News   Jun 14, 2024
 1.9K     1 
News   Jun 14, 2024
 1.4K     1 
News   Jun 14, 2024
 777     0 

Church-Wellesley Village

First, let's clear the air, Wong-Tam is a fantastic, energetic, intelligent City Councillor who overflows with great ideas, her quote was clearly written out of context by the author of the piece.

As I've mentioned a few times in this thread the kids arrive late spring, they leave early fall and cause problems in the neighbourhood during their stay. I don't know where they live or where they come from but I can tell you that they are almost exclusively white, perhaps 18 - 25 years of age, many of them have short haircuts, wear baggy clothes, walk with a strut and some ride bikes around the streets and sidewalks. When they are on bikes they are just cruising around, clearly riding with no destination or they sit on their bikes and talk. I most often see some of them hanging out at the Middle Eastern restaurant on Wellesley just east of Pizza Pizza. Cawthra Park was terrible for trouble from these people, the problems and noise only stopped last summer and has been good again this summer, I have no idea why, perhaps they have security patrols or police patrols - I don't know but it appears that they pretty much stay clear of the park by day and by night now. Every year I see most of the same faces around all summer, sometimes the following year I recognize a few faces from the the previous year (or years) but there are always new faces too. Along with attacks, store robberies and shoplifting I think many of them deal drugs too, and many of them do drugs (crack or heroin), I recognize a face here & there coming in or leaving my building to do their thing in the stairwells.
I saw the video referenced in the article, I can't remember where I found the link but it's gone off YouTube now. This is the one where a woman comes out of Timothy's at Alexander & Church and walks south, a guy comes out and follows maybe 10 seconds later walking fairly fast and then he literally jumps her right on Alexander Street at Church and thumps the hell out of her then grabs something and runs west along the street. I suspect the reason it was taken down is because whoever photographed it was probably in on what was about to happen. When I finished watching the video my first thought was, how did that person know to have the camera phone record the woman, then the kid coming out of Timothy's, which is severely messed up to knowingly photograph a crime about to happen. So that's what I know.

All that said the Church Wellesley neighbourhood isn't as bad as it might sound, there are problems but it doesn't keep me (a guy with a fairly small frame) from going out at any time of the night and I don't feel unsafe unless it's really late and the street is mostly deserted, then I'm a little on edge even though I probably shouldn't be. No one should avoid the area because of the Xtra! story, just be aware of what's going on around you whenever you go out anywhere and night and you'll be fine. There's crazy nonsense that happens in areas all over the city that we rarely ever hear about. Speaking of which, it's time to run the dog around the block for a quick walk.

On another matter I see cinder blocks going put up in the middle of the former "Reither's Fine Foods" space so it looks like at least one part is rented.
 
Last edited:
any notice that they're closing/renoing, etc?

They've closed and moved up to the Yonge Eglinton Centre, according to a notice on the door.

Also, the UPS Store is open.
 
Last edited:
I've never felt unsafe in the neighbourhood. But I will be more aware now.

They should step up the police presence. And the victims shouldn't be so reluctant to go to police. Police aren't bad guys, despite the media portrayals.
 
I got robbed in the elevator of my building about 5 or 6 years ago when there was a dealer in here and lots of sketchy people coming & going, I was not hurt. I phoned the police to file a report and no one showed up. I've seen some pretty serious vandalism/robberies (windows being smashed & such), I call 9-1-1 from my cell and wait in the area, but most often no one shows up. There aren't enough cars on the road to deal with the volume of calls in 51 Division so they have to prioritize the calls. We had a jumper from the roof here on Pride weekend, there were six to eight police cars for well over half the day, totally unnecessary and when we had a serious assault in one of the apartments last month (it was a domestic matter & the man was not expected to make it) there were anywhere between about five to twelve cars here over a 2 day period, again, totally unnecessary.
There are problems around here, like most high density neighbourhoods, but it doesn't keep me from going out at night and it shouldn't for anyone. As CC points out above, just be aware of your surroundings when you go at night.
 
Play is reopening under new owners as Chruch on Church. I believe their "First Communion" party is tomorrow night.

I've walked by a few times later at night and the music is louder than it ever was when it was Play, and the front is open to the street so music floods out. They better have a long term lease because the guy who owns the joint lives upstairs and he's not going to be happy.
 
I'm into the nabe about a month ago. Has anyone noticed the awful smell of burning vegetable oil which emanates from the restaurant Gingers day and night?
 
I just did a quick little photoshop touchup on the Stephen Murphy houses and store building (until recently, The Barn).
This is a pretty lightweight job, but it shows how easily a renovation could start giving some integrity back to the building.

For extra fun, I've shown Glad Day Books in the ground floor retail space. I think that'd be a great fit - what with the working fireplaces and amount of room. Add a coffee shop, and I think it could really work.
smhs.jpg
 
Last edited:
Church & Wellesley is not some blighted area with broken windows and buildings covered in graffiti. It is a very high rent generally well maintained area and the criminals are attracted to it for that very reason!

The REAL problem - as noted in the Xtra article - is the police are not doing their job in protecting the area. Of course it doesn't help that some of the victims quoted seem to be pushover's who don't want to involve the police.

I disagree with this. I walk and bike around the neighbourhood every now and then, and without having ever witnessed any crime or statistics my gut feeling is that in the context of Toronto it's a neighbourhood with many drug-abusers and anti-socials. My conclusion that this was the case came solely from the aesthetic components of the place. It is grim and dominated by cars, without any trees on church, small dirty sidewalks, and filled with dated retail.

All my friends who live there do so because of the cheap rents or their sexual orientation.

That said, the potential is there and it could be very easily turned into a great urban destination simply by improving the public realm.
 
There are some trees but the sidewalks are quite narrow so in one particular area they actually block the flow of pedestrian traffic. Ideally the sidewalks could be widened but that means losing a traffic lane and we know that's not going to happen - hell, we're losing our bike lanes on Jarvis St. for the extra lane for "the car". What retail is dated? Care to share where the cheap rents are?
 
Maybe I'm just not the target demographic, but I've looked on Church for decent pubs (looking for craft beer), tea places, coffee shops, and restaurants, and have come out empty-handed over and over again. Maybe I'm just not the target demographic, but I never have that issue in any other retail neighbourhood in Toronto (see the Junction, all of Queen, Roncy, Bloor, Danforth, King West, Yorkville, Kensington Market, etc, etc.). Most restaurants and shops from what I remember look to be from the 80s.

Feel free to prove me wrong by pointing in the direction of good establishments. I would greatly appreciate that, in fact!

Re: rents:

This is a map of central Toronto from viewit.ca:

http://viewit.ca/vwMapSearch.aspx?C...centerlong:-79.38870906829834;zoom:14;page:1;

As you can see, the area encompassing Church-Wellesley and surroundings is the only one which consistently offers bachelors under $900. Most listings outside of such area just say 'call'.

I realise that's not THAT cheap, but it beats anywhere else within walking distance to the core, and that's where young urban professionals want to be.
 
I can't really speak about craft beer or pubs, I don't drink, so I don't pay attention but there are three coffee shops (Timothy's, Second Cup & Starbucks) plus there's a Red Rocket east on Wellesley St. Restaurants do change out, the only restaurant I can think of that's been around a long time (perhaps early to mid 90's) is Cafe California and Hoops up at Hayden & Bloor but there are several great restaurants. Rents are really high in the prime area of Church Street (Gloucester St. to Wood St) so many restaurants and pubs can be middle of the road and serve popular food, though again with exceptions of course. As for rents most rentals east of Jarvis Street from roughly Gerrard to Bloor can be pretty sketchy to downright dumps, though to be fair there are a couple of good buildings to be found in there. In better rental buildings bachelors start at $950-975 and in many cases don't include hydro, so that's extra, and go up to $1600-1700 for two bedrooms.
 
Most of the village is very dumpy. It's the reason why places like The Barn don't survive. People want to go to nice places to dance and mingle. Not places that smell like toilets.
 
What's dumpy about the area?
 

Back
Top