East/West. A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto

264 Pages·1994·7.18 MB·English

by  Nancy Byrtus, Mark Fram, Michael McClelland

East West
“. . . SOME TORONTO RESIDENCES.”
East/West
A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown
Toronto
Edited by Nancy Byrtus, Mark Fram, and Michael McClelland
Published and distributed by Coach House Books, for the Society for the
Study of Architecture in Canada, June 2000
First edition
This collection copyright ©2000 by Coach House Books Individual attributed
entries copyright © in the names of their authors All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without written permission from the publisher.
Manufactured in Canada
Views expressed herein are those of the author exclusively. Responsibilities
for opinions expressed, accuracy of information, and any rights to reproduce
supplied images or texts rest with the authors.
Canadian Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
East/West: a guide to living in downtown Toronto ISBN: 1 55245 065 1
This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 043 7.
1. Toronto (Ont.)–Description and travel. 2. Buildings–Ontario–Toronto.
3. Architecture–Ontario–Toronto. 4. Neighborhood–Ontario–Toronto.
I. Byrtus, Nancy, 1967- . II. Fram, Mark. III. McClelland, Michael, 1951- .
FC3097.5.E27 2000 971.3’541 C00-931499-7
F1059.5.T686A2 2000
Coach House Books
401 Huron Street (rear) on bpNichol Lane, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2G5
www.chbooks.com/
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Map – City streets
Map – Locations downtown
Introductions
Housing Toronto historically
East
Map: Locations east
Residential high-rise buildings
The Four Corners: epicentre of the housing crisis
The boom in temporary shelters
Rooming houses
The Rupert pilot project
Live/work – a personal memoir
The St Lawrence Neighbourhood: a lesson for the future
West
Map: Locations west
Sussex-Ulster Residents’ Association
Campus Co-op
Southeast Spadina
Spadina Avenue residential/commercial blocks
Rental housing crisis
The Kings: a bold move
The RailwayLands
Housing on the central waterfront
Distant
Map: Locations distant
Leaside
Don Mills
The “Let’s Build Program”
The next generation of affordable housing in Toronto
Lawrence Heights: a CMHC model neighbourhood
Contributors
The “Locations” maps on pages xii, 16, 76, and 147 are extensions to the table of
contents. Map numbers are page numbers. The map on page 147 shows
neighbourhood boundaries, according to the City of Toronto. The street map on
page x shows the street names at a very small size (magnifier required). In any
case, a larger-scale street map will be an invaluable aid to finding these places.
Preface
This publication was created with the goal of providing a snapshot of housing
types and issues in Toronto in conjunction with the Society for the Study of
Architecture in Canada (SSAC) conference “Fresh Perspectives on Housing”
(June 7-10, 2000).
East/West: A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto does not attempt
to include all sites, all voices, and all opinions, but a significant dimension of the
publication has been to provide a forum for different voices that do not usually
have the opportunity to be heard together. We have deliberately avoided
influencing or homogenizing the responses of the authors for the sake of an
overarching thesis. Instead, we have attempted to convey each author’s
contribution (text and illustrations), as part of the complex and often
incongruous matrix of opinions that come from governments, heritage groups,
builders, planners, lawyers, architects, landscape architects, and developers, as
well as students and people who live in the centre of the city. The perspectives
within this book, therefore, do not necessarily represent those of the editors or
the SSAC.
The publication is organized around two cross-sections of the downtown core,
one in the east end and one in the west. The eastern cross-section takes
Parliament Street as its spine, running from Rosedale to the Harbour; the western
cross-section follows Spadina Avenue and St George/Beverley streets, from
Wychwood and Casa Loma to the Harbour. This sectional view of the city is not
intended to be exclusive or divisive in any sense, but to provide a profile of
housing where the juxtaposition of differences becomes as significant as the
presentation of congruent neighbourhoods. Most sites, but not all, were selected
because they fit on one of the cross-sections. Parts of these cross-sections are
adaptable for self-guided walking tours. Some sites have been included that are
off the sectional grid because they illustrate major trends, ideas, or issues that
could not be easily treated within the framework of the downtown.
East/West: A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto is our invitation
to visit, explore and reflect upon the neighbourhoods and housing sites of
Toronto.
Michael McClelland, Marsha Kelmans and Nancy Byrtus