Toronto - Cabbagetown Phototour

[Tranplanner]

Last Saturday, Mrs. Tranplanner and I headed down to the Cabbagetown area of Toronto to take in the annual Cabbagetown Arts Festival. Cabbagetown is a neighbourhood on the eastern edge of downtown Toronto - the name comes from the cabbages which used to proliferate in the front gardens of this mostly Irish immigrant community. Today Cabbagetown is one of the strongest communities in the city, and home to an ecclectic mix of housing styles. Cabbagetown was one of the first neighbourhoods in Toronto to undergo gentrification, and today most of the housing stock has been refurbished.

Cabbagetown is home to Riverdale Farm, site of the original Toronto zoo and now a model farm used primarily to give inner-city children (and adults!) a taste of farm sounds, sights and smells.

Coming up the path from the Don Valley


Do Not Feed the Animals!


Horsies!


The old farmstead


Adjoining Riverdale Farm is Riverdale Park (West), site of the Cabbagetown Arts Festival


Scenes from the festival




Hey, what's this guy doing here? (That's Donk, helping his mommy sell her homemade knitwear - what a sweet boy!)


I guess I didn't take any pictures of individual stalls - there must have been at least a hundred or so artists/crafters flogging everything from pottery to jams to "kinetic" sculpture...

Leaving the Park


Moving into the residential streets. The house on the left is flying the "official" Cabbagetown Flag...




I love the old-school street signage on corner houses


No laneways here...


but the house sure are pretty









Doorway closeups



Traffic doesn't move very fast through Cabbagetown, and most streets have some form of traffic calming. By the way, that's 30 km/h, not mp/h!



Neighbourhood convenience retail has remained viable


Laneway housing - oldschool. Wellesley Cottages:



A typical laneway view. To the east of Wellesley Cottages


Modern Infill:


Gotta have that parking pad!


Looming on the horizon, one of the factors which created modern-day Cabbagetown: The high-rise towers of St. Jamestown, on the other side of Parliament Street. These 1960s towers obliterated a similar neighbourhood to Cabbagetown and militarized the surrounding residents


Closer to Parliament Street (Cabbagetown's retail strip), some old housing stock has been converted to retail use


[Transit Geek]New Toronto Transit Commission Orion 7 bus in service. One butt ugly bus IMHO [/Transit Geek]


The main retail street (Parliament) was closed down as a part of the Cabbagetown Festival...





Hmm...looks like someone's being a good corporate citizen!


Looking northwest at Carlton Street


A Toronto landmark (for boozers anyway) - The Winchester Hotel


Three Kids in the Fountain...


And that concludes our tour for today.

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Man, what a dump. No wonder they call Toronto Lake Ontario's "the mistake on the lake"


Seriously, nice pics.

Haven't been to Toronto in a while. Maybe when they build that highspeed mono-rail from Buffalo to Toronto I'll be able to visit

[NHPlanner]

very nice pics Tran. Makes me want to go back and visit TO again!

[donk]

Cabbagetown was one of the places I lived when I lived in TO. My parent's where part of the first generation of "urban pioneers".

One thing I clearly remember, and the store is still there, just moved up three doors is a pet shop with a cursing parrot. He hated drafts and when the door stayed open for too long he let you have it. Wonder if the parrot is still there?

It was fun selling stuff for my mother and the responses that got from the people who visited our booth. Her product is funny hats and sweaters.

There were 1675 or so booths. To learn more about the festival visit. http://www.cabbagetownartsandcrafts.org/

One of the best things about the show was how well the City's bike path network works. I rode 9 km from a friend's place and spent less than 2 blocks on the street. The climb out of the valley was not pleasant, but that is what you get for not riding enough and being out of shape.

For those looking for guides to the City, I am available (will work for beer). But be warned you must put up with stories and references that are going on 20 years old.

[jresta]

Nice pics. Nice 'hood. I was surprised to see that the leaves were still green.

>These 1960s towers obliterated a similar neighbourhood to Cabbagetown and militarized the surrounding residents<

This gave me a mental image of empty nesters running from house to house in camo and balaclavas training for the high-rise apocolypse.

[BKM]

Nice pictures. I must have missed the attractive parts of Toronto when I visited. :/

I love the brick houses! One thing I miss is real brick.