Yorkville, Toronto

Yorkville was funded in 1830 by the entrepreneur Joseph Bloore (after whom Bloor Street, one of Toronto's main thoroughfares, is named) and William Botsford Jarvis of Rosedale and began as a residential suburb. Bloore operated a brewery north-east of today's Bloor and Church Street intersection, and Jarvis was Sheriff of the Home District. 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.

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 was voted back into the Legislature for 1832, and a huge procession took him down Yonge Street.[3]

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.[4]

John Daniels' House, 1867

Stores in Yorkville, circa 1975

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,"[4] 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, Neil Young, and Gordon Lightfoot, as well as then-underground literary figures such as Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen, and Dennis Lee.[5] Yorkville was also known as the Canadian center of the hippie movement. In 1968, the nearby Rochdale College at the University of Toronto was opened on Bloor Street as an experiment in counterculture education. Those influenced by their time in 1960s-1970s Yorkville include the cyberpunk writer William Gibson. Its 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."[6] Joni Mitchell captured a colorful impression of the nightlife scene on Yorkville Avenue in her song "Night in the City."[7] The hippie scene was also depicted in the National Film Board of Canada documentary Christopher's Movie Matinée in 1968.[8]

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 office and hotels built in the 1970s, with high-priced condominium developments being built in subsequent decades.

• Bloor Street Culture Corridor
• List of neighbourhoods in Toronto

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bloor Yorkville.

• "Annex neighbourhood profile". City of Toronto. City of Toronto. Archived from the original on February 6, 2004. Retrieved March 16, 2009.
• "Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s". University of Toronto Press. Archived from the original on February 11, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2011.*"Yorkville, a hippie haven" - video clip from CBC Archives, first aired September 4, 1967