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Riverdale

Skeezix said:
That's a shame. It's gotten some good comments and feedback on the various Danforth/Riverdale-related Facebook groups. My biggest issue is the sign - looks like some Italian restaurant from the 1980s. Nothing to entice people off the street.
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It's very Southern old-fashioned Italian style. All it's missing is the Chianti bottles holding dripping candles and the red-checkered tablecloths. That's not a bad thing. So I would give it 2 stars out of 4. The one meal we had there was decent, filling and reasonably-priced. It could do well with families, at least those with disposable income after their mortgage payments.

I was gonna mention Absolute Bakery but I see you beat me to it.

I also noticed that Gallery Framing, next to the Pape library, has moved upstream Pape to north of Mortimer. I like that place. I am glad she is still in the hood.
 
astroboy5 said:
Spoke to one of the staff at 8 Sushi and asked about what was happening next door. Apparently the new restaurant where Absolute used to be is going to be another Greek restaurant.
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after Omonia and avli closed down earlier this year it's been a decent rebound for Greek joints, this would be around the 4th one opened/opening in the back half of the year.

Count me in as another that didn't like brigantinos, had high hopes for it but not to be, kinda makes me wish Lambro would come back with avli.
 
Hey, I have a question for some old-timers in the neighbourhood. I've lived in this area for 21 years and have attempted to google an answer but have never come up with anything.

What was in the area between the train tracks and north up to Strathcona before Blake Street School, the low-rise public housing, the two high-rise apartment buildings, Eastview Community Centre and the co-op townhouses at 123 Strathcona were built? There is a park which is at a much lower level than the houses to the west (formerly Eastview Park, now Kempton Howard). Most of the area looks like it was built in the 60s and Blake Street School opened in 1969 and was probably built to accommodate all the kids that had moved into the new buildings. At one time, I rented a unit in the 123 Strathcona townhouse complex and since then I've always been curious as to what was in the area previously. (Although the Jewish cemetery to the south of the townhouses is obviously older.)
 
It may be from the 80s - I had googled and they have very similar signage at Brigantino's in Windsor so probably the two are related. I have no idea how long the Windsor restaurant has been operating though.
 
There was a Dominion supermarket where the community centre is now, that much I know.

I know where that 60s-ish little apartment/residence at the SW corner of Pape and Harcourt used to be a dairy. You can see that fish supply place on Blake. There may have been other such places around it. Then there's that funny little structure on the west side of Jones, above the underpass just south of it.

I expect that, given the railway, that there was a major industrial corridor.

ETA: I just remembered! The park was landfill and a lumberyard. Which would explain the crazy termite problem in the area. I do know that the block of Strathcona between Pape and the old Earl Grey school was built well after the block west of Pape.
 
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The aerial photos on the City's website can't really show you what was on these lands, but they do give you an idea of what they looked like. Just as an example, here is a 1947 aerial of the area:
1947.png


While, in comparison here is the aerial from 1961 (you can really see the Dominion store @Ex-Montreal Girl referred to):

1961.png
 

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Skeezix said:
The aerial photos on the City's website can't really show you what was on these lands, but they do give you an idea of what they looked like. Just as an example, here is a 1947 aerial of the area:
Click to expand...

Wow. Awesome. In the 1947 photo, you can see that the baby boom extension to Earl Grey Middle School had not yet been built. There it is in the second photo.

I also see some differences on Cavell but can't make them out. Now, on the north side between Pape and the school, are some modern-ish lowrise subsidized towns and apartments. But I can't make out what was there in 1947.
 
If you actually go to the City of Toronto Archives website (link to the aerials in my post above), you can blow up the aerials for a better view (I didn't want to post photos that were too huge here on UT).

On Cavell, it looks like it was some sort of industrial site. Parked trucks, etc.
 
Thanks. Cavell might have been part of that dairy I mentioned. I knew a man who was born on Strathcona (between Pape and Jones) and lived his whole life there, even taught at Earl Grey. He would have been in his 90s now. He told me a bunch of stuff -- the Dominion Store, the landfill etc. -- but I have mostly forgotten it. It may come back.
 
The Kind Exhange on Danforth has closed due to non-payment of rent.
Also, does anyone know what's up with that new Orange Fitness on Danforth? The sign has been up for a bit, but the door/windows are boarded up
 
Last I paid any attention to it while walking by (two-three weeks ago?), they seemed to be renovating the Orange Fitness space, while selling memberships out the other half of the former party supply store (the half still for lease). Not sure if anything has happened since.

Weird about the Kind Exchange. That's a chain. Anyone know if there are issues with their other stores?

Noticed "Jade Capital" has vacated its space (formerly the Cook's Place, and then later the Cook's Nook, with a brief non-kitchen interregnum when the space was occupied by a hipster baby store). Reportedly a real estate investment firm, the space always looked abandoned. Now up for lease again.
 
The building at 888 Danforth (NW corner of Danforth and Starbucks), which was going to be a Shopsy's with a Soul Kitchen catering kitchen in the back (until Fragedakis pandered to NIMBYs and helped kill that project), will now be a ... Starbucks.

Don't know what this means for the existing Starbucks at Danforth and Langford, one block over. I'm guessing it's a move, rather than a whole new Starbucks, but who knows.
 
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