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The Bay on rue Sainte-Catherine next to the Christ Church Cathedral

A general view of downtown rue Sainte-Catherine.

St. Catherine Street (now officially rue Sainte-Catherine) is the primary commercial artery of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It crosses the central business district from west to east, beginning at the corner of Claremont Avenue and De Maisonneuve Boulevard in the city of Westmount, traversing the borough of Ville-Marie, and ending on Notre Dame Street East just east of Viau St in the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

Sainte-Catherine Street once boasted Montreal's four prominent department stores: Eaton's, Morgan's, Ogilvy's, and Simpson's; today, only Ogilvy's remains. However, the street remains a shopping destination, with many major retailers having large stores along the street, including the Hudson's Bay Company, Les Ailes de la Mode, La Maison Simons, Archambault, La Senza, Future Shop, and Roots. Additionally, many of Montreal's most prominent shopping complexes, including the Centre Eaton, the Complexe Les Ailes, Place Montreal Trust, Promenades Cathédrale, les Cours Mont-Royal (a high fashion shopping mall), the Complexe Desjardins, Place Dupuis, Place Alexis-Nihon, the Faubourg Sainte-Catherine and Westmount Square all make their home along this street. It also runs past or near Dawson College, Concordia University, McGill University, and Université du Québec à Montréal.

View of Place Montreal Trust

For one weekend in July every year, Sainte-Catherine Street hosts Canada's largest open-air sidewalk sale. 2 km of the street between Jeanne-Mance and St-Marc streets is closed to traffic, and vendors from nearby shopping centres bring out their sale merchandise. There is also live entertainment along the street. It is estimated that over 300 000 people visit the downtown during this event.^[1]

The strip clubs which made their home on Sainte-Catherine Street have now declined in number, though a few prominent clubs, such as Supersexe, do remain. Sex shops and pornographic movie theatres are also common. None of these establishments actually share a block with any of the churches that are on the street, but most blocks in the downtown segment have one or more of these establishments.

The street runs parallel to the largest segments of Montreal's underground city. The series of interconnected office tower basements and shopping complexes (mentioned above) that make up this main thoroughfare lie immediately north of the street.

The Green line of the Montreal Metro was built to serve Saint Catherine Street; however, to avoid disrupting traffic on the street, it was built one block to the north, under what would later become De Maisonneuve Boulevard.

Montreal's Place-des-Arts, the city's primary concert venue, is located on rue Sainte-Catherine between rue Jeanne-Mance and rue Saint-Urbain.

The street is also home to Christ Church Cathedral, the only church in Canada that sits atop a shopping mall, Promenades Cathédrale; another important church, Saint James United Church, has recently had its concealing façade of commercial buildings removed. Other churches on the street include Saint James the Evangelist Anglican Church.

Montreal's Gay Village lies along rue Ste-Catherine East.

The Gay Village extends along rue Sainte-Catherine in the east end of downtown, between Saint-Hubert and Papineau. Beaudry metro station, on the Green Line, provides the most convenient access to the Village and sports a permanent rainbow decoration on its façade.

The Montreal Forum, once home to the Montreal Canadiens, is also located on rue Sainte-Catherine at Atwater. It has since been turned into a shopping and movie theatre complex (Place Alexis-Nihon). Due to the Forum's presence on this street, rue Sainte-Catherine was used as the parade route whenever the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup. This was once referred to as the usual route by Mayor Jean Drapeau, during the Canadiens dynasties of the mid-century, when a win would occur yearly or other year.

The segment in the district of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is also an important commercial area in that neighbourhood.