In the 1920s Montparnasse was the centre of the artistic and literary world: Hemingway, Picasso, Modigliani, Man Ray, and a floating population of exiles and bohemians drank and argued in its big brasseries — La Coupole, Le Dôme, La Rotonde — which still trade on the Boulevard du Montparnasse. The cheap studios and the wild nights are long gone, but the cafés and the legend remain.
Today the district is best known for three things: those historic brasseries, the cluster of Breton crêperies around the station (a legacy of the Bretons who arrived through it), and the Montparnasse Cemetery, where Sartre, Beauvoir, and Baudelaire lie. Looming over it all is the lone Tour Montparnasse, whose roof offers the one Paris skyline view that includes the Eiffel Tower and excludes the tower itself.