Yorkville is a neighbourhood and former village in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada. It is roughly bounded by

Bloor Street Bloor Street is an east–west arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct, which spans the Don River (Ontario), Don River Valley, westward into Mississauga where it ends at Central Parkway. East ...

to the south, Davenport Road to the north,

Yonge Street Yonge Street ( ') is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Great Lakes#Geography, Upper Great Lakes. Ontario's first colonial administrator, ...

to the east and Avenue Road to the west, and it is part of

The Annex The Annex is a neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The traditional boundaries of the neighbourhood extend north to Dupont Street, south to Bloor Street, west to Bathurst Street (Toronto), Bathurst Street and east to Avenue Road, ...

neighbourhood. Established as a separate community in 1830, it was annexed into Toronto in 1883. Yorkville comprises residential areas, office space, and retail shopping. The Mink Mile shopping district on Bloor Street is located in Yorkville.

History

Yorkville was funded in 1830 by the entrepreneur Joseph Bloor (after whom

, one of Toronto's main thoroughfares, is named) and William Botsford Jarvis of Rosedale and began as a residential suburb. Bloore operated a brewery northeast of today's Bloor and Church Street intersection, and Jarvis was Sheriff of the

Home District The Home District was one of four districts of the Province of Quebec created in 1788 in the western reaches of the Montreal District and detached in 1791 to create the new colony of Upper Canada. It was abolished with the adoption of the county ...

. The two purchased land in the Yorkville area and subdivided it into smaller lots on new side streets for those interested in living in the cleaner air outside

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

. The political centre of Yorkville was the Red Lion Hotel, an inn that was regularly used as the polling place for elections. It is there that

William Lyon Mackenzie William Lyon Mackenzie (March12, 1795 August28, 1861) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American journalist and politician. He founded newspapers critical of the Family Compact, a term used to identify the establishment of Upper Canada. He represe ...

was voted back into the Legislature for 1832, and a huge procession took him down Yonge Street. The community grew enough to be connected in 1849 by an omnibus service to Toronto. By 1853, the population of Yorkville had reached 1,000, the figure needed to incorporate as a village, and the "Village of Yorkville" was incorporated. Development increased and by the 1870s, " Potter's Field," a cemetery stretching east of Yonge Street along the north side of Concession Road (today's Bloor Street) was closed, and the remains moved to the Toronto Necropolis and Mount Pleasant Cemetery. By the 1880s, the cost of delivering services to the large population of Yorkville was beyond the Village's ability. It petitioned the Toronto government to be annexed. Annexation came on February 1, 1883, and Yorkville's name changed officially from the "Village of Yorkville" to "St. Paul's Ward," and the former " Yorkville Town Hall" became "St. Paul's Hall." The character of the suburb did not change, and its Victorian-style homes, residential streets, and gardens survived into the 20th century. In 1923, Toronto Hebrew Maternity and Convalescent Hospital was opened at 100 Yorkville Avenue, and a year later, its name was changed to Mount Sinai Hospital. The facade of the building still stands today and housed the retailer Chanel. In the 1960s, Yorkville flourished as Toronto's bohemian cultural centre. It was the breeding ground for some of Canada's most noted musical talents, including

Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan Mitchell (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitch ...

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

, and

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved worldwide success and helped define the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. Widely considered one of Canada's greatest songwriters, ...

, as well as then-underground literary figures such as

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

, Gwendolyn MacEwen, and Dennis Lee. Yorkville was also known as the Canadian center of the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

movement. In 1968, the nearby Rochdale College at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

was opened on Bloor Street as an experiment in counterculture education. Those influenced by their time in 1960s-1970s Yorkville include the

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberwa ...

writer

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...

. Yorkville's domination by hippies and young people led MPP Syl Apps to refer to it as "a festering sore in the middle of the city" and call for its "eradication." Joni Mitchell captured a colorful impression of the nightlife scene on Yorkville Avenue in her song "Night in the City." The hippie scene was also depicted in the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

documentary '' Christopher's Movie Matinée'' in 1968. After the construction of the Bloor-Danforth subway, the value of land nearby increased, as higher densities were allowed by the City's official plan. Along Bloor Street, office towers and The Bay and the Holt Renfrew department stores displaced the local retail. As real estate values increased, the residential homes north of Bloor along Yorkville were converted into high-end retail, including art galleries, fashion boutiques, antique stores, bars, cafes, and eateries along Cumberland Street and Yorkville Avenue. Many smaller buildings were demolished and offices and hotels were built in the 1970s, with high-priced condominium developments being built in subsequent decades.

Demographics

Attractions

Shopping and commerce

The Mink Mile shopping district is located on Bloor Street and includes office buildings with retail stores in the bottom one or two floors. The main streets of Avenue Road and Bay Street north of Bloor are similarly developed. North of Bloor, on Yorkville and Cumberland streets, between the main arteries, the character changes to smaller buildings containing art galleries, first-floor retail, and restaurants. Further north still are single-family detached and semi-detached homes dating to the 19th century. Yorkville has shopping, restaurants, Yorkville Village mall, and the first five-star hotel in Canada. Hotels in include the InterContinental Toronto Yorkville, Four Seasons Toronto, Park Hyatt Toronto, Hazelton Hotel, Windsor Arms Hotel, the Residence on Bay, and the Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel.

Parks

The Village of Yorkville Park is a series of gardens that includes

Scots Pine ''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US), Baltic pine, or European red pine is a species of tree in the pine family Pinaceae that is native to Eurasia. It can readily be identified by its combination of fairly short, blue-gr ...

s growing out of circular benches, a set of metal archways among a row of crabapple trees, a marshy wetland, a waterfall bordering one side of a courtyard filled with benches and chairs, and a 650-tonne granite rock. Frank Stollery Parkette is a wedge-shaped park named for local businessman and politician Frank Stollery (1879-1971); the park commemorates the history of Davenport Road. Jesse Ketchum Park is named for the Canadian politician Jesse Ketchum, and is a greenspace park with a playground, located next to Jesse Ketchum Public School. Town Hall Square commemorates the site of Yorkville Town Hall and is an urban oasis with paths and benches sheltered between rows of hedges, trees, and oversized pots. It abuts the Yorkville branch of the Toronto Public Library.

References

External links

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"Yorkville, a hippie haven"
- video clip from CBC Archives, first aired September 4, 1967 {{authority control Neighbourhoods in Toronto Former municipalities in Toronto