Quartier latin falls on hard times
Bars and other businesses in the Quartier Latin had a meager holiday season and are facing hard times. It seems fewer and fewer people think of the area as a convivial place to hang out.
It isn’t mentioned in the piece, but this is yet another argument for giving Ville‑Marie its own elected borough council, rather than the poor semblance it’s had since that stupid spat between Gérald Tremblay and Benoit Labonté.* Ville‑Marie needs a more active council with people on board who will look after the core of the city as if it matters.
*The origins of this situation are explained in this piece from Le Devoir.
Joey 11:15 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
If nobody already wants to hang out in the QL, I doubt the work of some city councillors will change that. So much commercial discourse in this city refuses to acknowledge that there’s a natural variability in how desirable certain areas are. The QL may be disproportionately affected by the homelessness and drug problems affecting the city, but that’s not something the city administration has any answers for in any case.
Kate 11:44 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
Agreed, there’s not much understanding of urban churn. I recently saw a lot of blame thrown at the Plante administration for the decline of Prince Arthur, which ignored several important elements, notably that the decline started when the Main was extensively excavated, long before Plante, that some people want to socialize where they can park more easily, and that there’s more competition from areas like Wellington Street (which was moribund during Prince Arthur’s heyday) and, God knows, Dix30, which didn’t exist yet. The city is decentralizing as it grows.
Still, one of the points in the article is that people feel the QL is dirty and that garbage pickup has been poor. Paying better attention to that side of civic tidiness is not the answer, but it helps – viz. broken windows theory.
DeWolf 13:51 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
You’re right, Kate, that there’s a natural ebb and flow to these things, and Montreal is definitely more polycentric than it used to be. 20 years ago there were three areas for mainstream nightlife: the Latin Quarter/Village, St-Laurent/Prince Arthur and Crescent/Bishop. Now there are bars and music venues all over the place. The centre of gravity hasn’t so much moved elsewhere
When I first moved to Montreal, I distinctly remember the area north of the CPR tracks was extremely quiet at night. You had old-school dive bars and that was about it. Now I’m living on St-Zotique and I just looked at the map and added up all the bars, clubs and venues within a 25 minute walk of me: at least 46. That includes dive bars, buvettes, craft breweries, party bars, cocktail bars, live music venues and nightclubs. It’s much more dispersed than a true nightlife district like the Latin Quarter, but I’ll bet a lot of the kinds of people who were taking the metro to Berri-UQAM on a Saturday night before are going to Beaubien station these days.
Incidentally, and I’m not sure if this would improve the Latin Quarter’s fortunes, but I’ve always found it a waste that avenue Joly was treated like an anonymous back alley:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/CwfRkMzAD5WRRRAw7
When Just for Laughs was still held in the Latin Quarter, they would put a stage and a bar in Joly and transformed it into a really nice space. If you built something in the parking lots and opened up the back of the Saint-Sulpice library, you could create a really nice, intimate environment that might draw more people to the neighbourhood.
DeWolf 13:51 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
*the centre of gravity hasn’t so much moved elsewhere as disappeared completely
(didn’t finish my thought!)
Ramsay 14:19 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
I wonder what impact the changing habits of millennials (UQAM students) has in the area. They are supposed to be drinking less and spending less in entertainment in general than past generations
steph 15:49 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
With rents takes up a bigger portion of your personal income, who’s surprised that there’s less left over for for bars and restaurants.
It seems like people are choosing to spend their extra money on luxuries like groceries. /s
Chris 16:25 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
Ramsay, Millennials are around 35 years old now. You mean Gen Z I think.
Kate 17:16 on 2025-01-05 Permalink
DeWolf: Avenue Joly is such an anomaly in the street grid it always feels like a diversion into a European village. I didn’t realize JFL used it in that way.
steph is right: stepping out requires disposable income, and most of us are finding that our income has already been disposed of before we put on our fancy threads.
Ian 18:30 on 2025-01-06 Permalink
Not to mention the cost of groceries has gone up about 20% since 2022; those groceries ain’t cheap either.
Orr 23:14 on 2025-01-07 Permalink
The era of cheap fun is over unless it’s some sort of homemade / DIY fun.
Also the sdc means you don’t have to go out to a bar or related location to resupply your recreational consumables. That has to have had some kind of impact on bars.
But the big picture is afaik young people simply drink less booze.