Olympic Park

Canada's first Olympic Games

Noteworthy for: Montreal was the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Games, winning the honor over Moscow and Los Angeles.
Talk of the town: The Olympic Stadium is nicknamed "The Big O" for its shape but it cost so much money to build that many Montrealers called it "The Big Owe".

Montreal's Olympic Park is a cluster of facilities built to host the 1976 Summer Games. While the hosting of the Games was successful, it was an unmitigated disaster in terms of finances, leaving the city with enormous debts that took 30 years to pay off.
The controversial icon of the 1976 Games is the Olympic Stadium. Due to many complications in the construction process, the ambitious design by French architect Roger Taillibert was not completed until well after the Games, and today the Stadium struggles to find a lasting tenant. Its leaning tower is an architectural marvel though, and visitors should take its funicular lift up to the 165m-high observatory for spectacular views over downtown Montreal.