1919, when the lights were dark red – Memories Through the Eyes of my City

In 1919, Montreal’s Red Light district was a veritable den of iniquity, a place where vice and temptation thrived in the shadows of the city. The streets were alive with the sounds of jazz music and the scents of cheap perfume, sweat, and lust.

In the dimly-lit alleyways, men prowled like hungry wolves, seeking the company of women of ill repute. The ladies of the night, clad in their finest silk and satin, beckoned to them from doorways and windows, promising pleasure and release from the mundane world outside.

The air was thick with the smoke of cigarettes and the cloying odour of opium, as patrons of the opium dens drifted in a haze of blissful oblivion. The clink of glasses and the laughter of drunken revellers filled the taverns and speakeasies, where bootleggers peddled their wares to thirsty customers.

The women of the Red Light district were a breed apart, tough and resilient, with hearts hardened by years of abuse and neglect. They knew how to take care of themselves, how to extract every last penny from their clients, and how to survive in a world that was all too often cruel and unforgiving.

But despite the danger and degradation that lurked around every corner, there was a certain vitality and excitement to the Red Light district that drew people in like moths to a flame. It was a place where anything could happen, where dreams and desires could be fulfilled, if only for a fleeting moment.

And as the night wore on, and the city slept, the Red Light district remained alive and pulsing with a raw, untamed energy, a testament to the power of human desire and the unquenchable thirst for pleasure that lies within us all.