One doesn't often view major metropolises as having one main street. However, Rue Ste.-Catherine-St. Catherine Street, in English-is the unquestionable center of life in Montreal. The city's most famous corridor runs all the way through the downtown district, beginning in the ritzy Museum Quarter on the west, and venturing into the Gay Village and increasingly more Bohemian sections in the east.

Primarily known as Montreal's most important shopping district, St. Catherine Street is indeed home to many upscale boutiques and department stores. But because of its length and geography, St. Catherine is an extraordinarily diverse and active strip. In addition to its shops, the street also features a huge number of galleries, museums, restaurants-in all sizes, prices, varieties, and ethnicities-bars, and nightclubs, along with a substantial portion of Montreal's business district, several residential neighborhoods, and even some colleges and universities. It also boasts some of Canada's richest and most eclectic architecture. Much like the Underground City, St. Catherine Street is in many ways a city unto itself!

Architecture
Almost all styles of architecture that have developed since Montreal's incorporation, from Georgian to Brutalist, can be seen along the various sections of St. Catherine Street. Three are particularly prominent, however: Gothic, Art Deco, and Contemporary.

The Gothic architecture--actually, Gothic Revival--is represented in the several important churches on the street. The most important of these is the Christ Church Cathedral, at St. Catherine and Union Avenue, the seat of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal. The church was built in 1859, on what was at the time a quiet corner of the city; today it's in the heart of downtown, and in a contrast of the old and new that's a hallmark of Montreal, Christ Church abuts the modern KPMG Tower. (It also sits atop a shopping mall, Les Promenades de la Cathedrale.) Other major Gothic churches on St. Catherine Street include St. James United Methodist, which until very recently was obscured from the street by a modern office, and Church of St. James the Apostle, a smaller Anglican parish and important community center since its construction in 1864.

Montreal is a treasury of Art Deco style, the architectural movement that held sway from the 1920s until World War II. (For those interested in that movement, an organization called Art Deco Montreal provides maps of the great buildings in Montreal.) While many of the most important examples have been demolished in recent years, a number still stand on St. Catherine Street. These include the buildings at 677 St. Catherine West and 1255 Phillips Square (with its lavish lobby design), the Crescent Building at Crescent and St. Catherine, and the Cabot Monument that stands just east of Dawson College.

As for the city's contemporary architecture, several of the newest and tallest buildings in town are either on, or immediately visible from, St. Catherine Street. In addition to the aforementioned KPMG tower, St. Catherine also features the pyramided 1501 McGill College, and, at the eastern edge of downtown, the Complexe Desjardins (a combination office/hotel/shopping center). Across from the Complexe Desjardins sits the 15-year-old Musee d'art contemporain (Museum of Contemporary Art), a massive structuere that's part of the Place des Arts performing arts complex. Finally, on the western part of the corridor is the Engineering and Visual Arts Building, the EV, of Concordia University, a piece of cutting-edge design.

Arts
If the Musee d'art contemporain is of interest to architecture buffs, it is obviously even more so for art lovers. The museum houses a collection of 7,000 works, primarily by artists in Quebec, but also including major contributors to Canadian art in general and some international artists.

The museum is part of the Place des Arts, of course, which is a massive complex of theaters and performance halls that regularly features opera, ballet and dance, theater, and musical performances of every variety. During the ICA conference, events at the Place des Arts will include a French-language production of Equus; a program by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, featuring the choreography of George Balanchine; Pucini's opera Madame Butterfly; singer Patrick Olafson; and a program of three Beethoven symphonies by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

However, St. Catherine Street has no shortage of other arts venues and performance companies. Theatre du Nouveau Monde, one of the primary French-language theaters in Montreal, is located at 84 West St. Catherine Street; blocks away at 372 St. Catherine is the Classical Ballet of Montreal, which performs dances in the European repertoire.

For music lovers, chamber classical music has a strong presence on St. Catherine. In fact, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival will be holding its final three days of performance from May 22-24 (the first three days of the ICA conference) at St. James United Methodist Church, including a 12-hour marathon of Beethoven compositions on the 24th. (schedule)

Nightlife
There are two primary zones for nightlife on St. Catherine Street. First is the six-block strip between Peel and MacKay Streets, an area teeming with nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and movie theatres. In the middle of this strip is Crescent Street, which is teeming with famously ritzy restaurants and pubs; popular destinations here include The Hard Rock Cafe, Thursdays, and Sir Winston Churchill's (Winnie's)-the latter a particular favorite with students at nearby McGill University and Dawson College. Visitors who are planning to visit these spots are encouraged to wear their best outfits and bring lots of cash.

St. Catherine's other nightlife hotspot is the Gay Village, the vibrant and colorful east-of-downtown neighborhood that is the focal point of Montreal's GLBT scene. Sky, one of the most popular male gay bars, is at 1474 Saint Catherine East; Cabaret Mado, at 1115, is known for its elaborate drag shows. Le Drugstore, the largest club in the Village, caters to both sexes.

If you're looking for an alternative to the club scene, at the far west end of St. Catherine (at the corner of Atwater) sits the Pepsi Forum. Formerly the arena at which the Montreal Canadiens hockey team played, the Forum has been converted into an entertainment facility. It includes a mammoth, 22-screen cinema; a number of restaurants, cafes, and retailers; and Jillian's, a three-story complex in itself that includes a restaurant, a billiard hall, a bowling alley, three nightclubs, and an arcade.

Restaurants
Cuisine from virtually every culture on Earth awaits the hungry stomach on St. Catherine Street. The western end of St. Catherine holds a glut of Chinese (Wok Cafe) and Middle Eastern (the Basha franchise) restaurants, reflecting the ethnic groups that populate the area. In addition to these, and the delis and French restaurants that are standard fare in Montreal, St. Catherine West is the home of Le Resto Cafe Oxford-a large eatery at the corner of Lambert-Closse Street with a reputation for the best breakfast in town.

Other highly rated restaurants on St. Catherine Street include the French cuisine of Le Paris (1812 Saint Catherine West) and the French/Mediterranean Parreira (2275 St. Catherine East); Les 3 Basseurs (two locations, 732 and 1356 St. Catherine West), a microbrewery with a broad menu that includes its famous Alsatian flammekueche; and La Piazetta, a popular pizzeria that specializes in square, thin-crust pies.

For cheaper, homelier fare, a popular destination on St. Catherine Street is the greasy-spoon La Belle Province (1 St. Catherine West), a family restaurant that serves up hot dogs, hamburgers, enormous submarine sandwiches, and fries.

Shopping
Still and all, the street remains famous as the commercial center of Montreal. Historically, St. Catherine was anchored by all the city's four major department stores: Eaton's, Morgan's, Ogilvy's, and Simpson's. None but Ogilvy's has survived (although the Morgan's flagship building is now occupied by an outlet of Hudson's Bay Company, known as "The Bay," and Eaton's now hosts the Complexe Les Ailes retail complex). Still one of the grandest retailers in the city, Ogilvy's departments are designed to appear as individual boutiques, all under one roof; the store also has its own restaurant, hair salon, florist, and interior design firm.

Although Ogilvy's is the crown jewel of shopping on St. Catherine, there's no shortage of other stores and boutiques. In addition to the aforementioned Complexe Les Ailes and The Bay, one can find the fashion stores Roots, La Maison Simons, and La Senza; book and music outlets Chapters, Archambault, and Indigo Books and Music; and shopping malls like Centre Eaton, Place Dupuis, and les Cours Mont-Royal. A single shopper could spend a week on St. Catherine without exhausting the options.

The same is true with all of the available activities on St. Catherine Street, for good reason the most important corridor in the city of Montreal. But the best thing about St. Catherine is that it's situated only one block north of the Sheraton City Centre, the location of the ICA conference.