Park­dale spans from Duf­ferin Street to Ron­ces­valles Avenue. It is bounded by the Lake Shore to the south, and the rail line to the north, all the way up to Bloor Street.

Once upon a time, Park­dale was one of the most upscale neigh­bour­hoods of Toronto.  The wealth of South Parkdale’s res­i­dents and the qual­ity of its hous­ing stock chal­lenged that of even Rosedale. Many sum­mer homes of wealthy Toron­to­ni­ans were built in here.

Park­dale became Toronto’s ‘play­ground by the lake’ in 1922, when the Sun­ny­side Amuse­ment Park and Bathing Pavil­ion opened for busi­ness on Parkdale’s beaches. Sun­ny­side Beach was the place to be and be seen for a gen­er­a­tion of Toron­to­ni­ans. It was a lake­side vil­lage, with the mas­sive, Coney Island-esque water­front play­ground at its doors. Com­bined with the more middle-class ori­ented North Park­dale (above Queen), the entire neigh­bour­hood offered pop­u­lar appeal to a broad range of Toronto residents.

Park­dale Real Estate Map

Of course, Park­dale ‘s his­tory started long before the pres­ence of Sun­ny­side Park in the area. The Vil­lage of Park­dale was estab­lished in 1812 when a great par­cel of land was granted to James Brock, the cousin of Sir Isaac Brock, in lieu of salary. How­ever, the devel­op­ment began only after Brock’s death in 1830, when his widow Lucy Brock sold the lands that became the major part of Park­dale to John Henry Dunn and William Gwynne.

By the late 1800s, Park­dale has become one of Toronto’s most upscale and desir­able addresses, an elite res­i­den­tial sub­urb. Parkdale’s sta­tus as an inde­pen­dent vil­lage was con­tro­ver­sial at the time; local leg­end has it that gyp­sies were signed up as local res­i­dents in order to pro­vide enough num­bers to qual­ify Park­dale as inde­pen­dent. Park­dale was even­tu­ally annexed into the City of Toronto in 1889.

Unfor­tu­nately, Parkdale’s promi­nence took a major down­turn in the 1950s with the clo­sure of Sun­ny­side Amuse­ment Park, and the con­struc­tion of the Gar­diner Express­way.  With access to Lake Ontario sev­ered by the Gar­diner, many of Parkdale’s afflu­ent cit­i­zenry departed the com­mu­nity.  Prop­erty val­ues began to decline, and fur­ther plum­meted with the con­struc­tion of var­i­ous low-rent apart­ment build­ings and social hous­ing.  The remain­ing South Park­dale man­sions fell largely into dis­re­pair, as they increas­ingly became divided into room­ing houses and bach­e­lor apart­ments through the 1970s.

Park­dale Real Estate

Park­dale still has some ‘big city’ social prob­lems to con­tend with. How­ever these con­cerns are being addressed as the neigh­bour­hood revi­tal­iza­tion has been well under way for decades, help­ing the area to recover its poise. A local res­i­dents group known as the Park­dale Com­mu­nity Watch, ded­i­cated to the safety and well-being of the neigh­bour­hood, recently received an award as the best neigh­bour­hood watch group from the Inter­na­tional Soci­ety of Crime Prevention.

Though Park­dale lacks the mega renewal projects tak­ing place in other inner Toronto neigh­bour­hoods, there are many indi­ca­tions that the com­mu­nity is slowly rein­vig­o­rat­ing itself.  Prop­erty val­ues are on the rise, as the trendy shops and gal­leries of Queen Street West con­tinue to pop up fur­ther and fur­ther west, now reach­ing well into Park­dale. For­mer hotels such as The Drake and The Glad­stone have been trans­formed into cool urban night spots.

The new lofts and town­homes of King West and Lib­erty Vil­lage are also at Parkdale’s doorstep and with that, a new gen­er­a­tion of home­own­ers with fresh eyes will con­tinue to drive improve­ments to Parkdale’s com­mer­cial stretch.  At the other end of Park­dale is Ron­ces­valles Vil­lage, a neigh­bour­hood very much on the rise in pop­u­lar­ity, with its sphere of influ­ence touch­ing the west­ern periph­ery of Parkdale.

Homes in Parkdale

Homes in South Park­dale, below Queen, are truly remark­able.  There are sev­eral grand, detached Vic­to­rian man­sions, many of them three storeys high with five or more bed­rooms.  Those with their orig­i­nal details still intact make a pre­fect can­vas for the artis­ti­cally inclined. These grandiose man­sions were built between 1875 and 1895 and some of the bay-and-gables man­sions that had been con­verted into room­ing houses are now being immac­u­lately restored, mix­ing ele­ments of Queen Anne and Richard­son Romanesque styles.

You will find afford­able grand detached Vic­to­rian hous­ing, often three storeys high with five or more bed­rooms, on Cowan Avenue and Dunn Avenue, south of King Street and on Mel­bourne Place. These homes on the won­der­ful tree lined streets remind us that Park­dale was once Toronto’s wealth­i­est district.

North of Queen, the homes are on a smaller scale and are inter­mixed with semis, but nonethe­less offer appeal on many lev­els. Houses in the north end, above Queen Street, were mainly built between 1900 and 1910.

Queen Street West in Parkdale

The Park­dale neigh­bour­hood pos­sesses many pos­i­tive attrib­utes. It has some of Toronto’s most vibrant shop­ping dis­tricts, won­der­ful tree lined streets, afford­able Vic­to­rian homes, and impres­sive man­sions that remind onlook­ers that Park­dale was once Toronto’s wealth­i­est dis­trict. Park­dale is also within walk­ing dis­tance of Toronto’s water­front parks and other green spaces.

The main com­mer­cial shop­ping area in Park­dale has his­tor­i­cally been on Queen Street. This vibrant, cre­ative shop­ping dis­trict seems to be in a state of per­pet­ual activ­ity; it includes an eclec­tic mix of shops and restau­rants, many cafes, chic bars, bou­tiques and gal­leries. The liveli­est stretch of Queen West, includ­ing the Glad­stone Hotel, has some of the best archi­tec­ture west of the Annex.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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