I don't live in Victoria Village, we live on the east side of Victoria Park Ave.
We moved there maybe 3 years ago. Our house is a bungalow built in 1952. The walls are double-brick, have no 2x4 studs and no insulation. It has the original hardwood floors, a cinderblock basement, and a 70s panelled basement (which I like) It needed a bunch of updates (the insurance co. gave us 60 days to get rid of the oil furnace!) but I was happy to have a blank slate house as opposed to paying through the nose for a granite countertop etc.
Most of the houses from Vic Park to Warden, from St. Clair to Ellesmere are built in the same style. It's weird because they are not decrepit as some Victorians can be, eg. crumbly basements, but still have older features like the lack of studs & insulation in the walls. We saw our neighbor getting a new roof, and underneath the shingles were these timbers, ie not plywood. These houses are solidly built.
I am not from the area so I find it interesting to learn about Scarborough, it really shows that it went from farmland straight to
suburbia. We moved there because my partner works not too far away, I work downtown but I wanted a backyard, but couldn't face a commute from Ajax or Newmarket.
We don't have a car, so I love that there is a bunch of good shopping at Golden Mile, within biking distance anyhow, or a 15-20 min walk. There is a Canadian Tire, Metro, 3 Tim Hortons, Fabricland, Walmart, Petsmart, so except for clothes shopping, I can get a lot of my shopping done right in the area. There is a movie theatre, Kelseys, Eggsmart, and 2 buffet restaurants. There is an Irish pub on Warden south of Comstock (Muckish Pub, Irish in that they have GAA games on TV on the weekend, we went for some hockey playoffs or other and it was a nice vibe), and a pub on Vic Park near Surrey that seems to have been renovated so as to not look like any type of traditional pub - it used to be called Caseys or something.
The Eglinton Square mall is small but has a bunch of useful stores, if you were stuck you could probably get a lot of stuff there, eg. Blacks, a couple of shoe stores, and a Bay. It has a British store, eg. you can get British grocery items and tea towels an so forth. The mall is kind of geared towards seniors, (eg. the selection of clothes available at The Bay) and there are usually a bunch of seniors in the foodcourt, specifically Greek seniors, for whatever reason.
The Watt's restaurant, and the mall itself, have been there since the 50s, but the mall itself looks well taken care of, I would love to know what the mall looked like when it was first built, and what additions were made to it when. I have tried to see if I can tell where the additions were made, but I can't.
The Golden Mile mall itself, its main attractions for me are the No Frills, and the Bulk Barn. It also has a dollar store and a Joe Fresh, but not much really to draw anyone there otherwise.
There was a Zellers near the Golden Mile mall, it got moved to an area near Thermos Road and then closed down a few years later when Target bought it. So far no sign of a Target going in any time soon. I found the Zellers to be handy if disorganized. More recently an Al Premium, and Adonis ethnic supermarkets have gone in, near where the old Rona location was. I was a bit curious as to why there were 2 in such close proximity, but Adonis is a Montreal chain, if you want Greek or Middle Eastern baked goods, it has that. Al Premium is more broad in the ethnicities it caters to, there are ready to eat meals available.
Many of the houses on our street are occupied by the original owners. These folks are in their high 80s, so I see a lot of lawn services taking care of the lawns. They go into homes or pass away and younger families move in. Other than the 80 year olds, there seems to be a wide range of ages of residents, not too many young children though.
The people who live on my street for the most part take very good care of their lawns and houses, I assume partly to discourage burglary or what have you. If we don't take the garbage/recycling bins in soon after the garbage truck comes by, one of the neighbors will bring it from the curb closer to our house.
Up on Lawrence, between Vic Park and Warden, you can get any kind of falafel or shawarma you want. It is very strip mall looking, so not that pretty. There are a couple of bars there. A Filipino grocery and a bunch of halal-oriented grocery stores and restaurants.
I like living there because I feel safe on our street, I guess we got one of the safer areas of Scarborough. I like having a garden and backyard. I love being close to the convenient shopping, though it is a bit of a hike getting around, I learned that the buses are packed on Saturday so I try to get shopping done on the weekdays.
