City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s

This is the best book about Montreal that I have read. While growing up in Montreal I was of aware of the shady life in Montreal, but I didn't know how extensive it was. We sort of accepted the corruption in Montreal as part of the scenery. One time in the 1950s the authorities brought a leading gambler to trial. I guess he was selected as a fall guy. When my mother saw the list of his legal team she snorted,"If he is using these lawyers he's guilty!". Camillien Houde was indeed a colorful character and one of the more effective mayors. A lot of people felt that he got a raw deal when he was interned during WW 2. One thing that Weintraub didn't mention is that Montreal was a very safe city. It still is safe compared with many other cities that I have visited. Its much safer than either London, New York, or Washington.

Outrageous as the Belle Ville that it portrays, City Unique is much more than a thoroughly-researched and extremely well-written account of two of the most exciting decades ever lived by Montreal: it is also a literary testimony that brings to life the past behind the city's present and future. Weintraub's book flows just like the Saint-Lawrence - you glance at its troubled-though-delightful waters and wonder what you'd find at the bottom... Well, here's your chance to take that to shore, from the accounts of characters as memorable as Lili St. Cyr to the unravelling of a city torn in half by a street called The Main, whose every corner tells a million stories, with anglos on one side, francos on the other, and everything else in between. By one of Montreal's finest journalists, City Unique is an absolute must in our quest to understanding what lies underneath the city's cosmopolitan and multi-cultural enchantment today, as belle now as it was then.

Being a boomer from the West Island, I appreciated this book for the glimpse it afforded me into the "downtown" world of my parents, and a better appreciation for names which exist for me only as streets (Camilien Houde) or Metro stops (the infamous Lionel Groulx). The paperback version of this book did not contain a map, which would have been a helpful asset to a non-Montrealer reader.

Weintraub has painted a wonderful portrait of what life was like in Montreal back in the days before the separatists wreaked havoc on the fabric of the city with their language police and sign laws. Daily life in Montreal during the 1940s and 1950s is vividly portrayed in all its variety, from the infamous Padlock Laws of Premier Maurice Duplessis, to the padlock that held stripper Lili St. Cyr's chastity belt in place. The style is journalistic rather than scholarly, and breezy but informative. Weintraub (who is a Montrealer himself) interviewed dozens of people, and their stories are neatly integrated into his historical account of the major events and figures that shaped the era. Highly recommended for anyone who loves Canada's most flamboyant and fascinating city.