Montparnasse was named for a heathlike grass-covered mound, flattened in 1725, which students compared to Mount Parnassus, home of the muses. In the 18th century, taverns of the rue de la Gaîté, then outside the Paris walls, escaped the city tax on acohol. Taking advantage of this clientele, dance halls and theatres soon sprang up, such as Bobino where Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf were to sing. Not far away, the "Closerie des Lilas" was to become a favorite haunt of literary figures: Verlaine, Oscard Wilde, Strindberg. In the beginning of the century, it is the quarter of predilection of the bohemia cosmopolitan, artists and poets pionners. Later Modigliani, Chagall, and so others painters or sculptors found the inspiration, to terraces of breweries where rush already their admirers...

To the place of the ancient station, the Tour Montparnasse with its 209 m of height, its 62 m of Length, its 32 m of width and its 120.000 metrics tons, contemplates with benevolence, a nocturnal and diurnal animation, a quarter that has not lost anything its character. ... Now, despite the modernization, the spirit remains the same, the legend still goes on..