From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Parkdale, which was annexed by Toronto in 1889, was once an elite residential suburb home to large Victorian mansions and views of Lake Ontario.
Throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century, Parkdale's desirability stemmed from its proximity to Sunnyside Beach, a favourite day vacation for Torontonians. Cottage industries sprung up in the neighbourhood, creating a vital economic region. Theatres such as the Brighton, and hotels like the Edgewater flourished.
The Palais Royale sits at the eastern edge of Sunnyside Beach and was used for social gatherings. Many important big bands played there in the 1930's and the 1940's, and this attracted a large youth patronage. Many war generation Torontonians courted their future partners in this building.
In 1955, the city began work on the Gardiner Expressway, a limited access highway that separated Parkdale from Sunnyside Beach. The expressway effectively halved the amount of usable lakeside parkland. A reorganization of the area's residential streets and the demolition of a local amusement park were also necessary. Patronage of the beach declined rapidly.
Concurrently, Toronto was experiencing the urban White Flight of the Mid-Twentieth Century. As property values plumetted, great swaths of land were expropriated to erect social housing. Parkdale's businesses and wealthy residents now had no reason to stay.
Parkdale Village, the area of Parkdale most proximate to the beach, became one of the poorest areas in Toronto. It is bounded on the west by Roncesvalles Avenue, on the east by Dufferin Street, on the north by Queen Street West, and on the south by the Gardiner Expressway, roughly half a square kilometre in area.
In the mid 1990's, the Ontario Provincial Government decided to release thousands of long-term care mental illness patients from its Queen Street facility in a cost-cutting measure. The old Victorian mansions of Parkdale had long been converted to boarding houses, and were only a short distance east from the government facility. The inexpensive rental stock of Parkdale naturally became the recipient of the deluge. While this migration did not pose any real problems, its news drew greater infamy to the area. By the late 1990's, "Parkdale" became synonymous with crime and homelessness.
Parkdale Village is still home to soup kitchens and day centres for homeless persons. A pilot programme for a needle exchange is new to the area. Nonetheless, local taverns have begun receiving a new patronage from artists and hipsters seeking refuge from the fashion boutiques further east on Queen Street West. Many expect the same regentrification process to occur here that occured twenty years ago in the east.
The area that extends northward along Roncesvalles Avenue, on the other hand, saw new life when Polish immigrants settled in the area in the mid 1960's. Delis and restaurants are still the majority of storefronts that line the thoroughfare from Queen Street West to Fern Avenue. In recent years, young monied professionals have begun regentrifying the area and raising property values. As the elderly Polish population dies off, well-sausaged windows are becoming frocked with the fashions of the New Urbanite.
