Armour Heights is a neighbourhood in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Canada, in the district of
North York
North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...
. It is bounded by
Wilson Avenue to the south,
Bathurst Street to the west, and the west branch of the
Don River to the north and east.
Highway 401
King's Highway 401, commonly referred to as Highway 401 and also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway or colloquially referred to as the four-oh-one,
is a controlled-access 400-series highway in the Canadian provin ...
cuts through the centre of the neighbourhood.
Armour Heights is not considered a neighbourhood by the City of Toronto. Instead, it and nearby Lansing are grouped into one neighbourhood called
Lansing-Westgate. However, the areas are colloquially referred to as Lansing and Armour Heights.
History
The area is named after John Armour, a farmer who bought land on the west side of
Yonge from James Hogg in 1838.
In 1910 the land was purchased by developer and speculator Colonel Frederick Burton Robins, who built a large estate for himself named Strathrobyn (completed in 1914).
His development plans were put on hold by the war. He decided to loan out the lands to the military, and an air training facility was established in 1917.
It mostly trained American pilots and among other figures saw
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
work there.
After the war, the airfield became the base for Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited, operated by war heroes
Billy Bishop
Air Marshal William Avery Bishop, (8 February 1894 – 11 September 1956) was a Canadian flying ace
A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial com ...
and
William George Barker
William George Barker, (3 November 1894 – 12 March 1930) was a Canadian First World War fighter ace and Victoria Cross recipient. He is the most decorated serviceman in the history of Canada.
Early life
Born on a family farm in Dauphin, Man ...
. It was at this site that Bishop had one of the most dangerous crashes of his career. The company folded in 1921 and the airfield was abandoned. Some development occurred during the 1920s, but the area was still too far from the centre of the city to attract many buyers.
The air force returned to the area in 1943, when it leased Strathrobyn as an officer's mess and training school.
It remains in service today as the
Canadian Forces College, one of the main officer training facilities of the Canadian Forces.
In the 1950s, some of the neighbourhood's streets were destroyed due to the construction of Highway 401. One of the major streets in Toronto, Avenue Road, terminates at the Armour Heights neighbourhood at Bombay Avenue. There is an Avenue Road/401
Parclo A4
In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, using ...
interchange just south of Bombay Avenue.
![Armour Heights houses](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Armour_Heights_houses.JPG)
The post-war years saw the steady development of the neighbourhood, and all the farmland was transformed into middle-class suburban housing by the beginning of the 1970s. It has become an important Jewish area of Toronto. It is just to the east of
Bathurst Manor
Bathurst Manor is a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in northern Toronto in the former suburb of North York. It sits on a plateau bounded on the north by Finch Avenue West, on the west by Dufferin Street, on the east by the Don Ri ...
, the most Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto. Bathurst Street is lined with a number of Jewish stores and restaurants, and synagogues such as
Adath Israel. According to the 2001 census, 12% of the population is Jewish. An important landmark is Toronto's Holocaust Memorial, which is located just north of the community in Earl Bales Park.
Education
One
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
school board operates schools in Armour Heights, the
secular English
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
Toronto District School Board
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franco ...
(TDSB). TDSB operates two
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
s in the neighbourhood, Armour Heights Public School, and Summit Heights Public School. TDSB does not operate a
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
in the neighbourhood, with TDSB secondary school students residing in Armour Heights attending institutions in adjacent neighbourhoods.
In addition to TDSB, three other public school boards also offer schooling to residents of the neighbourhood, although they do not operate schools in Armour Heights. The
Toronto Catholic District School Board
The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB, known as English-language Separate District School Board No. 40 prior to 1999) is an English-language public-separate school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. I ...
(TCDSB) is an English first language
separate school
In Canada, a separate school is a type of school that has constitutional status in three provinces (Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan) and statutory status in the three territories ( Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut). In these Canadi ...
board, whereas
Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (CSCM), the
Conseil scolaire Viamonde (CSV) are French first language school boards, the former being separate, the latter being secular. CSCM, CSV, and TCDSB students attend schools situated in other neighbourhoods in Toronto.
Recreation
Several municipal parks are situated in Armour Heights, managed by the
Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division
Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation (PFR) is the division of Toronto's municipal government responsible for maintaining the municipal park system and natural spaces, regulation of and provision of urban forestry services, and the delivery of recre ...
. Armour Heights Community Centre, a local
community centre
Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole co ...
managed by the division, is situated along the southeast boundary of the neighbourhood. Green spaces in the area form a part of valley that surrounds the
Don River. The valleys are a part of the
Toronto ravine system.
Transportation
![York Mills Station - TTC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/York_Mills_Station_-_TTC.jpg)
Several major roadways pass through Armour Heights, including
Highway 401
King's Highway 401, commonly referred to as Highway 401 and also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway or colloquially referred to as the four-oh-one,
is a controlled-access 400-series highway in the Canadian provin ...
, a
controlled access highway. The highway runs east-west, connecting the neighbourhood with the rest of
Greater Toronto, and
southern Ontario.
Bathurst Street is a major thoroughfare, that also serves as the neighbourhood's western boundary. Another major thoroughfare,
Avenue Road, also ends within the neighbourhood. The city's main thoroughfare,
Yonge Street, is located east of the neighbourhood.
Public transportation in Armour Heights is served by the
Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)
bus system. In addition to buses, the
Toronto subway may be accessed from
York Mills station
York Mills is a subway station on Line 1 Yonge–University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 4015 Yonge Street at the intersection of Wilson Avenue and York Mills Road in the neighbourhood of Hoggs Hollow.
History
The station op ...
, a subway station on Yonge Street.
GO Transit
GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...
's regional commuter bus routes may also be accessed from
York Mills Bus Terminal
York Mills GO Bus Terminal is located at 4023 Yonge Street, near the northeast corner of York Mills Road, in the North York area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The terminal mainly supports GO Transit's bus services east and west across the Highway 4 ...
, which is situated in the adjacent neighbourhood, east of Yonge Street.
References
External links
{{authority control
Neighbourhoods in Toronto
North York
Jewish communities in Canada