but in doing so successfully convinced the government to intercede on the production and sale of alcohol. The same movement began to happen in Canada with several provinces passing the same kind of legislation, except for Quebec. So, yes, it was a little tricky to buy a bottle of alcohol.
The Americans soon discovered that just a few kilometres from their border there was a large city that allowed drinking. We promoted a special kind of tourism in Montreal. And with the Americans, came American moneyโฆ and money from American organized crime.
Catherine Charlebois: The Red Light district had two lives: a daytime life and a night life. During the day, the area seemed like a regular part of Montreal with small grocery stores, schools, working class families who lived there.
There were small neighbourhood businesses, cinemas. This daytime life was really quite quiet, but when the sun would fall The cabarets, the bars, restaurants, cinemas โ this is where we saw a mix of ordinary people who came to the shows.
