The Junc­tion

Sher­ryll Sobie – Yourhome​.ca

What makes a house (or condo) a home is not just what’s inside its four walls, but also the neigh­bour­hood in which it resides.

In this occa­sional series, the Star joins local res­i­dents from across the GTA on per­son­al­ized tours, as they explain why they’ve cho­sen to call their neigh­bour­hoods home.

For this install­ment, we join Gib Good­fel­low on a tour of the Junc­tion. Good­fel­low is a retired teacher, life­long Junc­tion res­i­dent, Her­itage Toronto Walk leader and pres­i­dent of the West Toronto Junc­tion His­toric Society.

Dun­das West at Dupont in The Junction

Bound­aries: Accord­ing to the City of Toronto web­site, the Junc­tion stretches from the CNR/CPR rail line in the east, Run­nymede Rd. in the west, Glen Scar­let Rd. (north of St. Clair) in the north, and Hum­ber­side Ave. in the south. Pre­dom­i­nate lan­guages are Eng­lish, fol­lowed closely by Por­tuguese, then Chi­nese; Viet­namese and Span­ish tie for fourth.

Get­ting there: Take the sub­way to Dun­das West sta­tion then jump on the Junc­tion 40 bus and and get off at Keele and Dun­das Sts. If trav­el­ling by car, the Junc­tion has plenty of street park­ing and sev­eral munic­i­pal lots.

His­tory: One of the most dis­tin­guish­ing foot­notes of the Junction’s his­tory is the alco­hol ban that was in effect from 1904 to 1996. The city of West Toronto Junc­tion, as it was called, voted to go dry because of an ongo­ing prob­lem with drunks, many of whom were tran­sient work­ers and travellers.

The row­dies explain why the town went dry in the first place, but it begs the ques­tion: Why con­tinue the dry spell for so long?

“Junc­tion­ites have an inde­pen­dent spirit and saw no rea­son to change it,” Good­fel­low answers. “Plus, there were lots of other places just out­side the town lim­its where you could get a drink.”

One unique exam­ple was the Wedge­wood Restau­rant, at Bloor and Jane (today it is Billy Bob’s Bistro). Because the build­ing strad­dled both the City of West Toronto Junc­tion and the old City of York, the Wedge­wood was dry in the front, with a stocked bar in the back.

The name, Junc­tion, refers to the inter­sect­ing of two rail­ways, the Cana­dian Pacific and the Cana­dian National, both of which had a huge eco­nomic impact on the area.

“In the 1880s the Junc­tion was a hub of shop­ping, indus­try and travel,” Good­fel­low says. As proof of its promi­nent stand­ing, the Junc­tion was out­fit­ted with a cus­toms house to clear imports arriv­ing from the U.S.

Good­fel­low points to the four cor­ners of Dun­das St. W. and Keele St., where four 100-year-old build­ings rise out of the ground.

“There was a bank on every cor­ner, which speaks to the sig­nif­i­cance of the area,” he says.

But then the Junc­tion was sucker-punched by the advent of the auto­mo­bile and then the sub­way. The auto­mo­bile decreased depen­dence on rail ser­vice and for­ever changed goods dis­tri­b­u­tion. In 1969 the sub­way was extended from St. George, along Bloor St., to Keele St. It was just far enough south that vis­i­tors bypassed the Junc­tion in favour of High Park and Bloor West Vil­lage.

Only in the last 10 years has the area started to expe­ri­ence a revival. Good­fel­low says it began with cut­ting loose the tan­gle of hydro, street­car and tele­phone wires that hung over the area.

“It was a mess,” he says.

Then came the Cost-Sharing Cap­i­tal Project between the city and the Junc­tion BIA (Busi­ness Improve­ment Area), which beau­ti­fied the streetscape with trees and light­ing. The Com­mer­cial Façade and Improve­ment Pro­gram, a match­ing grant offered through the city to com­mer­cial prop­erty own­ers, helped off­set costs asso­ci­ated with revi­tal­iz­ing their storefronts.

While this was going on, artists moved in, adding a zest of orig­i­nal­ity to the neigh­bour­hood. Says Good­fel­low, “Peo­ple started to real­ize that we are well-serviced by parks, libraries, schools, and we began to see a lot of young families.”

In the news: In 1908, the Junc­tion became an inde­pen­dent city until it was annexed by the City of Toronto the fol­low­ing year. This year, the Junc­tion has been cel­e­brat­ing its cen­ten­nial with con­certs and events, includ­ing free walk­ing tours, which will be offered through the West Toronto Junc­tion His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety (wtjhs​.ca) at the upcom­ing Junc­tion Arts Festival

Junc­tion Arts Fes­ti­val: The 16^th annual street fes­ti­val, which starts tomor­row and runs through to Sun­day, will be a smor­gas­bord of music, art exhibits and instal­la­tions, a kids zone, street per­for­mances, movies under the stars, a green vil­lage, and a his­toric city exhibit cel­e­brat­ing the Junction’s 100^th anniversary.

Fes­ti­val direc­tor Michael Mene­gon says about 65 per cent of the con­tribut­ing artists are from the Junction.

“His­tor­i­cally, the Junc­tion has always been a lib­eral arts com­mu­nity. We have a huge pool of artists to pull from,” he says. The fes­ti­val will span one kilo­me­tre along Dun­das St. W. between Keele St. and Que­bec Ave. See junc​tionarts​fest​.com for details.

Green Space: Train travel left a legacy of trade and com­merce, while the tracks grafted an indeli­ble mark on the land­scape where they were laid. After CNR and CPR dis­con­tin­ued ser­vice in the 1960s, the grounds were abandoned.

Fast-forward almost 50 years: The Friends of West Toronto Rail­path, in con­junc­tion with Ever­green, the city, the com­mu­nity Bicy­cle Net­work, res­i­dent asso­ci­a­tions, and a few key indi­vid­u­als, have rein­vented the defunct rail lines into the West Toronto Rail­path, a lin­ear park with a recre­ation trail that will con­nect the Junc­tion and sev­eral other neighbourhoods.

Land­scape Archi­tect Scott Tor­rance, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Brown + Storey Archi­tects, was awarded the oppor­tu­nity to design the first two kilo­me­tres of the Railpath.

“What struck me when I first walked the site in 2006 was the feel­ing of being in the coun­try because of all the wild native plants,” Tor­rance recalls.

That fall, Tor­rance, with the help of vol­un­teers, col­lected seeds of exist­ing plants includ­ing Vir­ginia creeper (a fairly com­mon vari­ety) and sedge grass (rel­a­tively uncom­mon). The seedlings are cur­rently being tended by an off-site nurs­ery spe­cial­iz­ing in native plant prop­a­ga­tion, and will be planted along the Rail­path in the spring of 2009.

When com­pleted, the Rail­path will run 6.5 kilo­me­tres south from the Junc­tion (begin­ning at Cari­boo Ave., near Dupont St. and Dun­das St. W.) diag­o­nally through to King St. West and Stra­chan Ave. in the downtown.

Rail­side gar­dens: Main­tained by an infor­mal group of vol­un­teers, includ­ing Junc­tion res­i­dent Hilary Bell, the native road­side plant­i­ngs on the west side of the tracks grow along Dun­das St. between Glen­lake Ave. and Hum­ber­side Ave.

Shop­ping: “I have a hard time find­ing fat and sugar in the neigh­bour­hood,” Junc­tion BIA co-ordinator Mad­die Whit­field jokes. Whit­field is refer­ring to the recent pro­lif­er­a­tion of organic and fair trade-minded food stores, restau­rants and cafés.

For gro­ceries there’s The Sweet Potato and The Beet, which also has a lit­tle café. Eater­ies include Raw­li­cious (raw, vegan food), Cool Hand Of A Girl, Agora, Rebas and Foun­da­tion, open­ing in Sep­tem­ber. Four Sea­sons Nat­ural Foods and Health Prod­ucts has been a fix­ture in the Junc­tion for about 30 years.

Art scene: In addi­tion to the Junc­tion Arts Fes­ti­val, the neigh­bour­hood has res­i­dent artists and gal­leries includ­ing Urban­scape and Lat­i­tude 44. It’s also home to the Acad­emy of Real­ism Art School, which 20-year res­i­dent Pat Schnurr, owner of local fram­ing store Pic­ture It Framed, says is “a school like no other.”

Devel­op­ments: The Vic­to­ria Lofts, built by Tri­umphal Devel­op­ments Inc. and designed by archi­tect Paul Oberst, is a for­mer Pres­by­ter­ian Church with red brick facade and a majes­tic cop­per spire. The 123-year-old his­toric build­ing has been con­verted into a 38-unit loft that blends mod­ern appoint­ments with orig­i­nal archi­tec­tural detail (vic​to​ri​alofts​.ca).

Dav­en­port Vil­lage, although not tech­ni­cally inside the bound­aries of the Junc­tion, is in the for­mer City of West Toronto as defined by the West Toronto Junc­tion His­toric Soci­ety. Being built by Tom Falus and his Brown­stones Group of Com­pa­nies, the new release of stacked town­houses are 855 to 1,145 square feet.

The Toronto Chap­ter of Habi­tat for Human­ity, the world­wide, non-profit orga­ni­za­tion known for build­ing homes for peo­ple in need, took on a project in the Junc­tion that was a first in its 20-year his­tory. Typ­i­cally, Habi­tat mem­ber fam­i­lies con­sist of two or more peo­ple. In this case, the “fam­ily” was a fam­ily of one: a wheelchair-bound woman who was unable to get out­side with­out assis­tance. The woman was relo­cated within her exist­ing build­ing while Habi­tat built her an acces­si­ble unit. She now lives inde­pen­dently in a barrier-free home. For more infor­ma­tion on Habi­tat For Human­ity Toronto see toron​to​hab​i​tat​.ca.

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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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