Rue Ste-Catherine -- and the Métro line that runs under it -- is the main cord that binds together the disparate, sprawling neighborhoods that comprise Montréal's downtown, or centre-ville. It's a long, boisterous, sometimes seedy, and sometimes elegant street that runs from rue Claremont in Westmount to rue d'Iberville in the east end. The downtown stretch -- usually clogged with traffic and lined with department stores, boutiques, bars, restaurants, strip clubs, amusement arcades, and even a few churches -- is considerably shorter, running from avenue Atwater to boulevard St-Laurent, where downtown morphs into the Latin Quarter and the Village, the center of Montréal's gay and lesbian community.
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