Map of the Week: The Star's neighbourhood map, version 1.0

TORONTO STAR FILE

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Thank you for your comments last week. Many have found their way on to the new version of the map.

Along with some changes of colour to sharpen contrast (and getting rid of a grey that was too close to the Google Maps default grey), here are the changes:

1. Extended Corktown down to King, then Eastern, Jarvis to River

2. Rexdale and The Elms: divided with diagonal hydro line, not straight north-south line

3. Leslieville extended west to Booth, south to Eastern, stopping at Gerrard on the north, instead of the CP tracks. Blank triangle created in the area of the Gerrard Square Mall is now in Riverdale

4. Bloor West Village extended east to Clendenan

5. Created Jane and Finch: Jane to park, Shoreham to Grandravine

6. Created Northwood Park: Finch on the north, Keele to the east, Sheppard on south, Black Creek on the west

7. Created Church and Wellesley: Bloor to Carlton, Yonge to Jarvis

8. Created Tam O'Shanter: VP to Kennedy, 401 north to Huntingwood

9. Removed line between Christie Pits and Seaton Village

10. Created Pleasantview: VP, Sheppard, 404 and Finch

11. Don Mills extended west to creek

12. South Annex becomes Harbord Village

13. St. Lawrence entended north to King, west to Yonge

14. Created U of T St. George Campus, with boundaries as shown

15. Created Seven Oaks: Ellesmere and 401, Morningside to creek on west

16. Dublin Heights shrinks, with Sheppard as the northern boundary

17. Created Bathurst Manor: Sheppard, Dufferin, Finch and Don River

18. Flemingdon Park extended east to the Don

19. Leaside: Added business area to the east

20. West Don Lands created. Borders as shown

21. South Riverdale separated from Riverdale at Gerrard.

Comments

[Michael Fagan]

the (jones) pocket is a tiny neigbourhood, which seems to be part of or overlapping with the larger blake-jones neighbourhood (around jones and danforth) within riverdale. it's big enough to have it's own newsletter http://www.the-pocket.ca/ . Actually the website seems to fail, but the newsletter exists.

[Ryan OSullivan]

Don Mills extends on the east side from Lawrence in the south to Cassandra Blvd on the North...

That area is also referred sometimes to as O'Connor Hills... but back when the city postal codes were broken down a few levels the area described above was considered Don Mills (I still write my address as Don Mills, Ontario today)

[Scarborough Boy]

Great Project. The areas tagged as L'amereaux and Tam O shanter are a bit off. South of Finch, between Pharmacy and Warden is Bridlewood and was developed in the 1960's. The entire area is (was) part of Agincourt as defined by the post office. Agincourt as a village was (is) part of the township, borough and later city of Scarborough.

Thanks

[M.G. Stewart]

This is great. What an interesting exercise.

I have to say though, and with all due respect, the proposed "Danforth" neighbourhood is ludicrous. It seems like we are grasping at straws to figure out what to do with "leftover" areas between Riverdale and the Upper Beaches on one side and East York on the other, and someone came up with a scheme to toss it in all together. So we end up with the unrealistic view that Logan and Danforth is in the same neighbourhood as Main and Danforth. Yes, it's all "the Danforth", but so is north Riverdale and Playter Estates. We seem to have confused neighbourhood and thoroughfare concepts.

The lands north of Riverdale, extending to what is now Donlands Ave, were annexed to Toronto in 1909 (with a small stretch annexed in 1914 - as shown on the maps at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TodmordenMap1915Atlas.JPGand at the bottom of http://www.toronto.ca/culture/history/history-industrializing-city.htm#8). These lands west of Donlands developed at a different time and in a different manner than those further to the east. Interstingly, even today, the area between Jones and Donlands still acts as a dividing line quite different Danforths. Donlands is where I would draw the line between two separate neighbourhoods. The lands to the east are often calle Danforth Village, and that's probably as good a name as any. Good luck with finding a name for the lands west of Donlands --most of that area functions as an extension of Riverdale, although some purists will undoubtedly insist on the Danforth as a boundary.

[David Newland]

Nice to see South Riverdale on there (we do think of ourselves as distinct from our wealthier neighbours north of Gerrard).

However, from the corner of Gerrard and Broadview, extending about a block south on Broadview and several blocks east on Gerrard, should be Chinatown East.

And the stretch of Queen Street between the DVP and the railway overpass at DeGrassi Street is a revitalized Riverside.

[Joe Clark]

What you’re calling South Riverdale is clearly just Riverside, a neighbourhood name of generations’ standing. South Riverdale = Riverside + Leslieville.

[n wallis]

Completely agree with MG Stewart's comments. Also, I always thought that the triangle at Kingston/Woodbine/Queen was somehow different from the "Beach" proper.
On the west side, does Sunnylea really cross Mimico Creek?
Is Richview really reflective of the communities? I would have thought that Richmond Gardens is bounded between Eglinton & Westway and Islington & Kipling.
Isn't Kingsview Village better known as Little Mogadishu?

[Jeff Singer]

I echo the comments made about the Danforth. That isn't one neighborhood. Not even close. I do hear Danforth Village used for the eastern bit (the part of town where I now live). The western part really is just part of Riverdale. The Star did a big story on the evolution of Riverdale a few years back, and that article had the boundaries extending north of Danforth, east to Pape.

I also agree with the comment above about Blake Jones, which is entirely south of the Danforth.

For those reasons, I would extend Riverdale north to catch that strip north of Danforth that was part of the old city of Toronto, and south of the Danforth I would pull the boundary back west a bit, to allow for Blake Jones.

[Denis Agar]

A few nitpicks:

-Why not create a Central Business District? I would say it's inside the Yonge University U up to about Queen, and the little box enclosed by Front, John, King, and University. That's certainly up for debate though.

-Bay Street between about Edward and Bloor is its own distinct neighbourhood. Maybe calling it a corridor is too boring, but it has such a unique feel and all the elements of a neighbourhood that it should be marked.

-Ryerson Deserves to be marked! I'd say it's confined to: O'Keefe Lane, Gerrard, Mutual, and Dundas E.

[Denise Moore]

Hmmm... the west end of Danforth seems to be a bit of a tricky area. I can see why some people, with some justification, see it as the northern part of Riverdale. Calling it Danforth isn't unreasonable though, as the BIA (Business Improvement Area) is called Danforth, and politically it is Toronto-Danforth riding both federally and provincially. The library at Pape and Danforth is, wait for it, Pape-Danforth. So Danforth as an area, that goes just north and just south of the Danforth, has some justification. I can see the point of it being west of Donlands. The farther east one goes, I suppose the less it is called "the Danforth", though I certainly have heard the Greenwood/Danforth area called "the Danforth".

Having grown up in Etobicoke, I have to agree with the person who said the Sunnylea area doesn't go west of the Mimico Creek. I went to school in that area at one time, but lived near Islington. Unfortunately, the area south of Bloor St, west and east of Islington, never had a commonly used name. It was just an unnamed part of Toronto (from a postal point of view) or of Etobicoke (municipally). Maybe it does now, but I doubt they've taken on the name Sunnylea. And I think what is now called "Islington Village" is north of Bloor, in the Mabelle, Cordova Rd, Burnhamthorpe area.

Which reminds me: what about the Six Points area? It was an intersection and a mall, definitely. But I don't know if that was ever considered a neighbourhood.

The Kingsway certainly includes the south side of Bloor Street, though your map implies otherwise.

The area around Dixon Road is indeed sometimes called Little Somalia or Little Mogadishu. But as there isn't a whole lot of commercial there, it isn't analogous to Chinatown. So in this case such a name probably shouldn't be used as a real neighbourhood name.

[Denise Moore]

Oh, when people want to go to the annual Taste of the Danforth, and many, many people do, they head to the west end of the Danforth. From Broadview to about Jones or Donlands.

[Ian Bell]

The area east of Ryerson and west of Cabbagetown -- Old East End?

[M.G. Stewart]

Denise's comments about the west end of the Danforth are well taken. I would note, however, that her comments apply equally to Player Estates and Riverdale, so it's not really something unique to the west end of what is currently labelled "The Danforth". That's why I think there are two separate concepts that overlap here -- a thoroughfare called the Danforth that also happens to cross through a number of neighbourhoods.

Just to clarify, "The Danforth" BIA only goes as far east as Jackman - it only covers parts of Riverdale and Player Estates, and not the area is question. The Greektown BIA runs eastward until about Jones, but again, I think Greektown is used as a synonym for the Danforth -- it applies to the strip moreso than to a particular neighbourhood.

I agree with Jeff's comments. Add that portion of what is now "The Danforth" to Riverdale, or call it North Riverdale. The real estate agents long ago started calling it part of Riverdale, and unlike some of the whopper neighbourhood descriptions we get from real estate agents, that one doesn't seem to raise many eyebrows.

I also like Denis' idea of identifying a financial district or CBD.

[Gary]

I'm surprised how big you've drawn Riverdale. Me, I'd cut it in half along the railroad tracks -- Gerrard Square Mall and the tracks are a major socio-economic divide. The coffee shops, dog walkers, and organic vegetable markets of Riverdale to the West, and "Little India" to the east. That's what we call it.

[Richard Anderson]

You probably want to eliminate those annoying gaps between polygons, if possible. I notice that the Junction incluses a number of empty sections which nobody seems to own or claim.

I'm not sure what the point of this map is. Some districts of the city include many sub districts, and very few have ever had clear boundaries. The Danforth, for example, has no clear boundaries, and overlaps other places in real life. You can get some way by allocating this bit or that bit of the city to one of the polygons you have created, but it is all quite arbitrary. In any case, the historic districts of the city are not eternal, and have changed shape, meaning and name over time. York Station, Helliwell's Bush, Small's Pond, and Windermere have gone the way of St Clair Gardens Annex, Kelvin Gardens and Tory Glen. At best, you can divide the city into the neighbourhoods celebrated by real estate people and gentrifiers, but even these tend to be elastic, depending on who's trying to kid whom.

[BB]

I second the nomination of the Pocket as a neighbourhood. It's usually viewed as the area bounded by the Danforth (north), Jones Ave (west), the CNR tracks (south), and the TTC Greenwood Yards (east). It has the comfortably treed feeling of High Park, and the more modest housing and friendly intimacy of East York.

[Blue Lambo]

I'd say Horesely hills area is in Malvern...entire west border should be to markham, as the area def represents the feel of the Malvern area if not what ever criteria were used to determine the current make up.

[Kevin Reidy]

The northern boundary of the Village of Long Branch (until amalgamation with the township of Etobicoke in 1967) was the railway line. Anything north of this line was in Etobicoke township (and thus in the community of Alderwood)

[Denise Moore]

As a long time resident of Toronto I wonder why I've never heard of Player Estates? I don't doubt the person who said it existed, but I wonder if the name hasn't fallen pretty much into disuse? (Of course I could be wrong.)

[Anderson Pisaniello]

Nice neighbourhood map in particular the areas that are not attached to any "named" neighbourhood. These areas should be target to Urban redevelopment as example of the area at East of High Park & North of Roncesvalles. That area has many old buildings and a very degradeted urban structure. Dundas Street North of Bloor and South of Annete needs urgent attention.
Unamed areas should become visionary neighbourhoods. The city should open space for foreign professionals and individuals to contribute more into the design and redesign of this city.

[Robert Miller]

A refinement about Leslieville: in the area between Greenwood and Coxwell, the term has never really caught on.
Locals call it the Ashbridge's neighbourhood, the historic reference.
Several businesses, parks in the area use this term, and of course the source -- the Ashbridge Estate. The term was used on the ETC News website, and an attempted BIA circa 2000 was called Ashbridge's Village.

Also the area around Greenwood Park has an identity of its own. Locally many would not call it Leslieville, or Riverdale.
We went through this naming thing locally and although Riverdale East was an early name for sports teams based at Greenwood Park, the participating locals considered Riverdale to extend no farther east than Leslie and Gerrard.

East of Coxwell at Queen is known locally as Orchard Park.
East of that (Kingston to Woodbine, north of Queen) is the Beaches Triangle.

South of Queen, west of Woodbine the "new" development is Woodbine Park or sometimes Pleasantville (seriously).

Then within the Beach there is the distinction between Kew Beach and Balmy Beach.

Interestingly there was a Leslie Beach at Leslie and the lake, before the Leslie Spit was created. There's a great photo of hundreds of people at that beach around the 1940s.

[Stacie Duncan]

I was so excited to see the map in today's paper only to find that my neighbourhood was unnamed. :(
I live at King and Strachan and the best names I have for the area are 1. Garrison Creek 2.Massey-Harris 3. King West
I would love to know what this wonderful area is called.

[Greg Ryan]

Hello, regarding the east end, I can't say I have ever heard of Bendale or Woburn ever being referred to as areas. I still hear most people refer to that area as simply "Scaroborough", radiating out from old Scarborough City Hall. Boundaries I would put Ellesmere to the north, Markham to the east, Eglinton south, and Kennedy west, but definitely not bendale or woburn which are the names of a few local high schools.

If a high school had influence to an area, it would more likely be Cedarbrae, and the surrounding area, including Cedarbrook park. Small area centering on Markham and Lawrence and radiating out.

[John Strung]

P.S., the south boundary of Bayview Village is Sheppard Avenue, not the 401: http://www.bayviewvillage.org/

[Andrew Walmsley]

The area on the west side of Don Mills road now called Parkway Forest, is Henry Farms, definitely not Parkway Forest. It has completely different upscale houses and a Henry Farms community newsletter. Also the area immediately to the north and South of the Gerrard Street Bazar, to the rail line and south to Dundas is known as Little India.