Gerrard Street (Toronto)

Gerrard Street is a street in

Gerrard Street travels through a few important districts and neighbourhoods of Toronto, most notably Discovery District, East Chinatown, and Gerrard India Bazaar, Toronto's prime South Asian ethnic enclave.

History

Gerrard is named for Samuel Gerrard (1767-1857), an Anglo-Irish businessman in Lower Canada and a personal friend of the Honourable John McGill, member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada.

Upper Gerrard was originally a separate street called "Lake View Avenue", which was in the town of East Toronto. The name was changed after East Toronto was annexed by Toronto in 1908.

Gerrard Village

A short stretch of Gerrard Street West from Bay Street to LaPlante Avenue was referred to as Gerrard Village, a bohemian-Greenwich Village like area emerged in late 19th Century to 1920s and disappeared towards the end of the 1960s.^[2] A few buildings from the former neighbourhood still exists, but the residents and remaining business no longer hold ties to the past.^[3]

People who lived or are associated to it included famous writers, artists:^[3]

• Pierre Berton - Canadian historian and author
• Ernest Hemingway - American novelist and reporter lived here during his time in Toronto around 1919-1920
• Lawren Harris - Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven
• Albert Franck - Dutch-born Canadian painter

Route description

As is typical in Toronto, the street is divided into East and West addresses at

Upper Gerrard is largely a mix of residential and small neighbourhood businesses. At Victoria Park Avenue, the name of the street reverts simply to "Gerrard Street", rather than "Gerrard Street East", for the last four blocks before it ends by merging into Clonmore Drive. This nomenclature oddity is due to the area east of Victoria Park formerly being in Scarborough, which did not label the streets entering from Toronto with an "east" designation, even after the creation of Metropolitan Toronto, which used unified cardinal directions for streets elsewhere, including farther north in Scarborough itself for streets continuing from East York and North York.^[4] (Gerrard and Queen were the only streets labelled with an "east" designation that entered directly into Scarborough from Toronto; both only continue for a few blocks into Scarborough before ending.)

Transit

The

Gerrard Street Bridge

Gerrard Street Bridge
Coordinates	43°39′52″N 79°21′24″W / 43.6644°N 79.3566°W / 43.6644; -79.3566
Carries	4 lanes vehicular traffic including double streetcar tracks and pedestrian sidewalk on north and south sides
Crosses	Don River
Maintained by	Toronto Transportation Services, Toronto Transit Commission
Characteristics
Material	Steel and concrete
Total length	~430 feet (130 m)
No. of spans	1
Clearance below	Don River and Don Valley Parkway
History
Construction start	1922
Construction end	1923
Opened	1923
Location

A 430 feet (130 m) three-hinged ribbed deck steel arch bridge spans the Don River and (formerly railway tracks and now) the Don Valley Parkway below and was completed in 1923.^[5]

This single span replaced the previous bridge which consisted of a Warren pony truss span in the middle connected by a shorter riveted Warren deck truss spans to the east and west sides.^[5] Decorative steel railing has been replaced with concrete parapet with simple metal railings in 1991.

See also

• List of neighbourhoods in Toronto

References