Cab­bage­town is undoubt­edly one of Toronto’s most beau­ti­ful neigh­bour­hoods. You can see this for your­self just walk­ing past the many beau­ti­ful Vic­to­rian houses with per­fectly groomed gar­dens. No won­der this 19^th-century flavour attracts many artists, musi­cians, and writ­ers to reside here – a lot of young fam­i­lies too. The strong com­mu­nity spirit of its res­i­dents is put on dis­play dur­ing the Cab­bage­town Fall Fes­ti­val every September.

Cab­bage­town is truly a neigh­bour­hood story of rags to riches. The name Cab­bage­town dates from the time when the area was set­tled by Irish immi­grants. These new Cana­di­ans, impov­er­ished by the famine in Ire­land, sur­vived by eat­ing the stew made from the cab­bages grown in their front yards. More than 150 years later, the Cab­bage­town name has stuck.

As recently as the 1950s, the neigh­bour­hood was said to con­tain some of the worst slums in Toronto, but as part of the con­tin­ual gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Old Toronto, Cab­bage­town has become one of the city’s most desired neigh­bour­hoods. Even now, Cab­bage­town is a Her­itage Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict, pro­tected by munic­i­pal bylaw. Cab­bage­town homes make up their own museum 19^th-century res­i­den­tial archi­tec­ture. It is the largest con­tin­u­ous area of pre­served Vic­to­rian hous­ing in all of North Amer­ica, accord­ing to the Cab­bage­town Preser­va­tion Association.

Cab­bage­town Real Estate Map

Almost every style of Vic­to­rian archi­tec­ture can be found here – from Gothic to Queen Anne to Ital­ianate – and every­thing in between. The nar­row streets pro­vide a per­fect back­drop for the charm­ing urban gar­dens. The streetscapes are quite vibrant, with tall skinny row houses inter­mixed with arts and crafts bun­ga­lows, gin­ger­bread cot­tages, along with a few larger detached homes sprin­kled throughout.

The area today known as Cab­bage­town was first known as the vil­lage of Don Vale and it was out­side the orig­i­nal town of Toronto. It grew up in the 1840s around the Win­ches­ter Street Bridge, which was the main bridge over the Don River to the north, before the build­ing of the Prince Edward Viaduct. This was near the site where Cas­tle Frank Brook flowed in the Don River. By the bridge the Don Vale Tav­ern and Fox’s Inn were estab­lished to cater to trav­ellers. In 1850 the Toronto Necrop­o­lis was estab­lished in the area as the city’s main cemetery.

In the late 19^th cen­tury the area was absorbed into the city as it became home to the work­ing class Irish inhab­i­tants who were employed in the indus­tries along the lakeshore to the south in Cork­town. Brick Vic­to­rian style houses were built through­out the area. At this point, the Cab­bage­town name applied to the area south of Ger­rard Street, with the part to the north still being called Don Vale. It was a work­ing class neigh­bour­hood, but reached its peak of pros­per­ity just before the First World War, which is when many of the brick homes in the area date from.

Cab­bage­town Real Estate

After the war the area became increas­ingly impov­er­ished. It was one of Toronto’s largest slums by the time a lot of the orig­i­nal Cab­bage­town was razed in the late 1940s to make room for the Regent Park hous­ing project. The remain­ing sec­tion to the north, then still known as Don Vale, was also slated for demolition.

The con­struc­tion of new hous­ing projects was halted in the 1970s, a period that saw the rise of Jane Jacobs and her reform move­ment that opposed such sweep­ing plans. This led to the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Cab­bage­town by afflu­ent pro­fes­sion­als, begin­ning in the 1970s. Many res­i­dents restored the small Vic­to­rian row houses and became com­mu­nity activists.

Ves­tiges of 1960s counter-culture ambiance remain at vin­tage cloth­ing stores and health food stores. Then there is the Cab­bage­town Youth Cen­tre – home of the Cab­bage­town Box­ing Club – reminder of a tougher past. In recent years, some busi­nesses from the nearby Gay­bour­hood have relo­cated to the area, attracted in part by cheaper rents.

The Old Cab­bage­town shop­ping dis­trict along Par­lia­ment Street fea­tures many unique shops and a vast array of restau­rants. The Carl­ton Street shop­ping dis­trict is sim­i­lar in tone to Par­lia­ment Street, but on a smaller scale. Cab­bage­town also has retail pock­ets on Ger­rard Street, Sher­bourne Street, and Welles­ley Street East – and Yorkville is within walk­ing distance.

Riverdale Farm in Cabbagetown

Cabbagetown’s recre­ational cen­tre is cer­tainly Riverdale Park, at the cor­ner of Win­ches­ter and Sumach. This park is the home of Riverdale Farm, once the site of Toronto’s first zoo (before it moved to the Rouge Val­ley in Scar­bor­ough in the 1970s). Riverdale Farm is back to being an actual work­ing farm in the heart of the city, great for expos­ing city chil­dren to agrar­ian expe­ri­ences. The farm offers demon­stra­tions of daily chores includ­ing ani­mal feed­ings, egg col­lec­tion, cow milk­ing, goat milk­ing and even horse groom­ing. There are also many annual events, day camps, pro­grams for tod­dlers & chil­dren. Riverdale Park also con­tains sports fields and serves as an access point to the Lower Don Recre­ation Trail.

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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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