It is located at the geographic centre of the Island of Montreal on the western slope of Mount Royal and is part of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.In 1876, land owner and farmer James Swail began residential subdivisions on the eastern side of Decelles Avenue.[5] Geographically it was bordered by Decelles Avenue to the north east and the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery to the south east, Westmount to the southwest and situated on the confluence of Côte-des-Neiges Road and Queen Mary Road.Up until World War II it remained a village surrounded by working farms to the north and west.With over 100 different ethnic communities, predominantly: Québécois, Filipino, West Indian (Black Canadians), South Asian (Tamils and Bengalis), Jewish, Latin American, Iranian, Chinese, Arab, Vietnamese and most recently Eastern European and African.