History
The Plateau was formerly a working-class neighbourhood, with the Eastern part being largely Québécois, and the Western part largely Jewish. The neighbourhood was the childhood home of Quebec writers Michel Tremblay and Mordecai Richler and both have set many stories in the Plateau of the 1950s and 60s.
The Plateau is characterized by brightly coloured houses, cafés, book shops, and a laissez-faire attitude. It's the location of some famous attractions on Saint Laurent Boulevard, including Schwartz's Deli (famous for its Montreal smoked meat), and a weekend street fair during the summer that sees extremely crowded streets. In 1997, Utne Reader rated it one of the 15 "hippest" neighbourhoods in North America.
In the 1980s, the area's bohemian aura and proximity to McGill University attracted gentrification. As rents increased, many of its traditional residents and businesses were dispersed to other parts of the city. For example, a historic local grocer, Warshaw, has recently been replaced by a Pharmaprix. The neighbourhood continues to gentrify, and it is now home to many upscale restaurants and nightclubs, and any number of trendy clothing stores have their place along this strip of St-Laurent and St-Denis.
Read more about this topic: Le Plateau-Mont-Royal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
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