The Plateau was formerly a working-class neighbourhood, with the Eastern part being largely French-Canadian, 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.
In the 1980s its bohemian persona attracted gentrification. Rents increased, and many of its traditional residents dispersed to other parts of the city. It now hosts many upscale resturants and nightclubs.
It is also the location of some famous attractions on St. Laurent Boulevard, including Schwartz's Deli (famous for it's smoked meat sandwiches), and a weekend street fair during the summer that sees extremely crowded streets.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump