montreal

[hatam_soferet]

So, hive mind. I haz some questions about Montreal! I know at least one of you lives there, and at least several of you know people who do. Please to be giving good advice?

Specially, what we wants to know is, right now we live in a nice academic neighbourhood close to the university and containing Jews, i.e. the Upper West Side of Manhattan. What's the closest Montreal equivalent?

If you're prioritising being close (30-ish mins walk, bearable public transport alternative in winter) to McGill and living in a nice academic neighbourhood, where would you live?

If you're prioritising being in Jewy McJewville (but not Orthodox Jewville), where would you live?

What *do* people who usually walk do in winter? Like, here, if it snows, you can theoretically walk but half the pavements aren't clear so you're wading through snow and it takes forever.

Where's a good art store? Where's a good fabric store?

Comments

[liv]

I have passed this request on to rysmiel. And I am biting my tongue from any suggestions that you should move to a place with a more reasonable climate and less evil geography.

[hatam_soferet]

I know...at the moment Cardiff don't seem to have enough CPU capacity for him; he's talking to them.

[liv]

CPU as in literal computing power? I thought Moore's law meant that was basically never a problem these days. How much scary number-crunching is he planning to do anyway?!

[hatam_soferet]

They charge per hour, and he seems to anticipate needing about as many hours as his entire budget could sustain, with no money over for anything else.

[liv]

Wow, that's really a huge roadblock. If Cardiff is really planning to establish itself as a preeminent bioinformatics place, that's really not the way to go about it. Silly academic politics!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi. I've been lurking around your blog on and off for a while, and this seems like the question for me! I don't know if you got any replies to your question elsewhere, but I'll give it a shot.

First of all: Montreal is a relatively dense city because it's on an island, which prevents urban sprawl, so a lot of neighbourhoods are pretty close together.

Next: When someone says Jewy McJewville to me, two neighbourhoods spring into mind. One is the Cote St. Luc/Hampstead area which is a bit on the south-west side of the island. This is where a lot of secular Jews live, but it tends to be oriented towards young (rich) families with kids. This area is about 45 minutes to an hour away from McGill.

The next neighbourhood would be Outremont. This is more Orthodox Jewville, BUT, it is adjacent to Mile End and the Plateau, which is where a lot of students live. (The other place students tend to live is the so-called McGill Ghetto which is directly north-east of McGill.)

You can see Outremont, Mile End, the Plateau and McGill on this map: https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=mile+end+montreal&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x4cc9197e145a5a3b:0x17fec15c3af704b,Mile+End,+Montreal,+QC,+Canada&ei=5wJXUI6RFdSx0QHZi4GQDg&ved=0CIYBELYD If someone [you?] wants to live near both McGill and McJewville, their best bet would be to consider those three neighbourhoods as one general area and find a place that suits them.

In terms of walking in winter, we're pretty good about cleaning the sidewalks, though this will vary wildly depending on which borough you're in. Or rather, the sidewalks themselves usually get cleared, but the snow is sometimes left at the curb so there can be some mountain-climbing involved in crossing the street :S The other alternative is to make use of the underground city (an interconnected sprawl of metro stations, stores, restaurants, office buildings, schools, etc. that stretches throughout most of downtown) as much as possible. Some McGill buildings are attached to the underground city, though the majority unfortunately aren't.

An ok art store is Omer DeSerres, which is a chain we have here: http://www.deserres.ca/en-ca/ There's one located right near McGill in Place Montreal Trust, which is one of the malls that make up the underground city. I haven't sewn since 8th grade home ec., so I'm not really sure about fabric stores, but Google tells me there's a Fabricville ( http://fabricville.com/ ) at 354 Ste-Catherine St. West, which is pretty close to McGill too.

Anyway, I've lived in Montreal all my life and am a McGill graduate, so if you have any questions, please feel free to reply to this comment and ask me. I have an obsessive love of talking about my city.

[hatam_soferet]

Ooooh! Yay, a native guide! Thank you so much for the neighbourhood info, that's really useful.

Oh, another question. People seem to bike a LOT. Do they also bike a lot in winter?

NYC's a really REALLY car-unfriendly city. LA is a car-is-essential city. How's Montreal, in your opinion?

[(Anonymous)]

Some people definitely bike all year-round, though most people don't. I personally can't conceive of biking in the winter, but I've certainly seen a few dedicated souls doing it.

Montreal is probably more car-friendly than NYC but I wouldn't say a car is essential either. It really depends on what part of the island you're living in/working in/being schooled in since our metro (subway) system only services part of the island. Downtown is covered very well and the north-east half of the island is relatively accessible via metro but the south-west part of the island isn't at all.

Beyond the reaches of the metro, there are still plenty of buses, but of course they're slower and more liable to just...not show up on snowy days and, again, bus service sort of peters out as you get farther away from downtown.

The McGill area is very metro-and-bus-accessible and the parking costs would probably be too expensive to justify a car most days, but a lift to the metro station is always lovely :D.

I'll probably forget to check this thread after a few days, so if you have any more questions, you can e-mail me at sky_diving27 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and speaking of public transportation, I should clarify that "[Cote St. Luc/Hampstead] is about 45 minutes to an hour away from McGill [by public transportation]"