In this interview with Apolonia, we walk around the area where, from the mid-nineties until the mid 2010s, she did both indoor and outdoor sex work. We start at Sanguinet, just below Ontario, and make a loop on Ontario all the way to Papineau and then back to Sanguinet. She describes the numerous different trades and commerce, the best lookouts for clients, corners that offered shelter in the rain and winter months, apartments where she remembers other trans women cohabitating. And she describes what she refers to as “shortcuts”, the now completely vanished back alleys and secret routes workers used to get from one location to another quickly, and also to evade the police. Many of these have literally been stamped out by condos which come right to the property line and prevent people from stoop sitting and other outdoor activity.
