Historically, the original settlement, the Village of Côte-des-Neiges, was founded in 1862 and annexed by Montreal in two parts in 1908 and 1910.In 1876, land owner and farmerJames Swail began residential subdivisions on the eastern side of Decelles Avenue. In 1906, a large housing development was started in the area, called Northmount Heights, built by developer Northmount Land Company. Much of this area has been expropriated by theUniversité de Montréal.[5]
Geographically it was bordered by Decelles Avenue to the north east and theNotre Dame des Neiges Cemetery to the south east,Westmount to the southwest and situated on the confluence ofCôte-des-Neiges Road andQueen Mary Road. It was one of the last areas of the city of Montreal to be developed and urbanized. Up untilWorld War II it remained a village surrounded by working farms to the north and west. A ski hill to the south near present-day Ridgewood Avenue at the foot of the mountain and present daySaint Joseph's Oratory, was once used regularly by the Montreal Ski Club into the 1940s.
Today, the neighbourhood has a large immigrant and student population, and is one of the most densely populated and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods in Canada. With over 100 different ethnic communities, predominantly:Québécois, Filipino,West Indian (Black Canadians), South Asian (Tamils andBengalis), Jewish, Latin American, Iranian, Chinese, Arab, Vietnamese and most recently Eastern European and African. It is one of the few Montreal neighbourhoods where neither the French nor English language dominate. Both national languages are spoken equally, along with many others by a high number of multilingual speakers.
^Home pageArchived December 22, 2014, at theWayback Machine. École Félix-Leclerc. "L'école Félix-Leclerc est une école primaire du quartier Côte-des-Neiges,"
