December 29th, 2009
The brutalist Chelmsford Apartment towers loom over an old village house.
This is the first in a series I plan to do over the next little while on the hidden villages and hamlets that have been engulfed by urban sprawl in the Greater Toronto Area. This is going back to the beginning for me, as one of my first posts on Spacing Toronto was on the lost village of Ebenezer, now part of Brampton’s sprawl.
I chose Agincourt to launch this occasional series for two reasons: this is one area in which many, if not most, Spacing readers should have some familiarity with; and it is here that Transit City has its humble “groundbreaking” - namely the grade separation of the CN Uxbridge Subdivision and Sheppard Avenue East.
Unlike lesser known villages around like O’Sullivan’s Corners (Sheppard and Victoria Park), or Hough’s Corners (Eglinton and Birchmount), Agincourt as a geographical place name lives on, in the form of a GO Transit train stop; a mall at Kennedy and Sheppard, local schools, amongst other things. Indeed, today, many Torontonians would describe Agincourt’s boundaries as from the 401 to the south, Steeles to the north, Victoria Park to the west and McCowan or Markham Roads to the east (the City of Toronto’s neighbourhood definition for Agincourt isn’t clear either, splitting “Agincourt” into two neighbourhoods).
125 years ago, Agincourt was a bustling, yet unincorporated, rural village at the corner of what is today the intersection of Midland and Sheppard Avenues, assisted by the construction of the pioneering Toronto and Nipissing Railway in 1871 (which became part of the Midland Railway of Canada empire, the origin of the name Midland Avenue) and the Ontario and Quebec Railway, later the CP mainline to Montreal.
Knox United Church and cemetery, Agincourt. An old church and cemetery will often mark the location of a former village.
The suburban creep of Toronto didn’t catch up to Agincourt until the early 1960s, after the construction of Highway 401 and the wholesale bungalowization of Scarborough Township after the Second World War by Reeve Oliver Crockford. The train has stopped continuously in Agincourt, first hosting passenger trains to Coboconk and Lindsay, later CN, then VIA rail diesel coach commuter trains to Markham and Stouffville. GO Transit took over the service in 1982.
Today, Agincourt village still maintains much of its original building stock, though urbanization has blurred the old boundaries. This has had the effect so that Agincourt is a village lost in plain sight. Several churches from the village era remain in use today, though there have been some adaptations to the area’s changing demographics, including Mandarin and Cantonese language services. The local school, built in 1912, still welcomes students, and the old Victorian and Edwardian housing stock, while standing out from the ranch houses, high rises and townhouse complexes that surround the area, are plentiful on several local streets as well as Midland Avenue and even Sheppard.
October 27th, 2009
In late September, I had the privilege of sitting in on one of the walkability studies that are taking place in conjunction with the City’s Tower Renewal pilot project. The studies enable residents of the tower neighbourhoods that are part of the pilot project to show how they walk in their area and what the barriers are to walking, with a view to discovering potential improvements. They have been developed by Jane Farrow of the Centre for City Ecology and Prof. Paul Hess of the University of Toronto.
The site was a set of four towers organized around Cougar Court in Scarborough Village, just off Eglinton East near Kingston Road. The first thing Jane Farrow showed us when we arrived was a classic piece of suburban unwalkability. Just east of the four towers, which house over a thousand people including many children, there is an elementary school and a park on Gatesview Ave. But a string of houses along Cedar Dr. were built along the east side of the towers complex blocking direct access to these amenities (full satellite map). Residents of the towers would have to take a roundabout route (especially for those in the north towers) through a pedestrian-unfriendly alley to the south to get to them.
July 3rd, 2009
“From the rez to the city, my people are you with me? You’re tuned in to the chief of the concrete city,†rapped hip-hop artist Wabs Whitebird at last Friday’s pow wow at Eastview Public School in Scarborough. Sharing insight into his experience as an aboriginal person born and raised in Canada’s largest urban centre, Whitebird’s a cappella performance provided a hip-hop interlude amidst the day’s traditional pow wow festivities.
Kids from the neighbourhood raced around the event, hopping from the playground to the barbeque and into the dance arena, where they joined head dancers Nadjia Melanson and Joseph Harper. On-lookers and vendors surrounded the dance arena, where three drum groups (two local and one visiting from Peterborough) performed from the centre of the circle, seated next to the flags and ceremonial staff.
This was the third annual pow wow to be held at the Scarborough elementary school, originally organized by Waabanong Head Start, a preschool program for aboriginal families in the neighbourhood.
While some may find grey high-rises and Kingston Rd traffic a curious backdrop for a pow wow, it shouldn’t be unexpected, as the aboriginal population continues to increase rapidly in Canadian cities. The 2006 census reported 54% of aboriginal Canadians live in urban centres. Nevertheless, some people are still surprised to learn of a pow wow happening in Scarborough, said organizing committee member Sue Rogers, going on to discuss what a meaningful moment it was in bringing the community together.
With National Aboriginal Day taking place on June 21st, the message Rogers hopes to communicate through the pow wow is one of celebration and awareness. She emphasized the importance of pow wow in teaching the next generation about their heritage so they will continue to keep it alive.
To check out some more photos from the event, click continue reading below.
June 2nd, 2009
Community, Culture, Connection: Celebrating 30 Years of Scarborough Arts Council
An eclectic evening of Scarborough arts filled with guest speakers, various performances, and a silent auction. Our special guests for the evening include:…
