Old Town is a neighbourhood and retail district in downtown
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. It was
the first of Toronto's named neighbourhoods, having acquired the moniker no later than 1815, at which time the original town 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 a ...
was expanding. The old neighbourhood was referred to as "Old Town" by residents, and the new neighbourhood as "New Town".
The site still has many buildings dating back to the nineteenth century.
The neighbourhood's approximate boundaries are
Queen Street on the north from
Church Street east to
Parliament Street, Parliament Street south to
Front Street, Front Street west to
Jarvis Street
Jarvis Street is a north-south thoroughfare in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, passing through some of the oldest developed areas in the city. Its alignment extends from Queens Quay East in the south to Bloor Street in the north. The segment s ...
, one block north to
King Street and Church Street north to Queen Street.
History
The first town plan for York was laid out by Captain Mann in 1788. However, the original plan was rejected by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe who had a new plan drawn up by Alexander Aitkin. The plan called for a compact, ten-block townsite, laid out in a gridiron pattern near the mouth of the Don River. This ten-block plan was bounded by
George
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Washington, First President of the United States
* George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...
, Berkeley, Adelaide and
Front
Front may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film
* ''The Front'', 1976 film
Music
* The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
Streets, with the areas east of
Parliament Street to the
Don
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
*Don (river), a river in European Russia
*Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
*Don, Dang, a vill ...
, and west of Peter Street to the
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between th ...
set aside for government and military purposes.
Government buildings were erected near Parliament and Front Streets.
Shortly after the British-Native force was defeated at the
Battle of York
The Battle of York was a War of 1812 battle fought in York, Upper Canada (today's Toronto, Ontario, Canada) on April 27, 1813. An American force supported by a naval flotilla landed on the lakeshore to the west and advanced against the town, whi ...
on 27 April 1813, American forces occupied the settlement. In the initial days of the occupation, a number of properties in Old Town were looted and burned; including the
Parliament building of Upper Canada, situated south of Old Town, on the southwest corner of Front and Parliament Street. The occupation ended on May 8, when the American force departed from York.
The Parliament buildings were rebuilt in the same location after the war, in 1820. The building was destroyed in a fire in 1824.
The
third Parliament of Upper Canada was completed west of Old Town on Front Street in 1832.
[
In April 1849, the area was ravaged by the Great Fire of Toronto, destroying buildings on the north side of King Street East, between ]Nelson Street
Nelson Street () is a street in Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. The street is 240 metres in length and runs in the east-west direction. It can be accessed from exits E1 and E2 of the Mong Kok station. The section between Portland and Sai Ye ...
and Church Street. The Cathedral Church of St. James was among the buildings destroyed in the fire, although it was later rebuilt in 1850.
Character
The area is filled with buildings predominantly two or three storeys tall. Along the main streets of Front, King Street East and Queen Street East
Queen Street is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street (Toronto), King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline f ...
are numerous first floor restaurants and stores with walk-up apartments on the upper floors. The area also has numerous older warehouses that have been converted to lofts or offices.
The area between Front Street on the south and Adelaide Street on the north, between Berkeley Street on the east and George Street on the west, is the ten blocks that make up the original town-site of York, as laid out in 1793. While no buildings in Old Town originated from the late 1790s, the neighbourhood does hold numerous heritage buildings that dates back to the 19th century. Additionally, several newer developments have been built in the neighbourhood, such as the Globe and Mail Centre
The Globe and Mail Centre is a 17-storey building, on King Street East, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that houses the offices of ''The Globe and Mail'' newspaper, and other tenants.
The building is adjacent to the former offices of rival newspaper ...
, a 17-storey office complex completed in 2016.
Landmarks
* Alumnae Theatre
The Alumnae Theatre, known most often as The Alum, is the oldest theatre society in Toronto, Ontario, Canada still in operation. It was founded in 1918 by female graduates of the University of Toronto who wanted to continue to participate in semi-p ...
* Bank of Upper Canada Building
The Bank of Upper Canada Building is a former bank building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the few remaining buildings in Toronto that predate the 1834 incorporation of the city. It is located at 252 Adelaide Street East (originally 28 Du ...
* St. James Anglican Cathedral
* Daniel Brooke Building
Daniel Brooke Building is a 19th-century Georgian building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada located on the northeast corner of Jarvis Street and King Street. The building is one of the last remaining buildings of the old Town of York. Built in 1833 for ...
* First Toronto Post Office
Toronto's First Post Office (also known as the Fourth York Post Office National Historic Site of Canada) is a historic post office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest purpose-built post office in Canada that functioned as a department of ...
(or the Fourth York Post Office)
* Paul Bishop's House
The Paul Bishop's House is actually a pair of historic townhouses located at 363-365 Adelaide Street East in the St. Lawrence, Toronto, St. Lawrence neighborhood downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The houses, constructed in 1848 by Paul Bishop, si ...
Education
Four 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
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution.
The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...
s provide primary
Primary or primaries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Primary (band), from Australia
* Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea
* Primary Music, Israeli record label
Works
* ...
and secondary education
Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...
to residents of Old Town. Two of the public school boards operate 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 ...
schools, the 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 and ...
(CSV), and 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 franco ...
(TDSB); while the other two public school boards, Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir
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 o ...
, and 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) operates separate schools
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 ...
. TDSB and TCDSB operate 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 ...
schools; whereas CSV, and MonAvenir operate French first language schools. However, students of these school boards attend institutions located outside Old Town, as none of the four school boards operate a school in the neighbourhood.
In addition to primary and secondary schools, Old Town is also home to George Brown College
George Brown College is a public, fully accredited college of applied arts and technology with three campuses in downtown Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Like many other colleges in Ontario, GBC was chartered in 1966 by the government of Ontario and ...
, a post-secondary
Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
. The college operates several campuses in Toronto, including St. James campus in Old Town. St. James campus is made up of eight buildings, primarily situated on Adelaide Street East, King Street East, and Richmond Street East.
Transportation
Public transportation is provided by the Toronto Transit Commission
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and largest ...
's (TTC) streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
and bus system. Two east-west streetcar lines operate through Old Town, the 501 Queen
501 Queen (301 Queen during overnight periods) is an east–west Toronto streetcar route in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
At long, it is one of the longest surface routes operated by the TTC, the longest ...
on Queen Street, and the 504 King
504 King (304 King during overnight periods) is an east–west Toronto streetcar route in Ontario, Canada. It serves King Street in Downtown Toronto as well as Broadview Avenue on the east end and Roncesvalles Avenue on the west end of the line ...
on King Street. The TTC operates two north-south bus lines in the neighbourhood, 65 Parliament on Parliament Street, and 75 Sherbourne on Sherbourne Street. In addition to these bus routes, the TTC also operates an express route through the neighbourhood during rush hour
A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...
.
Several major roadways serve as the neighbourhood's boundaries. Queen Street serves as Old Town's northern boundary, while Parliament Street serves as its eastern boundary. Church Street serves as the neighbourhood's western boundary north of King Street, whereas Jarvis Street serves as Old Town's western boundary of south of King Street East. Front Street serves as Old Town's southern boundary east of Jarvis Street, with the southwestern portion of the neighbourhood bounded by King Street.
References
Further reading
*
{{authority control
Historic districts in Canada
Neighbourhoods in Toronto