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Contents

Issue: 01 || August 2014

The North York Festival is an annual celebration. The festival has taken place in the heart of North York on the breathtaking grounds of Mel Lastman Square.Our event is the largest and only multicultural event outside of downtown Toronto.The festival includes participation from the European, Asian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, South Asian, African, and Afro-Carib-bean communities, and many, many more…

OUR VISIONHosted in one of the most multicultural cities in the entire world, the North York Festival aims to promote cultural diversity through cooperation and participation by both local and surrounding com-munities.OUR VALUESWe believe in the benefits of diverse communities coming togeth-er to share their cultures and traditions. Our event organizers and participating businesses, governmental offices and organizations, and esteemed guests, also share a com-mon belief: community service. Healthy Marrow Canada is the official charity of the North York Festival. We will renew our support for this very important organi-zation, to help spread awareness about the effects of cancer, and support cancer research.OUR MISSIONTo provide a platform that is both education- and live entertain-ment-based, allowing guests to explore cultural music, cultural dance and cultural food, which have no language and are univer-sal in nature.UniqueThe North York Festival is the only and largest multicultural event outside of downtown Toronto. While other cultural events occur individually around the GTA, our event is the only festival, which brings together all of these cultural communities and cultural or-ganizations under one roof. InclusiveStaying true to the meaning of the word, our event aims not only to highlight cultures found in North York, but also the multitude of cultures found across the GTA.ConvenientWould it not be great to visit 10 different ‘countries’ sampling their culture, their music, their dance and their food, in 10 minutes?Visiting 10 countries in the span of 10 minutes is both challenging and can cost a fortune. Our event is free to attend, and an eco-nomical choice this summer to experience both new and beauti-ful things.This is what the North York Festival has to offer. We want you to take a trip around the world without leaving your doorstep.

• MelLastmanSquare................................................13

• NorthYorkCivicCentre.........................................17

• NorthYorkCentre......................................................19

• AllenRoad.......................................................................21

• BayviewVillage...........................................................23

• DownsviewAirport................................................... 26

• EmpressWalk.............................................................. 28

• FinchAvenue................................................................30

• GovernmentofCanadaBuilding................... 33

• HillcrestVillage........................................................... 33

• JaneandFinch............................................................ 35

• LawrenceHeights......................................................37

• LedburyPark................................................................38

• LeslieStreet...................................................................38

• NorthYorkBoardofEducation....................... 39

• SheppardAvenue......................................................41

• SunnybrookHealthSciencesCentre......... 42

• TorontoDistrictSchoolBoard.......................... 45

• VictoriaParkAvenue............................................... 47

• Willowdale.....................................................................48

• YongeStreet.................................................................50

• YorkMills.......................................................................... 53

• OntarioHighway401............................................... 55

• OntarioHighway404..............................................58

Publisher: Silk Road PublishingFounder: Steve MoghadamGeneral Manager: Elly AchackManagement Team: Bahareh Nouri, Mike MahmoudianSheri Chahidi, Parviz Achak, Eva Okati, Nikita ViraEditor: Deleone DownesPublic Relations: Samantha Gorys

Phone: 416-500-0007Email: [email protected]: www.NorthYorkFestival.com

www.facebook.com/northyorkfestivalNorth York Festival 2014 4

I would like to extend my warmest greetings to everyone taking part in the North York Festival at Toronto’s Mel Lastman Square. Canada’s success as a nation is based on the contributions of people from all backgrounds working together. We draw strength from our diversity. This festival gives Canadians of different backgrounds an opportunity to celebrate their roots, to make new friends, and to share their traditions with one another. I would like to commend the organizers, sponsors, and volunteers for putting together this celebration of arts, community, and heritage. Please accept my best wishes for an enjoyable and memorable festival.

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P. OTTAWA 2014

twitter.com/northyorkfestivalNorth York Festival 2014 5


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Ottawa Office: Room 700 La Promenade Bldg. 151 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 613-992 4964

Constituency Office: 250 Sheppard Ave. East, Unit 200 Toronto, ON M2N 6M9 416-223 2858

Chungsen Leung Member of Parliament

Willowdale Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism

August 9th, 2014

I am honoured to extend my warmest greetings to all those taking part in the North York Festival, presented by the Silk Road Group. North York Festival is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the great summer in Canada, and to reflect upon the many ways in which Canadians of different heritage have contributed to Canadian society. The vibrant festival brings together people in celebration and laughter. It forges friendships and connections, sharing in the diverse culture of Canada. Our communities benefit greatly from the ability to celebrate together in times of joy. As the Member of Parliament for Willowdale and Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism, I would like to commend you all for your continued dedication to the betterment of our community and our country. I wish all of you an enjoyable and memorable festival. Sincerely,

Chungsen Leung, M.P. Willowdale Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism

August 9, 2014 Dear North York Festival Group, On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to extend my warmest greetings and congratulations to the North York Festival Group for hosting the North York Festival 2014! The North York Festival has pleased audiences across the community with amazing singing and dancing performances. I commend the North York Festival Group for bringing together family and friends in the community for the spirit of friendly competition. Canada's diversity and multiculturalism shape our country's unique character. Through this festival, Canadians of all different backgrounds get the opportunity to gather together to celebrate various cultures and traditions. We are proud of all that it has accomplished during the past years and its significant contribution to building the foundations of our community. I would like to thank all the organizers, participants and sponsors of the North York Festival for their continued efforts and dedication towards the success of our community. May this event continue with its success for countless years.

Sincerely,

Hon. Bal Gosal, PC, MP Minister of State (Sport)

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

- Marcus Garvey

To My Friends Attending the 2014 North York Festival:

On behalf of the Parliamentary Caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Leader Justin Trudeau, I am pleased to add my name to the list of those extending best wishes as you open the 2014 North York Festival, at Mel Lastman Square in Toronto.

It has been said that Canada is a nation of newcomers that, unlike any other place on Earth, celebrates and honours various cultural traditions, languages and histories within our civic and national mosaics. There is perhaps no other place in Canada that embodies this spirit of inclusion and blending like right here in North York and, I am proud to know that the 2014 North York Festival will showcase this for all to see, to experience and to enjoy.

Today as you come together to celebrate our rich and vibrant languages,

cultures and shared history and traditions, please know there are those of us in the Liberal Party who stand with you. May you continue to enjoy success and happiness in the years ahead and may the traditions of our ancestors be a legacy for our children.

Sincerely, Hon. Judy A. Sgro, Privy Council, MP Liberal Industry Critic

Constituency Office

2201 Finch Ave. West

Unit 25 Toronto, Ontario

CANADA M9M 2Y9

416-744-1882 ph 416-952-1696 fx

[email protected]

Parliament Hill Office

Justice Building

Room 204 House of Commons

Ottawa, Ontario CANADA K1A 0A6

613-992-7774 ph 613-947-8319 fx

[email protected]


Office of the Mayor

Thank You for Attending the

North York Festival

August 9, 2014

On behalf of the City of Vaughan, it is my pleasure to welcome everyone attending the North York Festival. This family event provides an opportunity for the entire community to enjoy a fun-filled day of music, dance, activities and great food. The City of Vaughan is proud to be a part of the Greater Toronto Area that contributes to Canada’s multicultural mosaic. By honouring our many different cultural and social traditions we can better appreciate and understand Canada’s rich heritage. Our goal is to foster a community that promotes equality, inclusiveness, respect and tolerance for everyone who lives here. Please accept my best wishes for a successful event. Yours sincerely, Hon. Maurizio Bevilacqua, P.C. Mayor

August 9, 2014

North York Festival 2014 I am pleased to extend warm greetings to the participants in this year’s North York Festival, fellow Torontonians and visitors alike. This celebration highlights the diverse cultures that form the fabric of our Province. Through food displays, music, dance, and activities, friends and families from all walks of life, enjoy the cultural expressions our communities. The Mel Lastman Square, in the heart of the former City of North York, provides the perfect backdrop encouraging and engaging outdoor summer activities. I congratulate the organizers, sponsors, entertainers and volunteers for their contribution and involvement in ensuring a successful and memorable event. Wishing you continued success,

Laura Albanese, MPP York South-Weston

4559 Sheppard Avenue East, Unit B, Scarborough, ON M1S 1V3 ~ T (416) 297-5040 F (416) 297-6767 E [email protected]

A Personal Message from MPP Bas Balkissoon As the Member of Provincial Parliament for Scarborough-Rouge River, I regret that due to prior commitments in my schedule I am unable to join you at the Opening Ceremony of the North York Festival 2014, at the Mel Lastman Square, Toronto. In sending my regrets, I thank you sincerely for your kind invitation and extend my warmest greetings to everyone attending this event. This annual festival reflects the rich diversity of the Greater Toronto area in a communal celebration of food and entertainment. Canadians take pride in their cultural diversity and delight in being able to explore the rich traditions and customs of individual heritages. On behalf of the Legislature of Ontario, I would like to thank the organizers and extend my best wishes for a memorable celebration. Sincerely, Bas Balkissoon, MPP Queen’s Park, Toronto Scarborough-Rouge River August 9, 2014

Bas Balkissoon, MPP Scarborough-Rouge River

Dignitaries atNorth York Festival 2014

Live Performances atNorth York Festival 2014

Vendors atNorth York Festival 2014

Guests atNorth York Festival 2014

Kids' Activities atNorth York Festival 2014

'Near the Stage' atNorth York Festival 2014


An artificial stream runs from a fountain under a large sign at Yonge street down into a large concrete square. Planters, trees, shrubs and wooden benches surround the area. A large pool is located in the centre of the square that serves as a relaxing focal point in the summer and a skating rink in the winter.

The square also features an outdoor theatre for a number of events, includ-ing Sunday Serenades jazz concerts each summer. Other events include a farmer’s market, cultural festivals, Can-ada Day festivities and numerous fam-ily events.

Mel LastmanMelvin Douglas “Mel” Lastman

(born March 9, 1933), nicknamed “Mayor Mel”, is a former businessman and politician. He is the founder of the Bad Boy Furniture chain. He served as the mayor of the former city of North York, Ontario, Canada from 1972 until 1997. At the end of 1997, North York, along with five other municipalities, was amalgamated with the city of To-ronto. Lastman ran for and won the mayoral race for the new “megacity”, defeating incumbent Toronto mayor Barbara Hall. Re-elected in November 2000, he served until his retirement af-ter the 2003 municipal election.

Early life and careerLastman was born in Toronto in

1933, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. He began his sales career as a child, hawking fruit and vegetables at his family’s Kensington Market gro-cery store.

He met Marilyn Bornstein when he was 16 and she was 13, and they were married five years later. He left school after Grade 12 and, with Marilyn’s help, got a job at a College Street furniture store. He quickly established himself as a successful salesman. He switched to selling appliances and promoted him-self as “Mr. Laundry” (alias the “Bad Boy”). He opened a small frame build-ing at Kennedy Road and Eglinton in Scarborough, selling used applicances, and then, at age 22, bought out Heather Hill Applicances and established Bad Boy Furniture in 1955.

Having adopted the nickname “the Bad Boy” for himself and developed Bad Boy Furniture into a chain of stores around the Toronto area. “Bad Boy” Lastman was associated with many publicity stunts, including travelling to the Arctic in the 1960s to “sell a refrig-erator to an Eskimo.”

Lastman sold the chain in 1975 to run for Legislative Assembly of On-

tario as a Progressive Conservative candidate. He lost to former Toronto Mayor, Phil Givens, who was running for the Ontario Liberal Party in the Ar-mourdale electoral district. That pro-vincial election was his only election loss throughout his career. The Bad Boy trademark was ultimately acquired by the large furniture chain The Brick but the new owners allowed it to lapse through lack of use until it expired.

In 1991, Lastman’s son Blayne and business partner Marvin Kirsh re-launched the chain, over the objections of his father, who felt the economic cli-mate was unsatisfactory. The store was soon memorable to most Southern On-tario television viewers who have seen its commercials. The ads feature Last-man in a cameo appearance, Blayne in a prison suit, and always ended with the line: “Who’s better than Bad Boy?... Nooooooobody!”

Mel Lastman Square

Mel Lastman Square is a pub-lic square at North York Civic Centre in the North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is named for former North York mayor (and later Toronto mayor) Mel Lastman.

The square hosts a variety of activities throughout the year, but is primarily a quiet space in which to relax or eat lunch.

Vendors atNorth York Festival 2014

Guests atNorth York Festival 2014

Kids' Activities atNorth York Festival 2014

'Near the Stage' atNorth York Festival 2014


In 1993, Lastman saw Clinton im-personator Tim Waters on television, and shortly afterwards contacted him and arranged for a commercial to be shot. The commercial featured Waters dressed as Clinton delivering the clas-sic Nooooooobody! line. While merely a mildly amusing commercial to most of the viewing public, Lastman’s move attracted attention, as he soon received a letter from the White House request-ing that he “cease and desist all unau-thorized use of the likeness of the Presi-dent of the United States of America in advertising of commercial services and products”. Lastman refused to stop airing the commercials, and even produced several more, featuring both Waters and a Hillary Clinton imper-sonator. “Last time I checked,” Lastman quipped, “this was Canada, not the 51st state.”

MayorshipNorth York

Lastman entered politics in 1969, when he ran for and was elected to the North York Board of Control. It was there he met another young motivated rising political figure, Paul Godfrey, who would later serve as Metro Chair-man.

On December 4, 1972, Lastman was elected mayor of North York by defeating fellow North York city coun-cillor Paul Hunt for the open mayoral seat. Lastman took office on January 1, 1973 and was also automatically a

member of Metro Council. Lastman was supported by many in North York for operating that city efficiently and ef-fectively, and for keeping property taxes low. As a result of his efforts to promote development around Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue, the area unofficially became known as the “new downtown” with many office towers and condos springing up in a formerly suburban area. Mel Lastman Square at the North York Civic Centre is named after him.

Lastman joined the Ontario Liberal Party in 1987, although he subsequent-ly claimed that it was the result of a mis-understanding. He agreed to support Norman Gardner’s bid for the Liberal nomination in Willowdale, and did not realize that he was also purchasing a party membership card in the process. He did not regret his accidental mem-bership, but said he had no long-term loyalty to the party (Globe and Mail, 28 April 1987).

Lastman was a critic of Metro-politan Toronto’s Metro Hall, attacking Metro Council’s decision to locate the $220 million building downtown. He argued that it would be more equitable and would have been much cheaper to build the headquarters in the suburbs. Metro Hall was later passed over in fa-vour of City Hall for the future amalga-mated city of Toronto. An attempt to put it up for sale only received a maximum bid of $125 million which was far below the con-struction cost.

Throughout Lastman’s political ca-reer, he was generally supported by the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals, such as Norman Gardner, Mike Colle, Mike Feldman, Joe Volpe, and David Shiner. Though usually opposed by the New Democratic Party, he did cross party lines to work with left-leaning councillors Jack Layton and Olivia Chow.

Post-amalgamation TorontoSee also: Moose in the City

In 1997, Lastman’s position was abolished when the provincial govern-ment under Mike Harris amalgamated North York with Scarborough, York, East York, Etobicoke, and Old Toronto, creating a single-tier “megacity” form-ing the new City of Toronto. Lastman ran for the mayoralty of the new “meg-acity” against incumbent Toronto May-or Barbara Hall. Lastman’s electoral victory was credited to his very strong base of support in the suburban cities, namely North York as well as in Etobi-coke and Scarborough. Hall had won the majority of the vote in old Toronto, York and East York.

Lastman gained national attention after multiple snowstorms, including the Blizzard of 1999, dumped 118 cm of snow and effectively closed the city. He proceeded to have the Canadian Forces (Army) aid in helping to shovel snow, and use their equipment to augment police and emergency services. The move was ridiculed by some in other parts of the country, fueled in part by what was perceived as a frivolous use of resources, although Lastman’s de-fenders noted that at the time the army was called in, Toronto was already at a standstill, and that the Environment Canada weather forecast called for an-other severe storm to hit the city later that week. (This second storm did not actually come to pass.)

Lastman paid back the soldiers by giving them each a free NHL Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey pass in honour of their hard work. These tickets were ob-tained free of charge due to an agree-ment with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ management claiming that if these soldiers had not come out to shovel the snow, then the Leafs game that day wouldn’t have had as many people at-


tending. Ten years later, in 2009, Last-man gave an interview to the Toronto Star newspaper, stating he is proud of his decision to bring in the army during the Blizzard of 1999.

Some expected that Lastman would face Independent federal MP John Nunziata in the 2000 municipal elec-tion, but Nunziata nixed the rumours when he found that he could not hold onto his seat in Parliament while cam-paigning for Mayor.

Re-elected in November 2000, with an 80% majority, his closest opponent, civic activist Tooker Gomberg, drew just a little more than 8% of the vote.

Lastman shared Gomberg’s three main campaign planks: committing Toronto to 100% recycling diversion by 2010 to replace the controversial Adams Mine plan, agreeing with Prime Minis-ter Jean Chrétien to end homelessness in Toronto, and appointing Jane Jacobs, the ethicist and urbanist, to head the Toronto Charter Committee to explore the potential for more autonomy for Toronto. Jacobs had publicly endorsed Gomberg.

Among his accomplishments as mayor of Toronto, Lastman brought World Youth Day to Toronto in 2002. He also succeeded in pushing the con-struction of the TTC Sheppard line, the first new subway line in decades. He played a key role in the negotia-tions that had the Empress Walk con-dominium complex developed and two leading schools refurbished, all without using public funds.

In June 2001, shortly before leaving for Mombasa, Kenya to support Toron-to’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics, he jokingly said to a reporter “What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mom-basa?... I’m sort of scared about going out there, but the wife is really nervous. I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.” The remarks sparked a firestorm of controversy, with much speculation that they would offend African IOC members and endanger Toronto’s bid. Lastman apologized profusely for those remarks. IOC Vice-President Dick Pound later stated that the comments did not affect the outcome of the bid.

In January 2002, Lastman was ridi-culed for hugging and shaking hands with members of the Hells Angels mo-torcycle gang when they held a conven-tion in Toronto. Lastman later claimed that he didn’t know that the Hells An-gels were involved in selling illegal drugs.

During the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis, Lastman did an interview on CNN. When he was asked what the World Health Organization was doing about the crisis, Lastman replied “They don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know who this group is. I’ve never heard of them before.”

Personal lifeOn January 14, 2003, Lastman an-

nounced that he would not run for re-election, citing deteriorating health.

On November 10, 2003, David Miller was elected out of a field of five

leading candidates to succeed Lastman as city mayor.

Lastman continues to live in Toron-to with his wife and returned to leading the Lastman’s Bad Boy Furniture chain in May 2006. Lastman sometimes com-ments publicly on Toronto affairs, such as in 2007 when the city faced a $575 million shortfall and struggled to make service cuts to immediately save $100 million. Lastman sympathized that provincial downloading had burdened Toronto, but also criticized Miller’s ser-vice cuts as hurting the quality of life while not going far enough to solve the shortfall. Lastman pointed out that spending had increased by $1.5 billion since he left office, and suggested that councillors had to consider measures such as contracting out services and cutting staff.

After his wife Marilyn was caught shoplifting from an Eaton’s store in Toronto, he threatened to kill CITY-TV reporter Adam Vaughan unless he stopped reporting on his family.

During his tenure as mayor, Last-man and his wife held a surprise news conference announcing that he had a 14 year long extramarital affair with Grace Louie, a former Bad Boy em-ployee. Louie, along with her two sons by Lastman, sued for 6 million dollars claiming that they were his illegitimate children but had not received sufficient child support. Lastman denied respon-sibility for the two children and suc-cessfully fought them off when they tried to claim a share of his estate, al-though it was already revealed that he was indeed their father.

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North York Civic Centre

Toronto Centre for the ArtsThe Toronto Centre for the Arts,

previously known as the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, is a perform-ing arts center in Toronto. It opened in 1993 as the North York Perform-ing Arts Centre and was designed by Canadian architect Eberhard Zeidler for musicals, theatre productions and other performing arts. It houses three theatres:

• The Main Stage Theatre with 1727 seats

• The George Weston Recital Hall with 1036 seats

• A multi-purpose 200-seat studio theatre

The facility regularly rents out its lobby, piano lounge, VIP suites, and rehearsal hall for various events. The Main Stage was home to the Dancap Productions Canadian production of Jersey Boys from August 2008 until August 2010. Prior to Jersey Boys, the

facility was the home of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boule-vard and a 1993 production of Show Boat that transferred to Broadway. It has since hosted several productions, including the musical Million Dollar Quartet.

The North York Civic Centre is a building that once served as the city hall for the former City of North York, Ontario, Canada.

Designed by Adamson Associates Architects, the building is located on Yonge Street north of Sheppard Av-enue, and features Mel Lastman Square along the Yonge Street frontage. The construction of the building was in-

tended to act as a catalyst for the devel-opment of the “North York City Cen-tre”, a downtown area for the formerly suburban North York. The building received The Governor General’s Medal for Architecture in 1982.

With municipal amalgamation, North York is now part of the City of Toronto, and the building no longer serves as a city hall. Today, the building

is home to the North York Community Council and a number of local munici-pal departments and services. Oppo-site the Civic Centre is the North York Central branch of the Toronto Public Library.

The Civic Centre is served by the Toronto Transit Commission’s North York Centre subway station (opened in 1987).

Address: 8854 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, ON, L4C 0T4

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North York Centre is a neighbour-hood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to the Amalgamation of Toronto in 1998, it was considered the central business district of the former city of North York. It is located along Yonge Street and surrounds the Toronto sub-way station of the same name.

HistoryThe Yonge corridor between Finch

and Sheppard Avenues grew extensive-ly after the opening of the subway sta-tion. To relieve pressure on downtown Toronto, the Official Plan for Metropol-itan Toronto encouraged high-density redevelopment at North York Centre (and other suburban centres) permit-ting high rise condominium towers and office buildings. In the past decade over 20,000 units of new housing have been approved, with over 16,000 of these presently built or under construction.

Condominiums pack this strip now growing northward past Finch and ex-tending south from Sheppard toward Highway 401. The area has become an increasingly vibrant part of Toronto due to the dense residential population and numerous commercial and entertain-ment destinations. Growth has become so rapid that on new condominium projects, the Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board have posted notices stat-ing that they are unable to accommo-date new students in local schools.

LandmarksThe North York Centre subway sta-

tion is accessed through the basement levels of the two shopping malls at the intersection of Yonge Street and Em-press Avenue; Empress Walk and North York Centre.

The North York Civic Centre (for-merly North York City Hall) contains City of Toronto offices, and faces onto Mel Lastman Square on the west side of Yonge Street.

The station serves Earl Haig Sec-ondary School (two blocks east), the adjacent North York Central Library, as well as the Empress Walk shopping centre with a movie theatre (above) and a stage theatre (the Toronto Centre for the Arts, three blocks south).

A 2001 Census showed that the average household income is approxi-mately $78 000, with a disposable in-come of $48 000. It is projected that by the year 2011, the average household income will reach $97 000, with a dis-posable income of $62 000.

North York Centre

5292 Yonge StNorth York, Ontario M2N 5P9South of Finch Ave W & North of Sheppard Ave E(Closest subway station is North York Centre)

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William R. Allen Road, also known as Allen Road, the Allen Ex-pressway or The Allen is a short ex-pressway/freeway and arterial road in Toronto, Canada. It starts as a con-trolled-access expressway at Eglinton Avenue West north to Transit Road and then continues as an arterial road north to Kennard Avenue and Duf-ferin Street. Allen Road is named after late Metro Toronto Chairman William R. Allen and is maintained by the City of Toronto. Landmarks along the road include the Lawrence Heights hous-ing project, Yorkdale Shopping Centre and Downsview Park (formerly CFB Downsview). A section of the Toronto subway Yonge–University–Spadina line is located within its median from Eglin-ton Avenue to Sheppard Avenue.

The portion south of Sheppard Av-enue was originally constructed as part of the Spadina Expressway project. The Spadina Expressway was a proposed north-south freeway, intended to con-nect downtown Toronto to the suburb of North York, and to serve the York-dale Shopping Centre project. It was only partially built before being can-celled in 1971 due to public opposition. It was proposed in the mid-1950s as part of a network of freeways for Metro Toronto. Its cancellation prompted the cancellation of the rest of the network.

Route descriptionThe road begins at Eglinton Av-

enue West with two separate signalized intersections with the street. The north-bound lanes intersect with Eglinton to the east of the Eglinton West subway station, and the two south-bound lanes connect to Eglinton Avenue west of the station. The road proceeds north to Lawrence Avenue West as a four-lane

freeway with a speed limit of 80 km/h in the northerly direction and 80 km/h until 500m north of Eglinton Avenue. The tracks of the Yonge–University–Spadina subway line (Y-U-S) are situ-ated between the roadways. There is a subway station at Glencairn Avenue. The roadway and subway are situated in a cut-out section of land, with grass and trees on either side.

The roadway intersects with Law-rence Avenue West with on- and off-ramps which are signalized. The Law-rence West subway station and bus terminals are located between the two roadways. From Lawrence Avenue north, the roadway is six-lanes, with a speed limit of 80 km/h. The Allen con-nects to Yorkdale Road by on- and off-ramps. The Yorkdale subway station is located between the two roadways, and over the Yorkdale connecting ramps. For a short stretch, the Allen is eight lanes, the lanes connected to the Yor-kdale Road exits. On either side of the road through this stretch concrete re-taining walls were built on both sides.

The interchange of the Allen and Highway 401 is a hybrid of the turbine and clover-stack. The Allen proceeds on bridges over the lanes of the 401, with ramps from the Allen to 401 passing overhead. The interchange also serves to connect Yorkdale Road with the 401. The exit from the north-bound Al-len to the 401 serves as a ramp to both

directions of the 401, with two lanes proceeding north of the 401. Similarly, two lanes are provided south-bound over the 401, and access from the east-bound and west-bound 401 merges with the Allen south of Yorkdale Road. Access to Yorkdale Road from the east-bound 401 is provided at the partial Dufferin Avenue interchange to the west. The southbound ramp from the Allen to the eastbound 401 flys over the whole interchange and connects with the eastbound 401 collector lanes. The interchange is one of the few on High-way 401 that uses conventional light poles instead of high-mast lighting. The subway is situated on bridges over the 401 between the north- and south-bound lanes. From north of the 401, the Allen is four or six lanes, and meets with Transit Road at a signalized inter-section. The subway diverges from the route just north of Sheppard Avenue, with a large rail yard to the west of the road. Just south of Transit Road, a par-tial interchange with Wilson Heights is provided. It was the former northern terminus of the road until 1982. North of Transit Road, Allen Road is a an ar-terial road of four- or six-lanes, meet-ing Sheppard Avenue West at a signal-ized intersection. Its speed limit is 70 km/h (45 mph). It continues north, still maintaining the higher speed limit with signalized intersections at Rimrock and Kennard Avenue. The road becomes Dufferin Street north of Kennard Av-enue.

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CommunityThe present day Bayview v neigh-

bourhood was planned in 1954 by a group of developers led by Farlinger Development Ltd. Bayview Village was hailed as “contemporary living in the countryside, at the doorstep of the urban concentration of Metropolitan Toronto.” The design and layout of Bay-view Village is very much influenced by the East Don Valley Parklands. Dr E.G. Faludi, the town planner who designed Bayview Village, recognized the importance of the East Don Valley Parklands when he said “We will fit the community into the landscape and not the landscape into the community.” Fa-ludi’s trademark curvilinear street pat-tern that follows the natural contours of the land was designed to highlight the natural beauty of the neighbourhood.

Nearly a quarter of the space in Bay-view Village is green. Bayview Village’s winding streets and culs-de-sac are planted with mature birch, cedar, wil-low, spruce, pine and maple trees. Some of the Bayview Village houses are situ-ated on ravine lots that feature views of the East Don River Valley Parklands. Several of the street names in Bayview Village, such as Citation Drive, recall that the area was a racehorse training stable and grounds before being devel-oped. In the Bayview Village area, there are United, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican churches, the latter is lo-cated just outside the area’s southwest boundary.

The main shopping centre located in Bayview Village and serving the community is an upscale shopping mall called Bayview Village Shopping Cen-

tre, located at the northeast corner of Sheppard Avenue and Bayview Avenue.

Community AssociationsHomeowners are actively repre-

sented by the Bayview Village Associa-tion. Established in 1956, this is a vol-unteer group of residents who work to monitor city and provincial initiatives on a wide range of topics including traf-fic, local development, parks, and safe-ty. In addition, they produce a regular newsletter distributed to all homes cov-ering a wide range of topical issues. The Bayview Village Association also hosts a number of events throughout the year including clean-up days, all-candidates meetings, community fairs, annual per-ennial swaps, etc. Over 50% of Bayview Village residents are members of the Association.

Bayview VillageBayview Village is an affluent neigh-

bourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, formerly in North York before it was amalgamated into Toronto in 1998. It is part of the federal and provincial elec-toral district Willowdale, and Toronto electoral wards 24: Willowdale (East) and 33: Don Valley North (East). In

2006, it had a population of 15,370.

The area is bordered on the north by Finch Avenue East, on the west by Bayview Avenue, on the east by Leslie Street, and on the south by Highway 401, and also including the grounds of North York General Hospital, east of Leslie in the neighbourhood’s south-

east corner, according to the City of To-ronto’s definition. The Bayview Village Association regards the east boundary as the Don River (east branch) and the south boundary as Sheppard Avenue East, thereby excluding land between the Don River and Leslie, Sheppard and Highway 401.


HomesMost Bayview Village homes were

built between 1954 and 1964. The mix of housing here includes raised and executive ranch style bungalows, split-level houses, and Georgian Revival-style homes. Most of the houses are original. Many homes have undergone renovation and landscaping to fit the park-like neighbourhood. There has been some infill housing (newly built houses replacing the older ones) within the Bayview Village area.

There also continues to be high rise condominium development along Sheppard Avenue and in the land south of Sheppard Avenue and north of Highway 401. This development is of a completely different nature to the fifty-year-old suburban low-rise architecture found in the northern area.

ParksThe western edge of the East Don

Parklands winds its way through the centre of Bayview Village and is a vast and expansive green haven with various trails, walkways and bicycle paths. The

park’s naturalization and preservation programs have made the space a habitat for wildlife and a number of rare plant species. There are many smaller parks and parkettes in Bayview Village. Blue Ridge Park and Bayview Village Park are child-focused, with baseball dia-monds, splash pads and playgrounds.

RecreationThe Bayview Village Tennis Club,

home of “tennis ace” Daniel Nestor is a community tennis club serving Bay-view Village since 1975. The courts at Bayview Village Tennis Club were com-pletely rebuilt at the end of the 2008 tennis season. Today, Bayview Village Tennis Club continues to be looked upon as the premier tennis club of North York.

There are also free public tennis courts in Bayview Village Park.

The North York YMCA, located at the southeast corner of Bayview Ave-nue and Sheppard Avenue, is the largest recreational facility serving this neigh-bourhood. Some of the programs being

offered at this YMCA include playgym and swim lessons for preschoolers, gymnastics, karate, swimming and basketball programs for children, and aerobics, yoga and aquafit for adults. Facilities at this centre include a gym-nasium, a dance studio, a condition-ing room, a main swimming pool with lanes and a training swimming pool.

EducationThere are two public schools in the

Bayview Village community, Elkhorn Public School and Bayview Middle School. Most high school students who live in Bayview Village attend Earl Haig Secondary School, located west of Bay-view. There is also a Catholic Elemen-tary school located on the west side of Bayview Avenue, called St. Gabriel Catholic School.

TransportationThe Toronto Transit Commission

(TTC) Sheppard subway line passes through the neighbourhood, including Bayview and Bessarion stations.

Famous residents of Willowdale past and present include:

Ravi Baichwal, news anchor of ABC Television

Joseph Boyden, author

David Clayton-Thomas, singer for Blood, Sweat & Tears

Dream Warriors, hip hop group

Frog Fagan, NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver

Corey Haim, an actor in the 1980s who was in The Lost Boys

Jimenez Lai, architect, lived on Cummer Avenue

Henry Lau, actor, and singer

for the Mandopop group Super Junior M

Geddy Lee, bassist and lead singer of progressive rock band Rush

Alex Lifeson, lead guitar player of progressive rock band Rush

Howie Mandel, comedian

Kirk McLean, ice hockey player

Mark Napier, ice hockey player

Joshua Raj, orthopaedic surgeon and author

Lloyd Robertson, O.C., Chief News Anchor and Senior Edi-tor of CTV Television Network’s

nightly newscast, CTV News with Lloyd Robertson

Seymour Schulich, Canadian businessman and philanthropist

Dick Shatto, Canadian Football League player

Steve Shutt, ice hockey player

www.ymcagta.org

Mailing address:2200 Yonge St., Unit 300Toronto, OntarioM4S 2C6

Telephone:416-928-9622 or 1-800-223-8024

Fax:416-928-2030

The YMCA of Greater Toronto is a charity focused on community support and development. Our aim is to provide every individual in our community with opportunities for personal growth, community involvement, and leadership. By making connections, collaborating, and mirroring our region’s diversity, we believe we can become the network that binds our many neighbourhoods into one city, one country, and one world.

As one of the largest charities in North America, we help over 400,000 people each year through three core programs:

YMCA Health, Fitness & Recreation programs help members of our community – regardless of their background or economic circumstances – to live active, meaningful lives

YMCA Child & Family programs and YMCA Camps ensure toddlers and school age kids get the child care they need and create memorable camp experiences. These programs also support parents and guardians

YMCA Employment programs, Skills Development programs, Youth Support Services, and Newcomer programs provide employment counseling and training, help newcomers settle in Canada, and offer youth-at-risk with the support they need to survive and thrive

GREATER TORONTO


Downsview Airport or Toronto/Downsview Airport, (ICAO: CYZD), is located in Toronto, Ontario and has been exclusively owned and used as a testing facility by Bombardier Aero-space since 1994.

Downsview Airport has its own fire service (Bombardier Aerospace Emergency Services) which covers air-port operations (using two airport fire rescue vehicles) and plant operations (using two SUV emergency vehicles). Bombardier Emergency Services em-ployees are cross-trained as firefighters, first responders and airport security.

Downsview AirfieldDownsview Airfield opened in

1929 as general aviation airfield and one of two airports in the area. It was built by de Havilland Canada for test-ing aircraft at the plant at the site.

The site was expanded during World War II by the Royal Canadian Air Force and renamed RCAF Station Downsview.

Downsview AirportThe Downsview Airport was devel-

oped in 1939 as an airfield next to an aircraft manufacturing plant operated by de Havilland Canada. In 1947, the Department of National Defence pur-chased property surrounding the air-field and expanded it, creating RCAF Station Downsview to provide an air base for Royal Canadian Air Force units. The base was renamed Canadian Forces Base Toronto (Downsview) in 1968 and retained this name until its closure in 1996.

Since 1998, the property has been administered by a civilian Crown cor-poration Parc Downsview Park, which co-manages the airfield with Bombar-dier Aerospace (the successor to de Havilland Canada). In recent years the property has been undergoing various landscape usage plans and some rede-velopment has taken place.

The airfield was used in recent years to host the 1984 and 2002 papal visits by Pope John Paul II, as well as to host the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert headlined by The Roll-ing Stones to revive the local economy after the severe acute respiratory syn-drome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.

The airfield has also served as a test site for several famous aircraft produced by de Havilland and Avro Canada, including the Beaver, the Twin Otter, Dash 8 and the Avro Arrow. The airport is available to pilots only with prior permission.

Bombardier Aerospace currently owns 12 hangars in the southwest cor-ner of the airport, where the De Havil-land Dash 8 is built and assembled. The Bombardier Global Express and the Bombardier Global 5000 are also as-sembled here at the Downsview plant, as are the wings and wingboxes of the Learjet 45.

The airport has one operational runway, 15/33 at 7,000 feet with a paral-lel taxiway. Runway 09/27 at 3,164 feet is closed (east section removed), as is runway 04/22 at 4,000 feet (north sec-tion removed and south part retained as taxiway into the Bombardier plant).

Downsview Airport

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OverviewBehind the Empress Walk complex

on its east side is Princess Park, com-memorating the original sites of the first municipal building and fire hall of North York. The clock tower from the fire hall has been reconstructed and serves as the centrepiece for the park. Across the street, and connected via the TTC tunnel, are Mel Lastman Square, the North York Civic Centre, the North York City Centre office tower and No-votel. Next door, and connected via a passageway is the 5075 Yonge Street tower, with Scotiabank and Upper Madison College.

It was built as part of Mel Lastman’s bid to create a downtown in North York to rival the old city of Toronto. It remains a hub of activity with condo-minium projects being built north and south of it today.

In 2000, the property was acquired by RioCan REIT, a Canadian real estate investment trust.

Major retailersCineplex Cinemas (originally Fa-

mous Players SilverCity & Empire The-atres) (63,644 sq ft.)

Staples Business Depot (originally Indigo Books and Music) (20,202 sq ft.)

LCBO (3,238 sq ft.)

Loblaws greatfood Empress Market (60,100 sq ft.)

Future Shop (originally SportCh-ek) (28,970 sq ft.)

Wendy’s and the former Fabricland (originally Tower Records) (3.934 sq ft. and 10,100 sq ft (940 m2). respectively)

Fabricland closed in late 2012 and was replaced by Dollarama

Re-zoningPrior to the building of Empress

Walk, the east side of Yonge Street did not have the zoning capacity to build condominiums but only office space and retail stores. A deal was made with City Council to re-zone the area on the condition that the developers had done the following without municipal fund-ing:

rebuild Mitchell Field Community Centre

re-align Doris Avenue to prevent thru-way traffic in a residential area connecting Bayview Avenue and Yonge Street.

This decision proved to be a very popular one in the community because Empress Walk would contribute op-portunities for entrepreneurs and also revitalize the aging community. Mitch-ell Field Community Centre drasti-cally required rebuilding or advanced renovations; however, funding was not available.

EmpressWalk

Empress Walk is a large con-dominum and retail complex at the intersection of Yonge Street and Empress Avenue in the North York Centre area of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Developed by Menkes Development, Phase 1 was completed in 1997 and Phase 2 by 2000. The lower portion is a three-storey retail mall (lower level with access to the North York Centre subway station) covering 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2) topped with a 95 feet (29 m) dome, the highlight being the longest unsupported esca-lator in North America to give ac-cess to the movie theatre from the ground floor. There is a 3035-seat Cineplex Cinemas movie multi-plex featuring an IMAX Theatre. Above are two 34-storey residential tow-ers with a total of 745 units between them. These skyscrapers remain among the tallest in North York.


As suburban development in North York progressed northward in the 1960s, Finch was rapidly reconstructed from a gravel road into a four-laned traffic artery. This began with the rea-lignment of several sections, such as at Bayview where Newtonbrook Creek flows diagonally beneath the cross-roads. A rail overpass west of Leslie was built by 1968.

West of Islington Avenue, Finch ended at the Humber River. Traffic proceeding west had to travel on Is-lington, northwards towards Steeles Avenue, or south across the Humber to Albion Road. As urban development came to the Toronto area, a Finch Av-enue alignment was developed in this area, and was completed in the 1980s within Toronto (at Islington), and then briefly into Mississauga with the con-struction of Highway 427, and Bramp-

ton, turning northwestward onto the Gorewood Road concession (formerly Toronto Gore Township Concession 3). The road now ends at Steeles Avenue, where Gorewood Road is cut off by Highway 407. The concession is then called MacVean Drive in northeast-ern Brampton, north of Queen Street, the former Highway 7. It then contin-ues into Caledon as Centerville Creek Road.

Sink holesOn August 19, 2005 a freak rain-

storm in Toronto caused the Black Creek water level to rise, which caused a section of Finch Avenue West near Sentinel Road (due south of York Uni-versity between Keele and Jane Streets) to collapse, leaving a deep pit that pre-vented any pedestrian or vehicular traf-fic from passing through. The crater left

where a 4 lane roadway once was is ap-proximately 20–25 feet (7 metres) deep. Two lanes reopened in late 2005, and the remaining lanes opened in April 2006.

On July 24, 2009 two sink holes ap-peared on Finch Avenue West between Dufferin Street and Bathurst Street.

Transit hubFinch Station, located at the in-

tersection of Finch Avenue and Yonge Street, is the northernmost station of the Toronto subway network and is a major regional transit hub. The sta-tion features a large TTC bus terminal, and the adjoining Finch Bus Termi-nal is a hub for GO Transit, Viva and York Region Transit buses. Finch Av-enue is served by TTC buses 24 hours a day, with the 36 Finch West (309 Blue

Finch Avenue

Finch Avenue is an arterial thoroughfare and concession road which travels east–west through the city of Toronto. The road also has short extensions into Peel and Durham Regions as Peel Regional Road 2 and Durham Regional Road 37.

HistoryThe street is named after hotel owner John Finch, who

operated John Finch’s Hotel at the northeast corner of Finch Avenue and Yonge Street in Toronto. The road allowance was a concession road, and at one time, there were a number of older churches, schoolhouses, and cemeteries on each side of the road. In the 1950s, Ontario Hydro constructed a series of transmission lines around Toronto, and paralleled Finch from Highway 400 eastward into Pickering. A compressed natural gas pipeline also follows this routing.


Night) serving Finch Avenue West, and 39 Finch East (308 Blue Night) serv-ing Finch Avenue East. There are also two express routes serving Finch Av-enue East. Route 139 Finch-Don Mills Express is a peak-hour bus that serves the Don Mills Station on the Sheppard Subway line and the 199 Finch Rocket is an all day route serving Scarborough Centre Station on the Scarborough RT.

As a part of the canceled Transit City light rail plan, Finch Avenue would have been served by the Etobicoke-Finch West LRT, which would have run in the median of Finch Avenue West. In 2012, the LRT plan was revived by city councils, now renamed to Finch W. LRT and shortened from the original Transit City proposal, serving between Humber College and the future Finch West Station of the Yonge-University Spadina line. The line is proposed to be in service by 2019.

NeighbourhoodsOther sites and neighbourhoods

along Finch:

Wild Water Kingdom — at Steeles Avenue East (Brampton), located with-in Brampton, Ontario.

Humber College Main Campus, near Highway 27

Etobicoke General Hospital

Albion Mall — at Albion and Ki-pling Avenue

Thistletown Regional Centre for Children and Adolescents

ThistletownRexdale

Emery — at Weston Road

York-Finch Hospital — Humber River Regional

Jane and Finch

Yorkgate Mall — near Jane Street

Norfinch Mall — near Jane Street

Jane Finch Mall — near Jane Street

York University, north on Keele Street and Sentinel Road

G. Ross Lord Dam and Reservoir, on the Don River (Western Branch), near Dufferin Street/Allen Road

North York Branson Hospital, near Bathurst Street

Herb Carnegie North York Cen-tennial Recreation Complex (opposite Branson)

Esther Shiner Stadium, behind Northview Heights SS at Bathurst

Finch Transit Terminal at Yonge Street.

Finch Parkette — site of John Finch’s Hotel and tavern in 1848; de-molished in 1873

Historic Zion Schoolhouse near Leslie Street

Old Cummer GO Station at Leslie Street

Seneca College Newnham Campus at Highway 404

Bridlewood Mall at Warden Av-enue

Scarborough Grace Hospital at Birchmount Road

Woodside Mall at McCowan Road

Malvern

Rouge Park at the Rouge River

Toronto ZooStreet details

Despite its length (one of the long-

est streets in the Greater Toronto Area), few major landmarks are located on Finch; it runs primarily through busi-ness and residential areas. When it intersects Yonge in Uptown, there are located office high-rises and condo-miniums.

Most of Finch Avenue west of Morningside Avenue is a four to six-lane principal arterial, with a speed limit of 60 km/h (35–40 mph) in most sections. East of Morningside, Finch Av. E becomes Staines Rd. a collector road that runs through residential commu-nities, northeast to Steeles Av. E. How-ever Finch Av. E continues briefly at the south end of Beare Road heading east as it enters into the City of Pickering in Durham Region after Scarborough-Pickering Townline where it is simply known as Finch Av.Durham Road # 37.

In Pickering, Finch Avenue is also known as Durham Road # 37 and con-tinues east to Brock Road (Durham Re-gional Road 1). It ends at a cul-de-sac at Kingston Road (Durham Regional Road # 2 and formerly Highway 2), and the highway follows this concession line to the eastern boundary of Oshawa.

In Mississauga and Brampton, Finch Avenue is also known as Peel Re-gional Road 2, and is the shortest road corridor under the jurisdiction of the Region of Peel.

Side streetsPawnee Avenue and Old Finch

Avenue are both former alignments of Finch Avenue. Pawnee Avenue runs along the former North York Township road alignment between Highway 404 and Victoria Park Avenue. Old Finch Avenue runs in northeastern Scarbor-ough, and includes a section of the original road alignment east of Morn-ingside Avenue to Meadowvale Av-enue, including the routing through the Rouge Park, and the northern edge of the Toronto Zoo.


The Government of Canada Building, also known as the Joseph Sheppard Federal Building, is a Govern-ment of Canada office complex at 4900 Yonge Street in North York. Built in 1977 to service residents of the former Metropolitan Toronto boroughs of North York and Etobicoke, it houses a branch of the Pass-port Office in addition to other federal departments.

The structure, with its multi-layered design, stands out among the surrounding skyscrapers along Yonge Street, which were built during the office boom of the 1990s surrounding the diversification of down-town North York.

Hillcrest Village is a neighbourhood located in the district of North York at the northernmost tip of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hillcrest Village is considered by some to be part of the Don Valley Village, the neighbourhood di-rectly to the south, however it is quite distinct. It is bordered by Finch to the South, Leslie Street to the West, Steeles to the North and Victoria Park to the East. Both neighbourhoods share the Don Valley as a point of reference in the Eastern border of the neighbourhoods.

Hillcrest Village is home to one of Toronto’s most popular Chinese areas. The top ethnicity in the area is by far Chinese and most recent immigrants to the area continue to arrive from China, Hong Kong and Korea. While there is social hous-ing in the area and a large percentage of residents earning low incomes, many residents earn incomes in the top tax brackets. The 75%+ home ownership rate is another indicator of affluence in the area.

The Don Valley provides an interesting hillside landscape in the East end of the neighbourhood. In conjunction with Duncan Creek and numerous parks the area has some natural splendour to enjoy.

Public transit in this area is only bus routes. Most of these are operated by the TTC, including the 42 Cummer, 53 Steeles East, 51 Leslie, 25 Don Mills, 39 Finch East, and 24 Victoria Park bus routes. YRT buses run along Don Mills Road en route to York Region, and also serve Seneca College’s Newnham Campus.

Hillcrest Village

Government of Canada Building,

North York

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HistoryJane-Finch was originally devel-

oped as a model suburb in the 1960s in response to the rapid urban growth of Toronto. The community was planned to accommodate a socially diverse population and included a substantial amount of public housing, but insuf-ficient thought was given to the social infrastructure needed to sustain com-munity life. (A historical name for the general area from 1878 to 1956 was Elia).

The 1960s development plans spearheaded by the Ontario Housing Corporation (OHC) coincided with North York Planning Department’s goal of creating a more urban-looking sub-urb. Known for its series of high-rise buildings and, concomitantly, its above average population density, Jane-Finch

experienced astronomical growth from 1961 to 1971 when the population went from 1,300 to 33,000, thereby account-ing for more than 40% of the growth in North York. In general, urban plan-ners, local politicians, residents of Jane-Finch, and others today are of the opin-ion that the OHC and North York erred seriously, contributing to rapid popula-tion growth in the area without antici-pating its negative consequences.

In 1973, a group of dedicated residents, politicians and community workers started identifying ways to address community problems. They concentrated their efforts on improv-ing their neighbourhood’s negative im-age and creating a sense of community pride. Since then the neighbourhood has developed over 30 grassroots as-sociations, including social and health

service organizations, based on princi-ples of mutual aid. Jane-Finch residents managed to create the infra-structure that their community needed to be-come healthy and sustainable. They succeeded in bringing together various sectors to address a wide range of eco-nomic, social and recreational needs. The United Way’s “Poverty by Postal Code-The Geography of Neighbour-hood Poverty: 1981-2001” (2004) re-port explained that by 2001, there were more high-poverty neighbourhoods in the former City of North York than in any of the other former cities. More than one in five families in North York live in poverty, and in the Jane-Finch region.

The Toronto City Summit Alliance’s Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force identified the Black Creek Neighbour-

Jane and FinchJane and Finch is a neighbourhood located in the north-

west end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the district of North York. Centred at the intersection of Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, the area is roughly bounded by Highway 400 to the west, Driftwood Avenue to the east, Grandravine Drive to the south, and Shoreham Drive to the north. It is a multicultural neighbourhood.

The community has one of the largest concentrations of criminal gangs of any area in Canada. It also has “one of the highest proportions of youth, sole-supported families, refugees and immigrants, low-income earners and public housing tenants of any community in Toronto”. Only 70% of people in the neighborhood have proper indoor plumbing (compared to 95% of Canadians), and brownouts are com-mon.

As well, there is a substantial and equally diverse pop-ulation living in middle class detached and semi-detached houses, townhouses, and high-rise tower blocks.

In January 2009, the area was alternatively named Uni-versity Heights by Toronto Ward 8 city councillor Anthony Perruzza, in an attempt to rid the area of its notorious repu-tation.


hood as one of the 13 Priority Neigh-bourhoods across the city, where there are not enough social services to ad-dress the growing needs of the commu-nity. The United Way “Strong Neigh-bourhoods: A Call to Action” (2001) Fact Sheet on Black Creek also reports that the Black Creek Neighbourhood, which is encompassed in the catchment region of this project, has a higher rate of racialized groups, immigrants, re-cent newcomers, children, youth, lone parents, low income families, low in-come unattached individuals, lower median household income, higher per-centage of households with incomes below $30 000, higher proportion of rental households, higher unemploy-ment, lower percentage of population with university education, and higher percentage of population with less than high school education.

Between 1981 and 2001, the to-tal population of North York grew by 8.7%; higher economic families by 9%, but poor economic families by 80.5%. Poverty intensified in 5 main areas. The most prominent is the Jane-Finch area, where four poor neighbourhoods turned into regions of very high pov-erty, and a region that previously had low to moderate poverty became clas-sified as having high levels of poverty. By 2001, a major shift had taken place, with the immigrant family population now accounting for 62.4% of the total family population in these communi-ties, and Canadian born families mak-ing up the remaining 37.6%. The immi-grants were disproportionately poor, as 65% of the ‘poor’ family persons were immigrants. Between 1981 and 2001, the number of racialized individuals also increased by 219%. The racialized family population then accounted for two thirds of the total family popu-lation in higher poverty neighbour-hoods. Jane and Finch also contains the highest rates of malnutrition and hun-ger in Canada (higher than that of First

Nations communities). See related arti-cles, Poverty in Canada and Economic impact of immigration to Canada As a result, many more children in this area are being raised in high poverty house-holds than in the city as whole.Jane and Finch also contains a large portion of residents without indoor plumbing and inconsistent electricity.

Currently, several community-based organizations, businesses, com-munity residents and city staff have joined together to form the Black Creek West Community Capacity Building Project. Funded by the City of Toronto, the project aims to “improve the qual-ity of life for residents living in the Black Creek West community by plac-ing emphasis on building on assets and capacities, prevention, community in-volvement, diversity and community well-being.” There are also a number of other organizations and networks that have come together to develop pro-grams and solutions to the problems that have been identified in the various reports.

Black CreekIn 2006, it had a population of

21,715

Black Creek’s major ethnic and cul-tural groups (by ancestry) in 2001:

Jamaican – 14%

South Asian – 10%

Italian – 10%

Chinese – 9%

Vietnamese – 7% Canadian – 6%

Guyanese – 4% English – 4%

Spanish – 4% African Black – 3%

Other – 35%

The percentage of population be-low the poverty line dropped from 47% (in 1996) to 40% (in 2001).

Glenfield-Jane HeightsIn 2006, it had a population of

30,715.

Major ethnic populations (2006)

Italian – 5,675

Vietnamese – 3,020

East Indian – 2,945

Chinese – 2,930

Jamaican – 2,645

Canadian – 1,425

Spanish – 1,395

African – 935

Guyanese – 810

Ecuadorian – 780

Places of interestBlack Creek Pioneer Village

York University

Rexall Centre (venue for the pro-fessional Canada Masters tournament)

Seneca College (Seneca@York and Yorkgate Mall campuses)

Toronto Public Library (York Woods Library, including its Theatre, and Jane Sheppard Library)

Jane Finch Mall (featured in the video for Organized Rhyme’s hit song “Check the O.R.”)


Lawrence Heights is a neighbour-hood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located north-west of central Toronto, in the district of North York. The neigh-bourhood is bounded by Lawrence Av-enue to the south, Highway 401 to the north, Allen Road to the east and Duf-ferin Street to the west. It is part of the greater Yorkdale-Glen Park official To-ronto neighbourhood.

CharacterLawrence Heights has been re-

ferred to as the “Jungle” by residents and police alike soon after its creation in 1962. The Globe and Mail news out-let’s article “Toronto’s new murder capi-tal” gives an insight on the crime in the area without actually specifically going into the reasons for the “Jungle” moni-ker, but does contain a quote “It’s like you’re in the jungle. It is like a war,” says Linkx, a 20-year-old rap producer from nearby Rexdale who wears Crip colours and spoke on condition of anonymity. “

The area is divided into two dis-tinct subsections. The area bounded by Yorkdale Shopping Centre to the north, Lawrence Avenue to the south, Duf-ferin Street to the west and Highland Hill to the east. The neighbourhood is a post World War II development of bungalows and storey-and-a-half dwellings. As the frontage of the these homes average 45 feet, the area has had significant changes as older houses are torn down and replaced by “Monster Homes” as the area’s proximity to ma-jor city arteries and the downtown core make it lucrative to builders.

The other housing area, which is east of Flemington Road, is short-term public housing. Because of the area’s proximity to Downsview Airport, high-

rise buildings were not originally per-mitted to be constructed in this area, and the majority of the housing is in low to mid-rise buildings.

Public housing developmentLawrence Heights was the first

large public housing project built by Metropolitan Toronto outside of the then-City of Toronto and is now man-aged under Toronto Community Hous-ing. By 1955, 100 acres (40 ha) had been assembled by Metro. The project would have approximately 6,000 resi-dents in 1,081 family units at a density of 12 families per acre, the largest pub-lic housing project to that date in Can-ada. When the project was announced, it sparked a strong opposition from the then North York Township. Citizens and elected officials threatened legal action to block the development. A compromise was worked out between Metro and North York whereby some of the units would be rented at market rates so that the project would not be exclusively very poor families.

Construction was completed by 1962. It consisted mainly of row houses and maisonettes with some small apart-ment buildings of less than 30 units each. A buffer of single-family dwell-ings was built between the project and the private sub-division to the east. An elementary school was part of the project. The elementary school filled up immediately and senior elementa-ry students were sent to a neighbour-ing junior high. A controversy erupted over the use of the swimming pool at a neighbouring secondary school, whereby project students could only use the pool on one or two evenings per week. A community center was built in the mid-1960s, its $100,000 cost shared

by North York and Metro without any support from the Ontario or the federal housing agency Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

In 2007, city councillor Howard Moscoe unveiled a plan to revitalize Lawrence Heights. The plan proposes a demolition of all 1,208 units in the neighbourhood, as well as Lawrence Square, and they would be replaced by modern affordable units, market hous-ing and retail/commercial streets, in-cluding a northward extension of Mar-lee Avenue.

Notable locationsLawrence Heights Community

Centre

Lawrence Heights Community Health Centre

John Polanyi Collegiate Institute - Formerly known as Sir Sandford Flem-ing Academy in the Bathurst Heights Secondary School facility which was once home to one of Toronto’s elite basketball teams. Bathurst Heights was closed by the Toronto District School Board. The site was temporarily the home of Brebeuf College as Brebeuf underwent a school restoration. The school reopened in 2011 as JPCI when Sir Sanford Fleming was leased as the new (but temporary) home of the over-crowded Dante Alighieri Academy for its grade 9 students.

Lawrence Square Shopping Centre

Canadian Imperial Bank of Com-merce Head Office Operations — 750 Lawrence Avenue West

Yorkdale Shopping Centre — lo-cated just north of the community

Lawrence Heights


Ledbury Park is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. It is located in the southern part of the North York area, just across the border from Midtown Toronto. Its boundaries are Av-enue Road to the east, Lawrence Avenue to the south, Bathurst Street to the West, and Wilson Avenue and Highway 401 to the north.

The area was settled by farmers in the 19th century. In 1918, most of the land was pur-chased by real estate developers, who began to sell lots on the site. Developer H.A. Clark named a number of the new streets, such as Marmion, Deloraine, Melrose,and Falkirk after the works of Sir Walter Scott. It was not until after the Second World War that most of the area was developed. The area was filled with small post-war bungalows and became a middle class suburban area with easy access to Highway 401. The character of the neighbourhood began to change rapidly beginning in the 1990s. Ledbury Park is adjacent to Lawrence Park, one of Toronto’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. Ledbury Park began to be redeveloped in its image as many of the 1950s bungalows were demolished and replaced with much larger based structures.

The park “Ledbury Park” sits in the middle of the neighbourhood and contains a skating rink in winter and a swimming pool in the summer. It also sits next to Ledbury Park Elemen-tary and Middle School, which in 2013 placed 3rd overall among 2000 private and public schools internationally and first in Canada in the International Math League competition.

Leslie Street was originally the second concession line, laid about 13,200 ft (4,000 m) east of Yonge Street. Leslie Street was named for nursery owner George Leslie, who owned a store on Queen Street in Leslieville.

Leslie Street, which has four separate sections, begins at Lake Ontario at the foot of the Leslie Street Spit. Just north at Lake Shore Boulevard East was the former eastern terminus of the Gardiner Expressway. It continues north to the railway tracks north of Gerrard Street East, where the first segment ends. Donlands Avenue, which runs from the north side of the railway tracks to north of O’Connor Drive, was originally another segment of Leslie Street. The second seg-ment is represented by a one-block stretch of road between Wicksteed

Avenue and Vanderhoof Avenue in the Leaside Industrial land area. It is separated from the third segment by the Ernest Thompson Seton park-lands.

The third segment begins at Eg-linton Avenue near E.T. Seton and Wilket Creek Park. It travels north through commercial and residential neighbourhoods in Don Mills and the Don Valley. A proposed exten-sion from Eglinton Avenue south to Bayview Avenue (north of Pottery Road) never came to fruition. It ex-its Toronto and enters York Region at Steeles Avenue. North of there, Leslie Street is a local road and ends shortly thereafter in Wycliffe Park. The fourth segment continues as an arterial road north of John Street in Markham, where Don Mills Road becomes Leslie Street.

Ledbury Park

Leslie Street


The North York Board of Education (NYBE, commonly known as School District 13) is the former public school board for the former city of North York in Ontario, Canada.

In 1998, the provincial Government of Ontario passed legislation which amalgamated North York into the City of Toronto. As part of the amalgamation process, the NYBE ceased to exist. To-day, administration of schools in North York is handled by the Toronto District School Board. The NYBE building was located at 5050 Yonge Street, in the same complex as Mel Lastman Square, the former North York City Hall. This building now houses the Toronto Dis-trict School Board offices.

SchoolsThis is a listing of secondary schools

that were within this district before the merger.

Secondary schoolsAvondale Secondary Alternative School

A. Y. Jackson Secondary School

Bathurst Heights Secondary School

Nelson A. Boylen Collegiate Institute

Downsview Secondary School

Drewry Secondary School

Emery Collegiate Institute

Sir Sandford Fleming Academy

Earl Haig Secondary School

George S. Henry Academy

C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute

William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate In-stitute

Don Mills Collegiate Institute

Newtonbrook Secondary School

Northview Heights Secondary School

Victoria Park Secondary School

Westview Centennial Secondary School

York Mills Collegiate Institute

Yorkdale Secondary School

French-language schoolsPreviously the district operated two

French-language schools in addition to English-language schools. As of May 1980 the district operated two of the seven public French-language schools in Metropolitan Toronto, with the other five being operated by the Metropolitan Separate School Board (now the Toron-to Catholic District School Board). The North York school board required that a potential student must know French before being admitted to a French-speaking school.

In 1977 the school board voted to build a school out of surplus port-able buildings on the site of the Ecole Etienne Brule, spending $120,000 to construct the school. The residents in the area where it was being constructed were against the proposal because 172 children from the area were bussed 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) away to another school, and the new school in their community would not serve them. At nighttime, when workers tried to move the portables onto the site, some resi-dents tried to obstruct their efforts

North York Board of EducationNorth York Board of Education


Sheppard Avenue is carried across the lanes of Highway 404.

East of Yonge Street, Sheppard travels east through North York to Highway 404. Historically, it contin-ued straight to Victoria Park Avenue at the Scarborough border, where travel-lers then turned south to meet up with the Sheppard section through Scarbor-ough. However, a new section called the Lansing Cutoff was constructed joining the two disconnected pieces. The or-phaned section of Sheppard between the 404 and Victoria Park was renamed Old Sheppard Avenue. 43°46’34?N 79°20’13?W

Sheppard continues straight east through Scarborough until just east of Meadowvale Road, where the Rouge River valley presents steep grades 43°48’33?N 79°09’58?W, and so Shep-pard curves southwards to meet King-ston Road just north of Highway 401. At that junction, it also meets Port Un-ion Road, which heads south into the Port Union neighbourhood. However, Twyn Rivers Drive continues east into the Rouge valley as a collector road, and becomes Sheppard again at Altona Road just east of the border of Picker-ing, Durham Region. It continues far-ther east until it ends at Fairport Road just north of Highway 2 / Kingston Road. 43°49’28?N 79°06’26?W

This routing parallels the align-ment for Highway 401 and serves as an alternative if the highway is closed or congested.

Sheppard Avenue WestWest of Yonge Street, Sheppard

travels west across the Sheppard Avenue Bridge over the Don and past Bathurst Street and Wilson Heights Boulevard. Further west, the road allowance be-came blocked in 1939 by the appropria-tion of land for a DeHavilland aircraft plant and, after World War II, Cana-dian Forces Base Downsview. A cres-cent-shaped section of road was finally

constructed along the northern edge of the now former base in the 1970s, con-necting Sheppard at Wilson Heights to Keele Street. 43°45’17?N 79°28’42?W Today, Sheppard also intersects Allen Road on this section, but the intersect-ing portion of Allen Road was not con-structed until 1982. Sheppard Avenue continues still further west to Weston Road, but cannot be extended because the Humber Sheppard Community Centre (the former site of St. Basil’s Catholic High School) is on the west side of the intersection.43°44’01?N 79°32’18?W

Public transportationThe Sheppard Subway runs un-

der Sheppard Avenue East from Yonge Street to Don Mills Road, with propos-als to continue the line farther east-wards to the Scarborough Town Centre and westwards to Downsview Station at Allen Road. There are five stations on the line providing access to Sheppard Avenue, including Bayview, Bessarion, and Leslie, as well as the Sheppard-Yonge (at the junction with the Yonge section of the Yonge-University-Spadi-na line line) Don Mills termini. Downs-view station is located at the corner of Sheppard and Allen Road at the north-ern terminus of the Spadina section of the Yonge-University-Spadina line.

Three bus routes runs along Shep-pard Avenue in Toronto from Sheppard Subway station:

84 Sheppard West (1974–present)

85 Sheppard East (1963-present)

Blue Night Network 385 Sheppard East (2005–present)

This bus route runs along Sheppard Avenue East between Scarborough Centre and Don Mills Stations:

190 Scarborough Centre Rocket (2002-present)

GO Transit has stations at Ag-incourt on the Stouffville line, on Sheppard between Kennedy Road and Midland Avenue, and at Oriole on the Richmond Hill line, south-west of the intersection of Leslie Street and Shep-pard.

CommunitiesEmery , Dublin Heights

Elia, Downsview

Lansing, Bayview Village

Don Valley Village

Willowdale (includes Lansing)

North York Centre

Henry Farm, Parkway Forest

The Peanut, Agincourt

Malvern, L’Amoreaux

Sheppard AvenueSheppard Avenue is an

east-west principal arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A small portion (2.5km) of a continua-tion of the road in Picker-ing, Ontario is also called Sheppard Avenue from Altona Road and Fairport Avenue.

HistorySheppard is named

for Joseph Sheppard I, who acquired 400 acres (160 ha) of land at the northwest corner of Shep-pard and Yonge Street. His son opened a general store there. The site was occupied in 1860 by the Dempsey Hardware Store,

which was later moved and restored as a museum. The former site is now an emp-ty lot pending developed of a commercial building.

In the former Scarbor-ough municipality, Shep-pard was once called the Lansing Sideroad.


Sunnybrook Health Sciences Cen-tre, abbreviated SHSC and known simply as Sunnybrook, is an academic health sciences centre located in Toron-to, Ontario.

It is the largest trauma centre in Canada and is one of two major trau-ma centres in Toronto; the other is St. Michael’s Hospital. It offers compre-hensive care and is a national leader in image-guided therapies.

It is one of the fastest growing hos-pitals in North America, and is the na-tion’s largest maternity hospital with the new Women & Babies Program, which opened on September 12, 2010. Sunnybrook is home to the Edmond Odette Regional Cancer Centre and the Schulich Heart Centre, both national

leaders in the respective areas of medi-cine. In October 2008, Sunnybrook was named one of Greater Toronto’s Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.

The Kilgour Wing (K Wing) is a long-term care centre with the large majority of patients being war veterans in World War II.

HistoryAlice M. Kilgour donated the Sun-

nybrook Farm to the City of Toronto in memory of her husband, Joseph Kilg-our, for use as a public park in 1928. With the consent of the Kilgour heirs, part of the parkland was transferred to the Government of Canada to build a hospital for veterans. The Sunnybrook

Veterans Hospital opened its doors in June 1948. In 1991, The Province of Ontario opened major research facili-ties to house the rapid growth of re-search on campus.The hospital merged with Women’s College Hospital and the Orthopaedic and Arthritic Hospital in June 1998 under the provisions of Bill 51, but Sunnybrook and Women’s Col-lege Health Sciences Centre was de-amalgamated in April 2006 to create Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the separate Women’s College Hos-pital. On July 1, 2012, Sunnybrook and St. John’s Rehab Hospital voluntarily merged, recognizing that their highly complementary programs and services can offer patients a seamless, continu-um of care from acute injury or illness, through to rehabilitation and recov-ery. Currently, Sunnybrook maintains

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre


three campuses, with its main campus (Bayview) on Bayview Avenue in North York, the satellite Holland Centre (or-thopaedic and arthritic care) on Welles-ley St. E., and St. John’s Rehab on Cum-mer Avenue. SHSC became affiliated with the University of Toronto in 1966.

Areas of focusVeterans and Community

Located in the Kilgour Wing it is partnered with Veterans Affairs Cana-da and has about 500 veterans of WWII and the Korean War. For veterans they provide various types of services such as mental health, cognitive and pallia-tive care which is also provided to the general population

Brain SciencesThey provide care for people with

brain-related problems including de-mentia, strokes and mood and anxiety disorders. It is also a research centre looking into areas such as neuropsy-chology and neurochemistry.

Holland Musculoskeletal ProgramThe program is mainly involved

in musculoskeletal injury but are also involved in musculoskeletal education and research.

Women and BabiesThe program provides gynaecol-

ogy services and includes a neonatal intensive-care unit. They deliver about 4,000 babies a year, of which 25% are high risk births.

Schulich Heart CentreThe centre is named for Seymour

Schulich a Canadian businessman and

philanthropist from Montreal. The cen-tre, as per the name, is a cardiac care clinic and is involved in research, sur-gery and intervention.

Odette Cancer CentreThe centre is involved in cancer re-

search but also provides education and treatment.

Trauma, Emergency and Critical Care

The hospital provides critical care and provides a consultation service to the Ross Tilley Burn Centre. The emer-gency department is open 24 hours a day. The trauma centre provides emer-gency medical services to patients suf-fering traumatic injuries.

St. John’s RehabSt. John’s Rehab Hospital provides

specialized rehabilitation, education and support for people recovering from complex, life-changing illnesses and in-juries, including: amputations, cancer, cardiovascular surgery, organ trans-plants, orthopaedic conditions, stroke and neurological conditions, traumatic injuries and complex medical proce-dures and conditions.

HeliportA helicopter pad (TC LID: CNY8)

is located at the east end of the hospi-tal grounds. Sunnybrook handles air ambulance flights with urgent trauma cases from the Greater Toronto Area where an ambulance run is not possi-ble. Only two other hospitals in Toron-to have helipads (St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto) and Hospital for Sick Chil-dren).

Private, for-profit cancer clinicSunnybrook Hospital was the site

of Ontario’s first private cancer clinic created since the inception of Medi-care. The clinic operated after regu-lar working hours at the hospital, and was owned by Dr. Tim McGowan. An investigation by the Auditor General of Ontario revealed that the cost per procedure was $500 greater than in the public sector and that the waiting times did not decrease in the public system as a result of the clinic’s creation. The clinic operated from 2001 until 2003.

Holland Musculoskeletal CentreThe Holland Centre consists of

the Orthopaedic Program located in downtown Toronto; the Holland Cen-tre Campus is located on 43 Wellesley St. East.

The Holland Orthopaedic and Ar-thritic Centre was initially founded as the Orthopaedic and Arthritic Hospital by Dr. James E. Bateman and Charles S. Wright II in 1955 based on a charter procured by Dr. C. Stewart Wright, an orthopaedic surgeon. It was founded as a specialty hospital for the treatment of patients with orthopaedic ailments. The building it was founded in was a sanito-rium and since then it has undergone a series of renovations and additions.

As part of the Ontario initiative to reduce hospital wait-times, the Holland Orthopaedic and Arthritic Centre was named as a centre of excellence in joint replacement.

Shop online at http://www.LinQTab.com/

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The Toronto Dis-trict School Board (TDSB; known as Eng-lish-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999) is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, On-tario, Canada. The mi-nority public-secular francophone (Conseil scolaire Viamonde), public-separate anglophone (Toronto Catholic District School Board), and public-separate francophone (Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud) communities of Toronto also have their own publicly funded school boards and schools that operate in the same area, but which are independent of the TDSB. Its headquarters are in North York.The TDSB is Canada’s larg-est school board and the fourth largest school board in North America.

HistoryThe TDSB was created in 1998

following the merger of the Board of Education for the City of York, the East York Board of Education, the North York Board of Education, the Scarbor-ough Board of Education, the Etobi-coke Board of Education, the Toronto Board of Education and the Metropoli-tan Toronto School Board.

Originally the headquarters was lo-cated at 155 College Street, the former offices of the Toronto Board of Educa-tion. The head office moved from 155 College Street to 5050 Yonge Street, which was previously occupied by the North York Board of Education.

OrganizationThe school board’s organiza-

tional mission is “to enable all students to reach high levels of achievement and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values they need to become responsible members of a democratic society.”

The TDSB is the largest school board in Canada and the 4th largest in North America. The record was previ-ously held by the Metropolitan Sepa-rate School Board with over 100,000 students until 1998 what is now the To-ronto Catholic District School Board.

There are more than 250,000 stu-dents in nearly 600 schools within the TDSB. Of these schools, 451 offer ele-mentary education, 102 offer secondary level education, and there are five adult day schools. The TDSB has 16 alterna-tive elementary schools as well as 20 al-ternative secondary schools. TDSB has approximately 31,000 permanent and 8,000 temporary staff, which includes 10,000 elementary school teachers and 5,800 at the secondary level.

There has also been an effort to in-clude more student involvement in the Toronto District School Board. The “Su-per Council” is an organization which

acts as a student council for the entire board.There has also been an attempt to place student input in the TDSB’s Equity Department through the second, and last, board-wide student group: Students Working Against Great In-justice.Both groups have put together various events and have had much success in giving input towards the de-cisions of the Board

Former DirectorsChris Spence 2009-2013 - resigned

due to a plagiarism scandalGerry Con-nelly 2005-2009 David Reid 2001-2005 - now with Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Marguerite Jackson 1998-2001 - now CEO of the Education Quality and Accountability Office

Community involvementThe TDSB’s Parent and Commu-

nity Involvement Policy describes ways in which “parents, the community, stu-dents, staff and the Board” are working together. One option is the Parent In-volvement Advisory Committee.

Proposing and starting a schoolParents can design and propose

a new school in the TDSB. There is a 2-year process for review, approval and opening the school.

ControversiesFinancial issues

In 2002, the Government of On-tario stripped all power and authority from the school board trustees because they failed to balance the board’s budg-et. Paul Christie was appointed by the

Toronto District School Board


province to serve as supervisor of the Toronto District School Board, with authority for all financial and admin-istrative functions of the Board. This allowed Christie to supersede the au-thority of elected school trustees. The provincial government argued that the appointment was necessary, as the TDSB had not submitted a budget to the Ontario Minister of Education as legally required. Representatives of the TDSB claimed that they could not find the necessary operating expenses for the year, given provincial regulations which prohibited deficit spending. Christie balanced the TDSB’s budget through a dramatic spending reduction of $90 million. Under his watch, the TDSB eliminated many secretarial po-sitions, phased out school-community advisors, child and youth counsellors, and attendance counsellors and re-duced the number of vice-principals, cut outdoor education and adult edu-cation, and re-evaluated the position of social workers in the system. Christie’s staff reports were not made public, and some critics argued that there were no ad-equate checks or balances on his authority.

Blackstone Partners carried out a review in 2006. They submitted a 113-page report in January 2007.Blackstone Partners were “asked to determine if the facilities division had “effective governance.””The report showed “high costs of repairs, lots of workers and spotty results, and managerial “silos” that made it hard for principals to fig-ure out whom to approach to get a job done.”Blackstone Partners gave 43 rec-ommendations in the report.The school board claims a few have been carried out and others are in the works.When surveyed about a wide range of topics, the worst result was the school board’s maintenance and construction divi-sion. Eighty percent of principals didn’t believe the maintenance and construc-tion division delivered good value for the money TDSB director Chris Spence “To use a football analogy, we are trying to move the yardstick. There is no quick

fix.”The Toronto Star reported that in recent investigation showed little has changed since that review. A high school principal “raised questions about the $143 cost of installing a pencil sharp-ener and the $19,000 cost of installing a sign on the school’s front lawn.”

In 2007, again due to alleged mis-management by the trustees, the board will try to submit a budget with a deficit of $84 million.

The school board wants $3.6 mil-lion from the Toronto Star before it re-leases a database. The database shows “work orders showing what taxpayers have been charged for maintenance and construction projects at local schools. In June 2012, the Toronto Star asked for “an electronic copy showing three years of work at the TDSB.”

The Ontario Ministry of Education Froze funding for the school board’s buildings project. The ministry cited the possibility of a $10 million to $11 mil-lion cost overrun for the retrofit of Nel-son Mandela Park Public School. The project was originally priced at $21.7 million. Some of the school board’s trustees are “outraged”. Laurel Broten, Ontario’s Minster of Education, stated, “We are not happy they don’t know why” when talking about the overrun. She also stated that a supervisor may be sent in.

Contract with Trade CouncilA top official from the Toronto Dis-

trict School Board stated that he has concerns about a “controversial con-tract” between the Trades Council and the Ontario Government and claims that the contract with the trades coun-cil is “politically motivated. Chris Bol-ton, the Chairman of the school board, stated that the Trade Council is a “major contributors to the Liberals” and even campaigned for the Liberals. A govern-ment spokesperson stated that Educa-tion Minister Laurel Broten decision to retain the Trade Council’s services

“nothing to do with politics.”

Terms of the contract includes:“The TDSB will not be allowed to

hire outside workers for some jobs. The school board won’t be allowed to hire outside workers even if it would cost taxpayers less.

“The trades council is still allowed to choose all new workers for the pub-licly funded school board.” The Toronto District School Board, who pays the work-ers, doesn’t have a say on who is hired.

A structured shift system will be preserved where the morning and after-noon shifts overlaps. This requires the school board to maintain extra trucks and vehicles. The school board has esti-mated “it could have sold off up to 300 trucks and other vehicles that would not be needed if the afternoon shift started when the morning shift ended.

Immigration Act chargesIn 2001, Toronto School Board

Trustee Sam Basra was convicted of Im-migration Act charges and was forced under the Education Act to resign his seat. He pleaded guilty in August 2001 to selling fake offers of employment to potential immigrants for US$1,500.00 each. This came to light after being tipped by a former employee, police raided Basra’s paralegal firm and found 250 false letters of employment. In March 2001 Arjan Singh launched a $15 million lawsuit against Basra alleging that while doing paralegal work, Basra forged documents to make him think his rights case was active more than a year after it was closed. After much in-fighting among the trustees and inaction from then Chair of the Board Donna Cansfield to make an appointment to fill the vacant trustee seat left by Basra, a by-election was called for April 2002 costing the board $160,000.00. Stan Nemiroff de-feated former Mayor of Etobicoke Bruce Sinclair in the by-election to become the new Ward 1 trustee representing Etobi-coke North.


Victoria Park Avenue is a major north-south route in eastern Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the western bor-der of Scarborough, separating it from Old Toronto, East York, and North York.

HistoryVictoria Park Avenue was origi-

nally a pioneer road for settlement of Scarborough. Except for its very south-ernmost section (south of Bracken Ave-nue), the road once formed the bound-ary for the former township, borough, and city of Scarborough with the for-mer municipalities of East York, North York, and the former city of Toronto.

Route descriptionVictoria Park Avenue begins as a

two-lane residential street near Lake Ontario at Queen Street at the east end of The Beaches community. It takes a sharp jog west just before Bracken Av-enue, and then continues in a straight

line northward.

It is still a two-lane residential street from Bracken Avenue north to Gerrard Street, albeit one with a heavy traffic load; at Gerrard Street it becomes a four-lane major arterial road. It reduces to two lanes again from a point north of Danforth Avenue to Dawes Road, then resumes its role as a four-lane arterial road for the rest of its length. North of Dawes it shifts from being a residential street to being a suburban arterial, with mostly stores and low rise apartment buildings along the rest of its length.

Victoria Park Avenue ends a short distance north of Steeles Avenue at Denison Street in Markham, Ontario.

TransportationVictoria Park remains one of the

busiest north-south streets on Toronto’s east side, along with Markham Road and Kennedy Road. It is served by the Toronto subway and RT at Victoria Park

station and Route 24 (Victoria Park) and Route 12 (Kingston Road) buses. Historically the first bus to service the street were private routes that oper-ated along Dawes Road, and then north along Victoria Park. This route was tak-en over by the TTC in 1954, and offered service as far north as Victoria Park and Lawrence. The opening of Victoria Park subway station in 1968 led to the crea-tion of the 24 Victoria Park, replacing the Dawes Road bus on Victoria Park. It first ran to Victoria Park and Old Sehp-pard Road, but has steadily been ex-tended northwards. Today it runs into York Region, along Woodbine Avenue at the request of the city of Markham. Alsi beginngin in 1968, the portion of Victoria Park south of the subway sta-tion began to be served by the 12 King-ston Road bus. This bus travels south until Kingston Road and then turns east into Scarborough. It stops at the Bingham Loop to meet up with the ter-mini of the 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Rd.

Victoria Park Avenue


Willowdale is an established, afflu-ent community in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. It was originally made up from three postal villages, namely Newtonbrook, Willowdale and Lan-sing.

Willowdale was originally a postal village (orig. Willow Dale) which cov-ered the area from Finch Ave. at the north to Elmwood Ave at the south and Bathurst St. at the west to Bayview Ave. at the east. The postal Village of Lansing was from Elmwood Ave. at the north to approx. Hwy. 401 at the south and Bathurst St. at the west to Bayview

Ave. at the east. (East of Bayview Ave. would have been the postal village of Oriole.) The north-south centreline of Lansing & Willowdale was Yonge St. The postal Village of Lansing remained in existence until the Post Office at Lan-sing corner (northwest corner of Yonge St. & Sheppard Ave.) was closed. When a new Post office was built in Wil-lowdale, the whole area of the former postal villages of Lansing & Willowdale then became Willowdale, but still only a postal village, all within the Township of North York at that time. (Newton-brook, originally Newton Brook, was also a postal village, located on Yonge St., north from Finch Ave. to Steeles

Ave.) where a number of small business and commercial buildings still remain. The boundaries of the current neigh-bourhood extend as far east as Victoria Park Avenue, west to Bathurst Street, south to the 401 freeway, and north to Steeles Avenue. The neighbourhood abuts Bayview Village to the east and is considered to overlap Newtonbrook to the north. North York Centre is cen-tred at the intersection of Yonge Street and Empress Avenue and is common-ly thought to be a part of Willowdale, though its high-rise residential and commercial development in recent years sets it apart from much of the rest of Willowdale.

Willowdale


The Willowdale neighbourhood consists of single-family homes, con-dominium townhouses and high-rise condominium towers. High density development is restricted along Yonge Street. The single-family homes range in age from the original 1910 to 1950s construction (one- and two-storey pre-war houses and modest one-and-a-half-storey postwar houses). After the 1990s, very large replacement two-storey luxury homes were constructed by tearing down the original houses. It is in this neighbourhood that the term “monster homes” was first applied by Torontonians.

HistoryWillowdale was first settled by

Jacob Cummer, who immigrated to Canada from the United States in 1797. Cummer was a mill owner on the near-by Don River, a proprietor of a tinsmith shop on Yonge Street and a self-trained doctor and veterinarian. Cummer was held in such high esteem by his neigh-bours that this area was originally known as Kummer’s Settlement.

David Gibson, a distinguished land surveyor, was another leader in this community. Like most of his neigh-bours, Gibson participated in the ill-fated Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. He was thus charged with high treason and escaped to the United States, where he found employment as the First As-sistant Engineer on the building of the Erie Canal.

Gibson returned to his Yonge Street farm in 1851, after being pardoned for his role in the Rebellion. He then helped to establish the “’Willow Dale”’ post of-fice, named after the many willow trees that once graced this district. Members

of the Gibson family were still living in Gibson House in the 1920s when the residential subdivision of Willowdale began to take place.

The Gibson House, circa 1851, is still standing in its original location at 5172 Yonge Street and is now a historic museum.

DemographicsPopulation

Home to 79,440 people, Wil-lowdale is an ethnically diverse com-munity, with 59% of all Willowdale residents being immigrants as of 2006. Major ethnic groups in Willowdale in-clude: Chinese: 23.7%, Korean: 9.6%, and Jewish: 5.8%. While English is the mother tongue for 43.7% of the popula-tion, other languages with large num-bers of speakers include: Chinese: 16%, Korean: 5.4%, and Russian: 5.1%.

Willowdale United ChurchThe first “church” in Willowdale

was called the Cummer Chapel, located at the northwest corner of what is now Yonge and Churchill. This log meeting house was built in 1816 by Jacob Cum-mer on part of his farm. He and other early members of the church are bur-ied in the cemetery which remains on the site, now on the east side of Yonge Street.

The Cummers, who were the first German loyalists and farmers from Pennsylvania, had Lutheran roots. However, they readily mixed in with and married people with Methodist and other roots. Thus the chapel was designated as non-denominational.

A large, yellow, brick and stucco church with a tall spire replaced the

log building in 1856. It was called the Methodist Episcopal Church, and be-came part of the new United Church of Canada in 1925. Between 1931 and 1932, Yonge Street was widened and the front end of the church, facing west, was removed. The front door was relo-cated to the south side of the building.

Following World War II, many veterans and their families began to settle in Willowdale. In 1946, the Rev. Welburn Jones became the minister of Willowdale United Church (WUC) and initiated a building program. In 1954 a substantial building was built on nearby Kenneth Avenue. In 1966, his succes-sor, the Rev. Lindsay G. King, replaced him and completed the program.

The Rev. King spent the rest of his ministry, twenty seven years, at WUC. After just over forty years of service, he retired—he prefers to say that he re-di-rected—to live in Thornhill to which he and his wife Jean (Turner) had moved in 1988.

While he was the minister of WUC, the Rev. King wrote a regular column for the community paper and he was frequently heard on radio and televi-sion, including the CTV and the CBC. Because of his lifelong interest in bring-ing psychology, religion and health to-gether, in 1973 he initiated the found-ing of the Family Life Foundation (FLF) of Willowdale. It is a registered federal charity encouraging the development of healthy community and family life—including body, mind and spirit—re-gardless of race, creed or religion. Be-lieving in re-directment and skilled in personal and family counseling, the Rev. King said that he would continue to volunteer his services to the FLF and the community for the rest of his life.


Yonge Street (pronounced “young street”) is a major arterial route con-necting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. It was formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest street in the world at 1,896 km (1,178 mi). The construction of Yonge Street is designated an Event of National Historic Significance in Canada. Yonge Street was fundamen-tal in the original planning and settle-ment of western Upper Canada in the 1790s, informing the basis of the con-cession roads in Ontario today. Long the southernmost leg of Highway 11, linking the capital with northern On-tario, Yonge Street has been referred to as “Main Street Ontario”. A large part of the route follows an ancient well-estab-lished Aboriginal trail that linked the Lake Ontario waterfront to northern parts of the region. It was also the site

of Canada’s first subway line.

The street was named by On-tario’s first colonial administrator, John Graves Simcoe, for his friend Sir George Yonge, an expert on ancient Roman roads. Yonge Street is a com-mercial main thoroughfare rather than a ceremonial one, with landmarks such as the Eaton Centre, Yonge-Dundas Square and the Hockey Hall of Fame located along its length—and lends its name to the eponymous Downtown Yonge shopping and entertainment dis-trict.

In Toronto and York Region, Yonge Street is the north-south baseline from which street numbering is reckoned east and west. The eastern branch of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line serves nearly the entire length of the street in Toronto and acts as the spine of the Toronto subway and RT, linking

to suburban commuter systems such as the Viva Blue BRT.

Route descriptionYonge Street originates on the

northern shore of Toronto Bay at Queen’s Quay, a four-lane arterial road (speed limit 50 km/h) proceeding north by north-west. Toronto’s Har-bourfront is built on landfill extended into the bay, with the former industrial area now converted from port, rail and industrial uses to a dense residential high-rise community. The street passes under the elevated Gardiner Express-way and the congested rail lines of the Toronto viaduct on their approach to Union Station. The road rises slightly near Front Street, marking the pre-landfill shoreline. Here, at the southern edge of the central business district, is the Dominion Public Building, the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts

Yonge Street


and the Hockey Hall of Fame, the latter housed in an imposing former Bank of Montreal office, once the largest bank branch in Canada. Beyond Front Street the road passes through the east side of the Financial District, within sight of many of Canada’s tallest buildings, fronting an entrance to the Allen Lam-bert Galleria.

Between Front Street and Queen Street, Yonge Street is bounded by his-toric and commercial buildings, many serving the large weekday workforce concentrated here. Yonge Street’s entire west side, from Queen Street to Dundas Street, is occupied by the Eaton Centre, an indoor mall featuring shops along its Yonge Street frontage and a Sears anchor store at the corner of Dundas Street (currently under renovation be-cause of Sears’ recent downscaling). The east side has two historic perfor-mance venues, the Canon Theatre and the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres. In addition, Massey Hall is located just to the east on Shuter Street.

Opposite the Eaton Centre lies Yonge-Dundas Square. The area now comprising the square was cleared of several small commercial buildings and redeveloped in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with large video screens, retail shopping arcades, fountains and seat-ing in a bid to become “Toronto’s Times Square”. It is used for numerous public events.

Another stretch of busy retail lines both sides of Yonge Street north of Dundas Street, including the Sam the Record Man flagship store until its clo-sure on June 30 2007. The density of businesses diminishes north of Gerrard Street; residential towers flank this sec-tion. The Art Deco College Park build-ing, a former shopping complex of the T. Eaton Company, occupies most of the west side of Yonge Street from Ger-rard Street north to College Street. It was converted into a residential and

commercial complex after the building of the Eaton Centre.

From College Street north to Bloor Street, Yonge Street serves smaller street-level retail, mostly in two- to three-storey buildings of a hundred years’ vintage. The businesses here, un-like the large chains which dominate south of Gerrard Street, are mostly small independent shops and serve a dense residential community on either side of Yonge Street with amenities such as convenience stores.

The intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets is a major crossroads of Toronto, informally considered the northern edge of the downtown core. The Bloor–Danforth line subway line intersects the Yonge line here, with the resulting transfers between lines mak-ing Bloor-Yonge Station the busiest in the city. The Hudson’s Bay Centre and Two Bloor West office towers dominate the corner, visible both from downtown and beyond, with the south-east corner earmarked for a major condominium development. The intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets is itself a “scramble”-type intersection allowing pedestrians to cross from any corner to any other corner.

Immediately north of Bloor, the street is part of the old town of Yor-kville, today a major shopping district extending west of Yonge Street along Cumberland and Bloor Streets. North of Yorkville, Yonge Street forms the main street of Summerhill, which to-gether with Rosedale to the east is not-ed for its opulent residences. The area is marked by the historic North Toronto railway station, formerly served by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR route parallels the foot of the Iroquois shoreline escarpment, which Yonge Street ascends here toward Midtown.

From approximately St. Clair Av-enue to Yonge Boulevard, Yonge Street

is central to the former suburb of North Toronto and features mixed low-scale residential, retail and commercial buildings. Major intersections in Mid-town, served by some of the city’s busi-est TTC stations, dot the skyline with dense clusters of high-rises in an other-wise leafy residential setting. The inter-section at Eglinton Avenue has become a focal point, serving as a high-density residential, commercial and transit hub. The site of Montgomery’s Tavern is nearby, scene of a significant clash in the Upper Canada Rebellion and a Na-tional Historic Site.

North of Yonge Boulevard, Yonge Street traverses the deep forested ravine of the West Don Valley at Hoggs Hol-low, a formidable obstacle in pioneer days and the site of one of the last of the former toll gates. The lower-density residential community and park-like setting here represent an interlude be-tween North Toronto and the newer high-rise district beyond, towering over the valley. Canada’s busiest sec-tion of highway (Highway 401) spans the valley via the Hogg’s Hollow Bridge (exit 369). Leaving the valley, densities, traffic and the speed limit all increase (the latter to 60 km/h) on entering the downtown core of the former suburban city of North York. The street widens to a six-lane urban arterial road through North York, passing inner-suburb tran-sit hubs at Sheppard and Finch Av-enues.

From Finch Avenue to the bound-ary of Toronto and Highway 407 (exit 77) in York Region, Yonge Street is a suburban commercial strip, signed as York Regional Road 1. This 39 km (24 mi) segment is a busy suburban arte-rial, interrupted by the original town centres of exurban communities such as Thornhill, where the route crosses the East Don Valley in the upper part of its watershed. At increasingly higher elevations, the road traverses Rich-mond Hill, where the dome of the Da-


vid Dunlap Observatory was a visible landmark on the route, and the town of Aurora. Between Richmond Hill and Aurora, Yonge Street is in a near-rural setting, passing a number of ket-tle lakes and traversing the crest of the Oak Ridges Moraine, thence leaving the Lake Ontario basin. Toward the re-gional seat of Newmarket, Yonge Street again serves as a main suburban artery, passing through low-density residential and still-undeveloped areas.

Regional Road 1 deviates from the original baseline 56 km (35 mi) north of Lake Ontario, bypassing the centre of Holland Landing with a north-west heading and thereby circumnavigat-ing Cook’s Bay and the lower Holland Marsh. The bypass was constructed in 1959. Regional Road 51, also named Yonge Street, branches off Regional Road 1 at the foot of the bypass to con-tinue north through Holland Landing. This short section, known locally as the Yonge Street Extension, is co-routed with Regional Road 13. To the west of Holland Landing the main route cross-es the Holland River and its polders near the town of Bradford. Resuming its original north by north-west head-ing with a 90-degree turn in the cen-tre of Bradford, Yonge Street roughly parallels Lake Simcoe’s western shore, traversing the rolling hills of southeast Simcoe County, and is signed Simcoe Road 4. The route ends in Barrie, less than a kilometre from Kempenfelt Bay, at a T-intersection with Essa Road.

HistoryEstablishment of the route

With the outbreak of hostilities be-tween France and Great Britain in 1793, part of the War of the First Coalition, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario), John Graves Simcoe, was concerned about the pos-sibility of the United States entering British North America in support of their French allies. In particular, the

location of Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake), the first and former capital of Upper Canada, was in danger of be-ing attacked by the Americans from the nearby border. Additionally, US forces could easily sever British access to the upper lakes at Lake St. Clair or the De-troit River, cutting the colony off from the important trading post at Michili-mackinac.

Simcoe planned to move the capi-tal to a better-protected location and build overland routes to the upper lakes as soon as possible. Simcoe established York, as Toronto was originally called, with its naturally enclosed harbour, as a defensible site for a new capital. To provide communications between the site and the upper lakes, he planned two connected roads, the first running north from York to Lake aux Claies, the second joining Lake aux Claies with Georgian Bay. This would allow overland transport to the upper lakes, bypassing U.S. strongholds. The route from Lake Ontario to Lake aux Claies is still known as Yonge Street, and the second leg to Georgian Bay was long known as the Penetanguishene Road.

Before the construction of Yonge Street, a portage route, the Toronto Car-rying-Place Trail, had already linked Lake Ontario with Lake aux Claies. On 25 September 1793, Simcoe and a small party of soldiers and native guides started northward along the trail, es-tablishing the Pine Fort on the western branch of the Holland River, near the modern location of Bradford. Stopping only to rename Lake aux Claies “Sim-coe” in memory of his father, the party continued north to Lake Couchiching, and then down the Severn River to Georgian Bay. Here he selected the site of Penetanguishene as the location for a new naval base and port.

On his return he met with an Ojib-way named ‘Old Sail’ and was shown a new route along another arm of the trail,

this one starting on the eastern branch of the Holland River and thereby avoid-ing the marshes of the western branch (today’s Holland Marsh). They left Pine Fort on October 11 and reached York on the 15th. Simcoe selected this east-ern route for his new road, moving the southern end from the Rouge River to the western outskirts of the settled area in York, and the northern end to a pro-posed new town on the Holland River, St. Albans.

The road was actually called ‘Con-cession 1’at first with Concessions 2 etc. on either side. For instance Concession 1 Whitchurch Township faces Yonge St. and goes east to Concession 2 which starts at Bayview Ave. Concession 1 King Township faces Yonge St. and goes west to Concession 2which starts at Ba-thurst St. There are 10 concessions in York County going east and west from Concession 1,Yonge St. The east side ending at then Ontario County, now Durham Ragion, and the west side end-ing at Peel County (now Peel Region).


York Mills is the name of an af-fluent neighbourhood around Yonge Street and York Mills Road located in the district of North York in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, it encompassed

the 4th and 7th most affluent postal codes in Canada. It is recognized as Millionaires' Row, alongside the other Toronto neighbourhoods of The Bri-dlepath, Forest Hill, Lawrence Park, and Rosedale.

Part of the area is also known as Hoggs Hollow, named for James Hogg, a Scottish settler who settled in the area in 1824 and operated the mill on Yonge Street at the Don River north of the Town of York

(now Toronto), by his sons John and William in 1856. Another portion is named St. Andrew-Windfields. St. Andrew-Windfields most famous resi-dent was the popular Canadian Philan-thropist E. P. Taylor who left Canada towards the latter years of his life and donated Parkland (now Windfields Park) and his mansion

(now the Canadian Film Centre).

HistoryThe area name is linked to saw and

grist mills that dotted the Don River, which flows through York Mills. The Town of York Mills became part of the Township of North York. North York

later became a

borough, and then a city, and was merged with five other municipalities and a regional government to form the new "City of Toronto" in 1998.

The area was the site of a tragic ac-cident on March 17, 1960, when five Italian construction workers on a water main project were killed in a tunnel fire.

As well, the area once linked by radial railways and Highway 11, now can be reached via Highway 401, GO Transit, and Toronto Transit Commis-sion buses and York Mills station on the Yonge-University Spadina subway line.

Today, the area is home to luxury condos and high end homes.

TopographyNatural EnvironmentFrom Yonge

Street eastward, the roads slope upward but plateau as they reach Bayview Av-enue. The natural environment is also highly integrated into the neighbour-hood, with development seeming to build around it. The presence of green-ery is a protected and distinguishable feature of York Mills.

Man-Made EnvironmentSouth of York Mills Road and Yonge

Street sits the sub-neighbourhood of Hoggs Hollow. Houses in this residen-tial area are embedded into the natural landscape, which ascends southward.

The directional slope and other natural features

serve as identifiable landmarks, edges, and paths, making this area highly leg-ible in terms of a Lynchian analysis. The area has more community-orient-ed characteristics that make it distinct from the rest of York Mills. Most no-tably, residents manage a community board located in the centre of this sub-neighbourhood.

As York Mills is a mainly residen-tial neighbourhood, commercial ac-tivity occurs strictly at intersections of major arterials. At Yonge Street and York Mills Road, the tallest commercial building in the neighbourhood, York Mills Centre, holds large office and re-tail spaces, occupied most notably by the human resources services supplier, Randstad Interim. The York Mills Shop-ping Centre at the intersection of York Mills Road and Bayview Avenue, pro-vides local groceries through the Metro supermarket, Shoppers Drug Mart, and local meat shop. It is set back from the roads by a large parking lot, consistent with the neighbourhoods dependency on automobiles.

Along York Mills Road in between major intersections, there are only sin-gle detached houses. The pedestrian paths are very close to roads. Residen-tial area here leaves no space for any commercial

York Mills


opportunities, thus commercial nodes are only available at the intersec-tion of major arterial roads.

There is very little public space. Properly maintained parks are often playgrounds for children. Actual parks do not properly serve the public as well with its lack of seating and walkways, which discourages overall usage. Free parking compared to the high hourly rates of the rest of Toronto points to space in

York Mills as being an inexpensive commodity, yet there is very little space actually available for development. The current Official Plan does not provide for the anticipation of future develop-ment.

TransportationAs a result of the man-made en-

vironment, large lots, and sprawled out nodes of commercial activity, the neighbourhood is highly reliant on the automobile for everyday activities, with approximately two thirds of the York Mills population using it as a primary mode of transportation . Having High-way 401 in such close proximity adds to the benefits of owning a car, as the degree of mobility to the rest of To-ronto greatly increases. Public transit is reported to be less than a quarter of the populations’ primary method of com-mute.

Pedestrian paths are not a prior-ity and poorly maintained by the city. Deeper in the residential areas, pedes-trian walkways are often only found on one side of the road. As much of the land surrounding the major arterials are claimed by private residences, there is no room to develop along pedestrian paths

and make walking a more appeal-ing option. The combined effect of

this lack of appeal, poor frastructural maintenance, and extended distance in between points of interests justify the populations’ avoidance of walking, with a mere three percent of the population claim walking as their primary mode of commute. York Mills is an example of a neighbourhood stuck within the cycle of auto-dependency.

DemographicsYork Mills is generally inhabited

by families. The two age groups with the highest frequencies are 15-19 year olds (8.3%) and 45-49 year olds (8.7%). There is a dip in between these two age groups in 30-34 year olds (4.8%), indi-cating a lack in young professionals.

The neighbourhood is also known for its high levels of income. The me-dian income is C$267,929, with the av-erage income at C$657,613.

HousingHouses in York Mills are highly dis-

tinguishable and contribute greatly to the proclaimed affluence of the neigh-bourhood. 50% of occupied dwellings are single detached houses. Many have been rebuilt and customized to taste, with heavily renovated front yards. In between 2001 to 2006, property values

have increased by 47.6%. The sec-ond type of most occupied dwelling is apartments reaching five or more sto-reys, inhabited by 28% of the popula-tion.

The average price for condomini-ums in the area ranges from C$350,000 to C$1,000,000, while the average price of a detached home is just above C$2,000,000.

GentrificationYork Mills exhibits a new pattern of

gentrification. The conventional under-standing of this phenomenon is the ag-

gregate displacement of lower income residents due to the renovation and revitalization of existing properties that drive up overall property values. The ends of revitalization remain the same in York Mills, but the means to achiev-ing this differ in that newcomers are taking a “demolish-and-rebuild”

approach to their newly purchased lots. In addition to the convenience of its location beside the highway (given the ownership of an automobile), this revitalization has driven up property values by 47.5% in between 2001 and 2006.

LandmarksPoints of interest in York Mills:

Jolly Miller Tavern (now Miller Tavern) 1857, site of James Hogg Tav-ern 1853 George S. Pratt House 1866

St. Andrew's Park - site of St. An-drew's Junior High School Auberge du Pommier Restaurant - former mill workers cottage St.John's Anglican Church 1816 http://www.sjym.ca York Mills Plaza (now York Mills Shopping Centre) 1952 York Mills Centre - a tran-sit hub, office building, and commercial centre. 4111 Yonge Street - home to Ca-nadian artist C.W. Jeffrey William and Elizabeth Harrison House Don Valley Golf Course Loretto Abbey Catholic Secondary School York Mills Collegiate Institute (local high school - built in 1957) http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/york-millsci/École secondaire Étienne-Brûlé (French Immersion high school that serves the Greater Toronto Area) Path of Glory - Access can be gained across from York Mills Collegiate Windfields Park - host to tennis courts, a com-munity centre and green space. At one time, the town of Bancroft, Ontario, on the York River, was also known as York Mills.


King’s Highway 401, also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway (French: Autoroute Macdonald-Cartier) and colloquially as the four-oh-one, is a 400-series high-way in the Canadian province of Ontar-io. It stretches 817.9 kilometres (508.2 mi) from Windsor to the Quebec bor-der. The part of Highway 401 that pass-es through Toronto is the busiest high-way in the world,and one of the widest. Together with Quebec Autoroute 20, it forms the road transportation backbone of the Quebec City–Wind-sor Corridor, along which over half of Canada’s population resides. The entire route is maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) and patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Po-lice. The posted speed limit is 100 km/h (62 mph) throughout its length.

By the end of 1952, three individu-al highways were numbered “Highway 401”: the partially completed Toronto Bypass between Weston Road and Highway 11 (Yonge Street); Highway 2A between West Hill and Newcastle; and the Scenic Highway between Ga-nanoque and Brockville, now known as the Thousand Islands Parkway. These three sections of highway were 11.8, 54.7 and 41.2 km, (7.3, 34.0 and 25.6 mi), respectively. In 1964, Highway 401 reached provincial highway status. It was then fully navigable from Wind-sor to the Quebec border. In 1965 it

was given a second designation, the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway, in hon-our of the Fathers of Confederation. At the end of 1968, the Gananoque–Brockville section was bypassed and the final intersection grade-separated near Kingston, making Highway 401 a freeway for its entire 817.9-km length. On August 24, 2007, the portion of the highway between Glen Miller Road in Trenton and the Don Valley Parkway / Highway 404 Junction in Toronto was designated the Highway of Heroes, as the road is travelled by funeral convoys for fallen Canadian Forces personnel from CFB Trenton to the coroner’s of-fice in Toronto. On September 27, 2013, the Highway of Heroes designation was extended west to Keele Street in Toronto, to coincide with the move of the coroner’s office to the new Forensic Services and Coroner’s Complex at the Humber River Hospital.

In 2011 construction began on a westward extension of Highway 401 that will be known as the Right Hon-ourable Herb Gray Parkway. This new route will generally follow, but not re-place, former Highway 3 between the current end of the freeway and the E. C. Row Expressway, at which point it will turn and follow that route to a new international bridge, the Detroit River International Crossing.

Elsewhere in Ontario, plans are

underway to widen the remaining four lane sections between Windsor and London to six lanes and to widen the route between Cambridge and Milton as well as through Oshawa. The ex-pansive twelve-plus lane collector–ex-press system will also be extended west through Mississauga to Milton and east through Ajax and Whitby.

Route descriptionHighway 401 extends across South-

western, Central and Eastern Ontario. In anticipation of the future expansion of the highway, the transportation min-istry purchased a 91.4-metre-wide (300 ft) right-of-way along the entire length. Generally the highway occupies only a portion of this allotment. It is one of the world’s busiest highways; a 2008 analy-sis stated that the annual average daily traffic (AADT) count between Weston Road and Highway 400 in Toronto was approximately 450,000, while a second study estimates that over 500,000 vehi-cles travel that section on some days. This makes it the busiest roadway in North America, surpassing the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles and I-75 in Atlanta. The just-in-time auto parts delivery systems of the highly in-tegrated automotive industry of Michi-gan and Ontario have contributed to the highway’s status as the busiest truck route in the world, carrying 60 percent of vehicular trade between Canada and the US.

Ontario Highway 401


Highway 401 also features the busi-est multi-structure bridge in North America, located at Hogg’s Hollow in Toronto. The four bridges, two for each direction with the collector and express lanes, carried an average of 373,700 ve-hicles daily in 2006. The highway is one of the major backbones of a network in the Great Lakes region, connecting the populous Quebec City–Windsor corri-dor with Michigan, New York and cen-tral Ontario’s cottage country. It is the principal connection between Toronto and Montreal, becoming Autoroute 20 at the Quebec border.

HistoryPredecessorsMain articles: Lakeshore Road, The Middle Road, Highway 2 and High-way 2A

Highway 401’s history predates its designation by over two decades. As au-tomobile use in southern Ontario grew in the early 20th century, road design and construction advanced signifi-cantly. Following frequent erosion of Lake Shore Road, then macadamized, a cement road known as the Toronto–Hamilton Highway was proposed in January 1914. Construction began on November 8 of that year, following the onset of World War I. The highway was designed to run along the lake shore, instead of Dundas Street to the north, because the numerous hills encoun-tered along Dundas would have in-creased costs without improving acces-sibility. Middle Road, a dirt lane named because of its position between the two, was not considered since Lake Shore and Dundas were both overcrowded and in need of serious repairs. The road was formally opened on November 24, 1917, 5.5 m (18 ft) wide and nearly 64 km (40 mi) long. It was the first con-crete road in Ontario, as well as one of the longest stretches of concrete road between two cities in the world.

Over the next decade, vehicle us-age increased substantially, and by 1920 Lakeshore Road was again congested, particularly during weekends. In re-sponse, the Department of Highways examined improving another road be-tween Toronto and Hamilton. The road was to be more than twice the width of Lakeshore Road at 12 m (39 ft) and would carry two lanes of traffic in either direction. Construction on what was then known as the Queen Street Ex-tension west of Toronto began in early 1931.

Before the highway could be com-pleted, Thomas McQuesten was ap-pointed the new minister of the Depart-ment of Highways, with Robert Melville Smith as deputy minister, following the 1934 provincial elections. Smith, in-spired by the German autobahns—new

“dual-lane divided highways”—modi-fied the design for Ontario roads, and McQuesten ordered that the Middle Road be converted into this new form of highway. A 40 m (130 ft) right-of-way was purchased along the Middle Road and construction began to con-vert the existing sections to a divided highway. Work also began on Canada’s first interchange at Highway 10.

Beginning in 1935, McQuesten ap-plied the concept of a dual-highway to several projects along Highway 2, in-cluding along Kingston Road in Scar-borough Township. When widening in Scarborough reached the Highland Creek ravine in 1936, the Department of Highways began construction on a new bridge over the large valley, by-passing the former alignment around West Hill. From here the highway was constructed on a new alignment to Oshawa, avoiding construction on the congested Highway 2. As grading and bridge construction neared completion on the new highway between West Hill and Oshawa in September 1939, World War II broke out and gradually tax rev-enues were re-allocated from highway construction to the war effort.

At the same time, between Septem-ber 6 and 8, 1939, the Ontario Good Roads Association Conference was held at Bigwin Inn, near Huntsville, drawing highway engineers from across North America to discuss the new concept of “Dual Highways”. On the first day of the convention, McQuesten announced his vision of the freeway: an uninterrupted drive through the scenic regions of On-tario, discouraging local business and local traffic from accessing the highway except at infrequent controlled-access points. It was announced in the days thereafter that this concept would be applied to a new “trans-provincial ex-pressway”, running from Windsor to the Quebec border.

Highway engineers evaluated fac-


tors such as grading, curve radius and the narrow median used along the Middle Road (which was inaugurat-ed on August 23, 1940, as the Queen Elizabeth Way), and began to plan the course of a new dual highway mostly parallel to Highway 2, with precedence given to areas most hampered by con-gestion. Unlike the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), this highway would not be built along an existing road, but rather on a new right-of-way, avoiding the need to provide access to properties.

Along with immense improve-ments to machinery and construction techniques over its six-year course, the war provided planners an opportunity to conduct a survey of 375,000 drivers, asking them about their preferred route to travel to their destination. Using this information, a course was plotted from Windsor to Quebec, bypassing all towns along the way.

Highway 2S (S for Scenic), was the first completed section of new roadway. Built to connect with the Thousand Islands Bridge at Ivy Lea and opened as a gravel road in late

1941 or early 1942,the road followed the shore of the Saint Lawrence River and connected with the western end of the twinned Highway 2 near Brockville. In addition, the highway between High-land Creek and Oshawa was opened as a gravel-surfaced road in May 1942.

Following the war, construction resumed on roadways throughout On-tario. The expressway between High-land Creek and Oshawa was completed in December 1947, while other sections languished. The Toronto–Barrie High-way was the primary focus of the De-partment of Highways at the time, and the onset of the Korean War in 1950 stalled construction again. Despite the delays, highway minister George Douc-ett officially announced the plans for construction of the new trans-provin-cial expressway that year, with the To-ronto to Oshawa expressway serving as a model for the design.

Work on the most important link, the Toronto Bypass, began in 1951, but it would not open with that name.

Since 2008On August 10, 2008, following a se-

ries of explosions at a propane facility in Toronto, Highway 401 was closed be-tween Highway 400 and Highway 404 as a precautionary measure, the largest closure of the highway in its history. The highway remained closed until 8 p.m., though several exits near the blast remained closed thereafter. Between 2006 and 2008, Highway 401 was wid-ened from four to six lanes between Highway 402 and Wellington Road in London. This included replacing the original Wellington Road overpass. In Oshawa, Exit 416 (Park Road) was re-placed by a new interchange at Exit 415 (Stevenson Road). The contract, which began September 7, 2005, included the interchange and the resurfacing of 23.4 km (14.5 mi) of the highway be-tween Oshawa and Highway 35 / High-way 115. The westbound ramps were opened in mid-September 2007 and the eastbound ramps in mid-2009. The resurfacing was completed mid-2010.


King’s Highway 404 (pronounced “four-oh-four”), also known as High-way 404 and colloquially as the 404, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting High-way 401 and the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in Toronto with Newmarket. The controlled-access highway also con-nects with Highway 407 in Markham.

Construction on the freeway be-gan soon after the completion of the Don Valley Parkway, with the first sec-tion south of Steeles Avenue opening in 1977. Over the next twelve years, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) undertook a continuous con-struction program to build the freeway to Davis Drive in Newmarket. This was completed on October 24, 1989. Since then, the route has been expanded in width and extended by 2 km (1.2 mi) to Green Lane, an east-west road in the town of East Gwillimbury. A northward extension to Ravenshoe Road near Kes-wick is currently under construction, with completion tentatively scheduled

for 2014. This 13.5 km (8.4 mi) route is the first part of a proposed extension to southeast of Beaverton.

Highway 404 is one of several freeways in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with High-Occupancy Vehi-cle (HOV) lanes; the southbound lane was one of the initial projects in the province and opened on December 13, 2005. The northbound lane opened on July 23, 2007.

Route descriptionRunning parallel to Highway 400

approximately 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the east, Highway 404 extends 36 km (22 mi) on a north–south orienta-tion between Highway 401 and Green Lane. There are 14 interchanges along its length, mostly of the Parclo A4 con-figuration. Exit numbers on the freeway start at 17, suggesting that the length of the Don Valley Parkway was consid-ered in distance calculations; there are no exit numbers posted on the parkway.

Officially, the Ministry of Transpor-tation of Ontario (MTO) jurisdiction over the freeway begins as the oppos-ing directions of travel diverge south of the Highway 401 interchange. North-bound, two lanes from the DVP are joined by a third from the eastbound collectors of Highway 401. These nar-row to two lanes before merging with a single lane from westbound Highway 401 immediately south of Sheppard Avenue. An additional two lanes from westbound Highway 401 converge and form a separate carriageway with no access to Sheppard. Southbound, the freeway is divided into two carriage-ways, both of which provide access to the DVP. The outer carriageway also provides access from Sheppard and to Highway 401, including the westbound express lanes, while the inner carriage-way is intended for DVP-bound traffic. The HOV lane also provides access to westbound Highway 401 via a dedi-cated tunnel, which passes beneath the other southbound lanes. To the east of

Ontario Highway 404


Highway 404 is the Consumers Road office park. To the west and north of Sheppard Avenue is Fairview Mall, which has its own connection with the southbound lanes.

The highway continues directly north along the old Woodbine Avenue right-of-way to just south of Steeles Av-enue, where it diverges to the west be-fore continuing north. From just north of Sheppard, a northbound HOV lane is present alongside the central median. Southbound, the HOV lane continues as far as Highway 401. Alongside the 404 to the east is an industrial ware-house and commercial office area, while on the west is a suburban subdivision of North York. Northbound, the freeway is six lanes wide from Sheppard Avenue to Finch Avenue, where one diverges onto an off-ramp, re-emerging north of Finch. Southbound, it is six lanes wide from Steeles south to Sheppard.

At Steeles Avenue, the freeway en-ters the Regional Municipality of York. To the east are industrial units, while on the west are residential suburbs. This land-use persists north to the Highway 407 ETR interchange, a multi-level stack interchange with two flyo-vers. North of Highway 407, the free-way crosses Highway 7, where the HOV lanes transition to standard through lanes. The freeway passes west of But-tonville Airport and interchanges with 16th Avenue. It narrows and the central barrier ends; a grass median taking its place between the opposing lanes. The land-use density continues to drop, with the appearance of some open spaces and farms interspersed with in-dustrial and commercial buildings. By 19th Avenue, just north of the Honda Canada headquarters in Markham, the land-use is agricultural on both sides of Highway 404. Immediately south of Stouffville Road, the freeway curves to the east before proceeding north.

North of Bethesda Road, the free-

way crosses through a green space area. Two small lakes are present to either side. The larger, to the east, is Simeon Lake. North of Aurora Road, the high-way reduces in width to four lanes, which is its configuration north to East Gwillimbury, where the highway ter-minates at Green Lane (York Regional Road 19).

HistoryInitial construction

A freeway east of Highway 11 was in the works as early as 1954, when the province extended Highway 48 south from Port Bolster. A large cloverleaf interchange was constructed with the Toronto Bypass, and plans formulated for a dual highway around the east side of Lake Simcoe, connecting with High-way 11 near Orillia or Gravenhurst. This route was dropped when Metro-politan Toronto began planning for the northern extension of the DVP in 1957, as subdivisions encroached upon Woodbine Avenue north of Highway 401. The six-lane expressway was to fol-low the alignment of Woodbine from its southern terminus at Lawrence Av-enue to north of Steeles Avenue, where the Department of Highways (DOH) would continue the road as a “new King’s Highway”.

In 1959, the DOH announced that they would construct and maintain the new route once the DVP was com-pleted to Highway 401 and designate it Highway 404. The proposed route of the freeway was presented at a special delegation on December 13, 1960 by Harold Barry, a representative of the department. Design work started in 1973, the first contract was awarded in early 1976, and construction began in March 1976 with the awarding of a C$6.9 million contract. This contract included construction of the Finch Av-enue interchange, overpasses at McNi-coll and Van Horne Avenues and 4.5 km (2.8 mi) of six-lane freeway between

Sheppard and Steeles Avenues. Shortly thereafter, on April 20, Ernest Avenue and Van Horne Avenue were closed to traffic at Woodbine. The first sec-tion of Highway 404 between Highway 401 and Steeles Avenue opened in late 1977, including the flyover ramp from southbound Woodbine Avenue. The freeway was separated by a grass medi-an with a steel beam acting as a barrier between the lanes. Construction north of Toronto proceeded quickly, with the contract for the section from Steeles to Highway 7 being awarded in 1976 and the section opening on November 10, 1978. The next extension, to Stouffville Road (then known as the Gormley Side Road), was opened ceremoniously on December 9, 1980 by minister James Snow; the segment north of Highway 7 was four lanes wide.

The section of Highway 404 north of Stouffville Road was the subject of considerable controversy when work began to clear the route on May 15, 1981 before the completion of an envi-ronmental assessment. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications was charged with violating the newly enacted Environmental Assessment Act, which it contested came into effect after construction of the Highway 404 extension had begun. Minister James Snow was charged with violating the act, and called upon to resign. The Min-ister did not resign, but paid a $3,500 fine. Despite the issues surrounding it, the extension between Stouffville Road and Bloomington Road was opened ceremoniously on the morning of Au-gust 10, 1982.

Construction on the segment north of Bloomington to Aurora Sideroad was already in progress by this point. It was opened to traffic in late September 1985. Construction on the 6.5 km (4.0 mi) section from Aurora Road to Da-vis Drive began in early 1986, and the section opened to traffic on October 24, 1989 at 8:30 am. This final segment


cost $22.1 million, ending the continu-ous construction program undertaken since 1973 at a cost of $83.3 million.

ExpansionStudies and environmental into

various extensions began almost im-mediately, while Highway 404 ended at Davis Drive; it would take over a dec-ade for any northward progression to take place. In the interim period, work went into expanding the six lane free-way through Toronto and Markham. In early 1998, the MTO announced plans

for two contracts to widen Highway 404 south of Highway 7. The first contract converted the grass median into an additional lane in each direction with a central barrier between them. High-mast lighting was also installed, replac-ing the unique luminaires used on the freeway. The second contract resulted in an additional lane in each direction on the outside of the existing freeway south of Steeles Avenue, making it ten lanes wide. The proposal to eventually convert the inner lanes into HOV lanes was announced at the same time. The

next year, Highway 404 was widened to six lanes between Highway 7 and Major Mackenzie Drive.

On June 23, 1998 the Minister of Transportation, Tony Clement, made a formal agreement with the Region of York to expand the route through the region. The MTO formally announced this on August 28, 2000: a three con-tract project to widen and extend High-way 404. The first contract added an additional lane in each direction in the grass median from Major Mackenzie Drive to Bloomington Road. A second contract then extended those two lanes north to Aurora Sideroad. These two projects both began in the summer of 2001 and were completed in December. The third contract called for a four lane extension from Davis Drive to Green Lane and the reconstruction of Green Lane into a four-laned arterial road be-tween Leslie Street and Woodbine Av-enue. This contract began shortly after the announcement in September 2000. The extension was opened to traffic on February 8, 2002 at a ceremony attend-ed by York North MPP Julia Munro and York Regional Chair Bill Fisch.

On June 19, 2003, Transportation Minister and Oak Ridges MPP Frank Klees opened a new interchange at Re-gional Road 73 (16th Avenue). Traffic was permitted onto the ramp following the ceremony, also attended by Thorn-hill MPP Tina Molinari.

One of the three original HOV lanes in Ontario opened on Highway 404 in late 2005; the other two were the lanes on Highway 403. In early 2004, construction began on a new ramp to westbound Highway 401, curving be-neath the southbound lanes of High-way 404. On December 13, 2005, the southbound HOV lane was opened to traffic. Work on the northbound HOV lane began shortly thereafter, opening at 8:30 am on Monday, July 23, 2007.

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