About the Area for SilverDoor Serviced Apartments in Montreal

Situated on an island in the St. Lawrence River just at its highest navigable point, Montreal has been a strategic location since before the arrival of Europeans in Canada. In the 1960s, an urban renewal drive centred around Expo ‘67. The World's Fair brought Montreal a subway system and a number of attractive urban parks, and was a very successful World Fair. The 1976 Olympics left a strikingly idiosyncratic stadium and many other urban improvements.

The opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959 spelled the beginning of the end for Montreal's economic dominance in Canada. Once the transition point between western railroads and eastern sea carriers, Montreal watched as business moved farther west to ports in Ontario and on Lake Superior. The francophone Quebec Sovereignty movement has since the 1960s further chilled the atmosphere for Canada-wide businesses, many of which have moved their headquarters to Toronto.

Walking is a favoured way to get around the densely packed downtown and the narrow streets of Old Montreal, especially during the warmer months. One can also take the stairs down to Montreal's "Underground City", called RESO, a network of corridors connecting metro stations, shopping centres and office complexes.

Rue Ste-Catherine, between rue Guy and boulevard St-Laurent, has most of the big department stores and major malls. Rue St-Viateur is one of the city's most interesting streets, with its amazingly varied range of businesses crammed into the short stretch between St-Laurent and Avenue du Parc. Boulevard St-Laurent remains one of the city's prime shopping streets and just about anything can be found there, with different blocks having different clusters of businesses.

Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport is about half an hour west of the city centre on highway 20.