Hampstead, Quebec

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Hampstead within the Island of Montreal.

Hampstead is a town in southwestern Quebec, Canada, on the Island of Montreal; pop. 6,986 (Statistics Canada, 1996).

On January 1, 2002 it joined with Côte Saint-Luc and Montreal West as the Côte-Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montréal-Ouest borough of the City of Montreal. On June 20, 2004 it voted to demerge and was re-established as an independent municipality on January 1, 2006.

The Town of Hampstead was founded in 1914. It was designed to be an exclusive garden city. There are no retail shops within municipal boundaries. Houses were assigned relatively large lots to allow space for trees and shrubbery. The town's roads were designed with curves in order to slow down traffic and to create an interesting and intimate landscape. Despite its rather flat topography—much of the territory was once a golf course—the town was named after another garden city, the hilly London suburb of Hampstead Village. Like its namesake, Hampstead is the home of many affluent citizens. It competes with Forest Hill, Ontario and a few other suburbs for first place in the rankings of highest average household incomes in Canada.

Until the 1950s, only Protestants were allowed to live or own property in Hampstead. Today only 4% of the population are Protestant compared with a Canadian average of 38%, whereas 84% are Jewish compared with a Canadian average of 1.2%. Almost 90% of the population uses English as their preferred official language.

A new public pool has recently been opened in Hampstead Park for the enjoyment of the town's citizens. The park also includes 8 tennis courts, 2 basketball courts, a baseball field, and a play area for children.

In the November 6, 2005 municipal elections, William Steinberg (of the Quebec Steinbergs) was elected mayor of Hampstead. Steinberg was the first new mayor after 4 years of civic control by Gerald Tremblay, when Hampstead was part of Montreal. Until Hampstead merged with Montreal, Irving Adessky had been mayor for 27 years (1974-2001). In his honour, the community centre has been renamed after him.

Two major thoroughfares exist in Hampstead. One is Queen Mary Road and the other is Fleet Road. While it is difficult to drive quickly down Queen Mary (because of all the stop signs), Fleet Road is geared for automobile traffic, with synchronized traffic lights.

There were various stages of development for Hampstead. The newer areas tend to be to the north and to the west. The city is almost completely composed of single family residences, except for the apartment buildings on Cote-St-Luc Road, and the duplexes and triplexes along MacDonald, Cleve, Dufferin, Heath, Holtham, Harrow and Aldred Roads. There are no commercial properties in the city. There is only one school in the city, the Hampstead School, which is public.

At the beginning of each summer is Hampstead Day, which features a small carnival and fireworks.