Côte-des-Neiges
The whole world on a mountainside
Along Côte-des-Neiges Road, Filipino grocery stores sit next to Sri Lankan restaurants, Russian cafés and Jewish bakeries. Students, newly arrived families, hospital workers: everyone crosses paths on the 165 bus. Above the hubbub, the Oratory’s dome floats like a fixed landmark. This is the arrival neighbourhood par excellence, and it draws from that an energy few places can match.
Good to know
- 1Climb to the Oratory on foot through the gardens rather than taking the shuttle, then cross Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery: vast and wooded, it reads like an open-air history park.
How the neighbourhood came to be
A former village of tanners and farmers on the road that skirted the mountain, Côte-des-Neiges was transformed in the 20th century by the arrival of the Université de Montréal, the major hospitals and successive waves of immigration from everywhere. Brother André, doorman at Collège Notre-Dame, launched the construction of Saint Joseph’s Oratory here — a decades-long project that became a major pilgrimage site. Today the neighbourhood ranks among the most multiethnic in the country.
Did you know?
- 1Saint Joseph’s Oratory is the largest church in Canada, and its dome ranks among the most imposing in the world.
- 2Brother André, who initiated the Oratory, was canonized in 2010, becoming the first male saint born in Quebec.
- 3Côte-des-Neiges is said to be home to speakers of more than a hundred languages, making it one of Canada’s most diverse neighbourhoods.
