The first part of this series focused on the section of Gerrard Street East between Broadview Avenue and the Carlaw-Pape development zone slated for a future rapid transit station and residential development.
This part is a survey of the easternmost section of what is sometimes called Lower Gerrard, stretching from Carlaw to Coxwell Avenue. This section is twice as long as the one between Broadview and Carlaw, and it also differs in its neighbourhood character. While west of Carlaw several dense blocks are filled by commercial, residential and institutional activities, to the east the streetscapes are often discontinuous and commercial activity is more diffuse.
There is some symmetry to be noted in the fact that East Chinatown begins at Broadview and runs eastward for several blocks, while the Gerrard India Bazaar runs westward from Coxwell for about the same distance. Both remain cultural and commercial centres for their respective communities despite competition from suburban rivals.
In addition, both sections of the street are similar in their commercial and residential building typology. Conversions of houses to storefronts can be found on both sides of Carlaw. However, the opposite type of conversion, from storefront to ground floor residential use, appears to be more common in the eastern section.
This eastern section does have unique features, including Gerrard Square, a suburban-style shopping mall with a large surface parking lot that occupies an entire block east of Pape. Opening in 1975, the mall endured the decline of the neighbourhood in the 1980s and 1990s, and underwent a successful renovation in 2005.
Like the Riverdale Plaza, its former neighbour on the opposite side of the railway tracks, Gerrard Square was built on what had previously been industrial land. Between 1928 and the early 1970s, Canadian Wirebound Boxes (PDF) manufactured a range of wood and cardboard shipping containers on this site.
Farther east, between Leslie Street and Greenwood Avenue, the usual mix of commercial and residential uses is interrupted for several blocks. Here the street is lined on both sides with well-maintained houses. This would seem to be a case of mid-1920s land developers deciding to create an exclusive residential community. The most common house type along this stretch is the craftsman style duplex, a style commonly encountered on residential streets in Leslieville and East York.
The Grand Gerrard Theatre at 1038 Gerrard East dates from 1911, and was originally a cinema. When I photographed it in June, 2024 it had been closed for several years, and it seemed likely that it would never reopen. However, since early 2025, a local musician, Kinkaid Davis has led a community effort to restore and renovate it as a live music venue.
The topography traversed by Gerrard Street East on both sides of the Don Valley is quite flat, allowing the 79 storey Aura condominium tower at Gerrard and Yonge to be seen on the western horizon from as far east as Coxwell. The residential towers planned for the former site of Riverdale Plaza will be equally conspicuous when completed in a decade or so. A public architectural competition would serve to ensure that these unprecedented additions to the streetscape are worthy of their landmark-ready site.
Sometimes the particulars of time and place that documentary photography strives to record can assert themselves without conscious effort by the photographer. The sequence below features several photos I took in July, 2023 on my first roll of film for this project, including a lucky shot of the abandoned Ulster Tavern before it was completely blocked from view by U-Haul vehicles.
The milky skies and soft, open shadows recorded in these early images reflect the lingering presence of wildfire smoke in the atmosphere above Toronto in the summer of 2023.
All photos © P. MacCallum (petermaccallum.com) unless otherwise indicated.
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