HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Mount Dennis 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 anc ...
,
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. It is within the former suburb of
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as ...
, now Ward 11 in Toronto. Primarily located along
Eglinton Avenue Eglinton Avenue is a major east–west arterial thoroughfare in Toronto and Mississauga in the Canadian province of Ontario. The street begins at Highway 407 (but does not interchange with the tollway) at the western limits of Mississauga, as a ...
between the Humber River and the Kitchener commuter rail line, the neighbourhood was best known for Kodak Heights, once a major film manufacturing facility owned and operated by the
Eastman Kodak Company The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
. According to the 2016 Toronto Ward 11 Census, 62,620 residents are in the area, with a median age of 39.3 as of 2016, and a population growth of over 0.4% as of 2016. 24, 895 households are in Ward 11, and 230 net new households were built in 2016. A total of 31,125 of 62,620 are immigrant populations as of 2016. Unemployment rate is 9.5% in Ward 11 as of 2016, with an average household income of $66,447 and is much lower than Toronto's average of $102,721 as of 2016. Average rent price is $940/month as of 2016's census as well.


History

The area gets its name from the Dennis family (led by John Dennis (1758–1832)),
Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
shipbuilders who owned the property, as well as a boatyard on the Humber, at the turn of the 19th century. It remained largely rural, with orchards, gravel and clay pits and a few
market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...
s.
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
Canada moved its factory to a site at Eglinton Avenue and Weston Road, along the rail line running next to Weston Road, in 1913. This factory complex, known as " Kodak Heights", was a major employer for Mount Dennis' residents until it was shut down in 2005. The area became what urban geographer Richard Harris described as an "unplanned suburb" in his book, ''Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy 1900 to 1950''. Workers at Kodak and the nearby stockyards once located at Weston Road and St. Clair Avenue, as well as CCM,
Willys Willys (pronounced , "Willis" ) was a brand name used by Willys–Overland Motors, an American automobile company, founded by John North Willys. It was best known for its design and production of World War II era and later military jeeps (M ...
Overland and other factories north and south of Mount Dennis built their own homes before municipal services were in place, and small developers built "infill" homes, gradually filling the streets with the current housing stock of former cottages and small, fully detached homes, among the most affordable housing stock in Toronto for recent immigrants and first-time homeowners. Building 1, now torn down, of the Kodak Buildings, was a coal fired power-plant that was built in 1914 and ceased operating in 2006, which burned 500 tonnes of coal per day. This closing of building 1 improved air quality in the area immensely.


Economic Challenges

After the Kodak Plant ceased operating in 2006, over 800 employees were laid off. This presented a major economic impact on the area, similar to the loss of the Mimico Goodyear plant in
Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipal ...
's area of
New Toronto New Toronto is a neighbourhood and former municipality in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the south-west area of Toronto, along Lake Ontario. The Town of New Toronto was established in 1890, and was designed and planned as an indust ...
. "The loss of Kodak was a blow to the community and is one of the reasons it is the poorest of the 13 priority neighbourhoods in Toronto," says Cutty Duncan, project director at the Action for Neighbourhood Change (ANC) project in Mount Dennis in a CBC Article. Working out of a single unit in a nameless strip mall on Weston Road, just like many others on that stretch, Duncan’s tiny office has turned into a community hub of sorts. It is from there that he leads the West End Local Economic Development (WELED) project, which is working with local residents helping them to start small businesses in the community with the help of micro grants. “The urgent need is to create employment capacity in the community. And with Kodak gone, people lost ownership and pride in their neighbourhood leading to a downward spiral,” says Duncan of ANC. “At WELED, we are trying to rebrand the neighbourhood from one of need and want to one that can offer something special to those from outside the community. For example, we have so many hair salons and barbershops in the area. Instead of saying there are too many, let us brand Weston-Mount Dennis as a go-to place for black people to do their hair.” Located in the riding of York South-Weston, Weston-Mount Dennis is the landing spot for hundreds of immigrants, making it a microcosm of Toronto's diversity, with dozens of ethnic groups represented - the largest being from the Caribbean and West Africa. "With this diversity comes incredible challenges," says Lekan Olawoye, project director at the For Youth Initiative, a charitable organization that aims to boost civic engagement. "Language barriers, parental disconnect, lowering the bar for kids in priority neighbourhoods have led to Weston-Mount Dennis having the dubious distinction of having the third-highest high school dropout rate in Toronto," says Olawoye, who also grew up in a similar priority neighborhood in Rexdale. And with almost 30 per cent of the population under 24 years of age, the neighbourhood faces challenges on more than one front.


Culture

In 2014 a public art installation titled ''Nyctophilia'' opened at Weston Road and Dennis Avenue. Designed by Toronto artists Daniel Young and Christian Giroux, the piece is part of a series of revitalization projects targeted at supporting the neighbourhood and its residents as it evolves beyond its industrial past. Weston–Mount Dennis was once a centre of manufacturing, and later a centre of small immigrant shops. Eventually one type of business, hair salons and
barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and publi ...
shops serving the
Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have of ...
community, came to predominate. In 2012, a community organizer proposed proclaiming it an official hair district.


Demographic

The area is a classic example of Toronto's diversity, with dozens of ethnic groups represented, however the largest ethnic group by far are from the Caribbean and West Africa with the vast majority of visible minorities of Jamaican descent.https://www.toronto.ca/ext/sdfa/Neighbourhood%20Profiles/pdf/2016/pdf1/cpa115.pdf With respect to religion, there are many black store front churches representing the many faiths of the African and Caribbean communities as well as Western-European, Middle Eastern and Asian faiths such as
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...
,
Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
Pentecostalism Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement
, Seventh Day Adventist),
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
, and
Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
as seen along the Weston Road Corridor. Among the languages spoken are
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, Somali, Vietnamese,
Patois ''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon ...
and Portuguese from the 2016 Ward 11 census. In Mount Dennis’s census tract 5350156.01, the median income for residents in the community in 2006 as $17,771. This information was collected by the mandatory long-form census conducted in 2006. In 2011, the average household income was $20,637. It had grown by $2,866. This information was collected by the voluntary National Household Survey in 2011. This demonstrates in general, income levels are rising in Mount Dennis. Data in 2011 was affected by Mount Dennis’ GNR (global non-response rate) of 38.5%. An average household income as of 2016 is $66,447 and is much lower than Toronto's average of $102,721 as of 2016. This further demonstrating this trend of rising household incomes. In census tract 5350156.01 in 2006, 600 residents owned their homes while 1590 residents rented their homes. This information was gathered by the mandatory long-form census conducted in 2006. By 2011, 625 residents owned their homes while 1646 residents rented. This information was collected by the voluntary National Household Survey in 2011. This shows residents in Mount Dennis are much more likely to rent than own their homes. Data in 2011 was affected by Mount Dennis’ GNR (global non-response rate) of 38.5%.


Access to prosperity

According to a CBC article on Mount Dennis, "Aggressive community policing art of the Toronto police's anti-violence intervention strategy initiativeis intimidating, and black males in particular feel racially profiled rather than supported," says Shadya Yasin, a Somali-Canadian who works and lives in the neighbourhood. "This translates into huge numbers in an area where 23 per cent of the population is black." Yasin, who heads the York Youth Coalition (YYC), is leading the charge to obtain a receipt component to police carding. YYC attended the Toronto Police Services Board meeting where police carding will be on the agenda. Olawoye, meanwhile, wants to hold all stakeholders to account - parents, teachers and the government. "We need to get our kids back in school for them to be better employed and for that we need to integrate their parents into the work force as well," he said. "We must give all our citizens equal access to prosperity, which I feel is not happening in this neighbourhood."


Education

Dennis Community School is a
secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
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 ''Öffentlichk ...
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 ...
at 17 Dennis Avenue, near
Weston Road Weston Road is a north–south street in the west end of Toronto and western York Region in Ontario, Canada. The road is named for the former Village of Weston, which was located near Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue West. Route description In ...
and Eglinton Avenue West, operated by the
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 fra ...
. The first Mount Dennis school opened in 1891 according to the TDSB's web-site for Dennis Avenue Community School (GR. JK-06). For Catholic Primary Education, Our Lady of Victory at 70 Guestville Ave is also available for education, and was founded in 1944, and is operated by the TCDSB. St Nicholas of Bari, Santa Maria, St John Bosco, Pope Paul, St Rita, St Cecilia, St Bernard, St Francis Xavier, St Andre elementary schools are all operated by the TCDSB, and are all elementary schools that border Mount Dennis as well, giving testament to the neighbourhood's strong
catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
base since the post World War II era. The neighbourhood's 60-year-old library, a branch of the Toronto Public Library system, reopened in 2013 after extensive renovations. Located at Weston Rd. and Eglinton Avenue West. The new facility was designed to be a community hub and is seen by some to reflect the evolving nature of the neighbourhood. In addition to the Toronto District School Board, three other public school boards also operate in the City of Toronto. 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 Yor ...
(TCDSB), is a public English
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 Canadian ...
board;
Conseil scolaire Viamonde The Conseil scolaire Viamonde (CSV) is a public-secular French first language school board, and manages elementary and secondary schools in the Ontario Peninsula and the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The school board operates 41 elementary schools a ...
is a secular French public school board; and the
Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir ( en, My Future Catholic School Board) is a Roman Catholic French first language public- separate school board that manages elementary and secondary schools in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The school board ...
is a French separate public school board.


Transit

Mount Dennis station Mount Dennis is an intermodal transit terminal under construction in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located east of the intersection of Eglinton Avenue and Weston Road in the Mount Dennis neighbourhood in the district of York, the station will b ...
will be the westernmost terminus of
Line 5 Eglinton Line 5 Eglinton (also known as the Eglinton Crosstown or the Crosstown) is a light rail line that is under construction in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Owned by Metrolinx and operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the line will be part o ...
and a stop on the
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 milli ...
Kitchener line Kitchener is one of the seven train lines of the GO Transit system in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. It extends westward from Union Station in Toronto to Kitchener, though most trains originate and terminate in Brampton in off-peak h ...
when it opens in 2022. It will also feature a 15-bay bus terminal for local bus routes. The maintenance facility for the vehicles on Line 5 will be on the site of the old Kodak plant in Mount Dennis. When he was a candidate for
Mayor of Toronto The mayor of Toronto is the head of Toronto City Council and chief executive officer of the municipal government. The mayor is elected alongside city council every four years on the fourth Monday of October; there are no term limits. While in ...
John Tory John Howard Tory (born May 28, 1954) is a Canadian politician who has served as the 65th and current mayor of Toronto since 2014. After a career as a lawyer, political strategist and businessman, Tory ran as a mayoral candidate in the 2003 ...
's platform included a transit plan he called
SmartTrack SmartTrack is a municipal proposal to enhance GO Transit rail service within Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It takes advantage of the province's existing GO Transit Regional Express Rail plans. SmartTrack has evolved since it was originally proposed b ...
. The centrepiece of the plan was what he called a ''"surface-subway"'', which would run through Mount Dennis. SmartTrack was to share the rights-of-way of existing rail lines—except for a turn-off at Mount Dennis, where he imagined the route could run parallel to Eglinton, using the right-of-way that had been set aside decades ago for the
Richview Expressway The cancelled expressways in Toronto were a planned series of expressways in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that were only partially built or cancelled due to public opposition. The system of expressways was intended to spur or handle growth in the su ...
. Tory promised that, by the use of existing rights-of-way, this new transit route could be built for a modest $8 billion
CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
. Unfortunately
Rob Ford Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...
, the former mayor, had sold off the Richview right-of-way. This would require multiple tunneled sections along Eglinton, eroding the cost-savings Tory promised. Further, Tory's plan overlooked that the turning radius for large heavy rail vehicles would require extensive tunneling under Mount Dennis itself. In late 2015 Metrolinx made public its plans to include a gas-fired electrical generator on its Mount Dennis campus.


Crime

According to Division 12 TPS crime statistics], 18 shootings and 4 murders took place in 2020 year-to-date, and hundreds of
assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
and dozens of
break-and-enter Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
charges as well, underlying the area's youth crime problem. The area is frequented by gangs like the Eglinton West Crips, Five Point Generalz, Dixon Bloods,
Jamaican posse Jamaican posses, often referred to simply as ''posses'', are a loose coalition of Jamaican gangs, based predominantly in Kingston, London, New York City and Toronto, first being involved in drugs and arms trafficking in the early 1980s. Jamaic ...
,
Shower Posse The Shower Posse is a Jamaican gang, started by Lester Lloyd Coke, which is involved with drug and arms smuggling. Its home is in Tivoli Gardens in Jamaica, but it primarily operates in the Canadian province of Ontario and the US states of ...
, Organized crime in Nigeria like the Black Axe Crime Ring, Trethewey Gangstas, Scarlett Blocc and Baghdad Crew.


References


External links


City of Toronto - Mount Dennis Neighbourhood Profile
{{Authority control Neighbourhoods in Toronto