Toronto

Neighborhoods

Toronto's financial district, home to the city's major banks and insurance companies, is bordered by Front Street, Queen Street, Yonge Street, and York Street. The King Street West theater district between Front and Queen streets contains a heavy concentration of cultural facilities, including the Royal Alexander Theatre, Roy Thomson Hall, the Canadian Broadcasting Company building, the city's convention center, and the Princess of Wales Theatre.

Chinatown is bounded by Dundas Street, University Avenue, Spadina Avenue, and College Street. Toronto's Little Italy, with its colorful coffee bars and trattorias, is located along College Street between Euclid and Shaw. The area from College Park to Bloor Street, between Spadina Avenue and Yonge Street is home to many of the University of Toronto Buildings and the Ontario Legislature.

To the east of Parliament Street and between Bloor and Gerrard streets is an area traditionally known as Cabbagetown because of the cabbages planted on the lawns of the nineteenth-century Irish immigrants who were its original settlers. Having undergone gentrification, today it is an upscale urban enclave.

The Yorkville area northwest of the intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets became a haven for the counterculture beginning in the 1960s; today it is a high-rent district boasting an array of fashionable galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and cafes.

Residential neighborhoods include the Annex, between Bloor and Bernard streets; the exclusive Rosedale area; Forest Hill; the Beaches, formerly a summer resort; East End/Danforth, a heavily Greek enclave; and the popular redeveloped North York neighborhood.