Our first porno theatre

St. Catherine's got sleaze. Just count all the depantsed-girl portraits that lure underage Vermonters to gape at more than the bubbles in their beer. "It wasn't always like that!" you might harrumph, but you'd be wrong. After all, four decades is practically forever. For it was way back in 1968 that Le Pigalle became one of Canada's first porno theatres, replacing the bankrupt Strand.

Le Pigalle (seen to the left of the Loew's in the '60s postcard below) was the sister theatre of Midi-Minuit, a self-strokehouse at St. Dennis and Mount Royal. So what happened to Le Pigalle? The whole block got torn down and rebuilt as a generic brown high-rise. So people now line up for Basha's saucy kebabs where once they unbuckled their trenchcoats.