Located at 900 René Lévesque Boulevard West, in Downtown Montreal, it is connected to Central Station and to the underground city.
The hotel is known for being the location for John Lennon and Yoko Ono recording "Give Peace a Chance" in Room 1742 during their 1969 anti-war Bed-In.
Canadian National Railway selected leading architects and designers to give the interior decoration a "New France" theme, using Quebec handicrafts.
The artists included Albert Edward Cloutier (carved wooden panels), Jean Dallaire (wall hanging), Marius Plamondon (stained glass mural), Claude Vermette (ceramic tiles) and Julien Hébert (bronze elevator doors).
Many famous guests have stayed there, including Queen Elizabeth II (four times) and the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Prince Charles, Fidel Castro, who was the first head of state to visit the hotel, Charles de Gaulle, and Princess Grace of Monaco, during Expo '67, Indira Gandhi, Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Sadiq Raji, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Perry Como, Joan Crawford, John Travolta, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and George W.