By James Rayner
For this walk, the Walking Club travelled east to the “terra incognita” of eastern Toronto, specifically the neighbourhood known as Riverdale. The name comes from the area’s proximity to the Don River Valley. It as an older area of the city with many semi-detached houses of 2 ½ storeys, but there are quite a few architectural gems along these streets too. We left the subway at Broadview Station.
At the corner of Broadview and Danforth stands a very impressive bank building which, for me, has always marked the entrance to the wonderful Danforth strip.
Heading south on Broadview, we passed by several mansions that once housed well-off citizens of Toronto.
A row of these homes has been converted into the private Montcrest School.
As we continued south on Broadview, it became apparent where the name of the street came from: the spectacular view over Riverdale Park toward the downtown area.
Some creative architecture was found in this Ukrainian church.
We also passed by Bridgepoint Rehab Hospital which overlooks the valley.
Turning east along Riverdale Ave., we noted the architecture from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most houses are semis of 2 or 2 ½ storeys, and most seem to get a lot of care from their owners.
Some houses reflect the success of the original owners and stand out from the crowd.
Riverdale is home to many former “corner stores”, most of which are now coffee shops, beauty salons, or simply empty, but a few still exist as corner stores.
Two blocks north of Riverdale Ave. off Logan Ave. is Bain Ave. It is the site of one of the city’s original co-op housing projects. This is a housing corporation in which the owners buy shares but don’t actually own their home. Apparently, this was a way of getting people into housing without the cost of buying lots and buildings separately and it is once again being touted as one solution to our housing crisis. This co-op covers several city blocks.
We then walked east on Bain to Pape Ave. and north one block to Dingwall Ave. There we found one of the original homes that the Bains lived in.
We continued west on Dingwall until we came to Withrow Park, situated between Logan and Carlaw, which is the heart of the Riverdale Community.
On Carlaw, we noted that even Riverdale with its grand old homes is not immune to demolition and rebuilding. We looked and looked but couldn’t find the entrance to this home.
We continued north on Carlaw to Danforth. This area of the city is known as “Greektown” because of all the restaurants that serve Greek food. However, we opted to have lunch at a Turkish restaurant.
The food was delicious, plentiful, and reasonably priced; everyone went home with enough food for another lunch.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 