York Mills. Yes a suburb Miketoronto likes.

[miketoronto]

Tonight my dad had to get to my uncles house to pick up a car, so my dad took the bus there, and I rode with him. Anyway my uncles house is on the same street my grandparents use to live on. While it is suburban, I have to say I think the street is very beautiful with all the trees and some of the houses are actually nice. And I love the ravine.

So come for a quick tour of my grandparents old neighbourhood, north of York Mills Road, between Leslie and Bayview.

Anyway enjoy a look at my grandparents old neighbourhood. I wanted to take more and better pics. But these will have to do for a little peek into this area.

When my grandparents where alive I use to spend many an evening with them on their back balconey overlooking the ravine you will see in the pics below. It was amazing.

Time for a tour. Some pics I took on our 10min walk from York Mills Road to my uncles house.

The neighbourhood tennis court.

Houses. The houses on this street are nice, but they are not the largest ones. On the other side of the neighbourhood are the huge mansions and some have really amazing crazy designs. But we did not walk past there on this walk.

I love that willow tree.

The neighbourhood is built around a ravine. Many homes including my grandparents old home backed on the ravine, with its creek and trails. It is amazing.

More houses

The bus stop near my uncles house(it only runs Mon-Fri though).

That bus route is very special to me. It was one of the first public transit issues I got involved with in Toronto. When I was a teen, the transit commission wanted to merge the bus route with the St Andrews route, which would have made service worse for the riders on this route. Anyway the city councillor organized residents in this area to help save the bus route the way it is. I went on my grandparents behalf with my dad, and we had to stand up infront of the budget committee along with other neighbours of my grandparents, and had to state we wanted to keep the bus route the way it is. And it worked That was the first issue I ever did To this day the bus keeps running.

 

[building babel]

Thanks for the tour, Miketoronto.

I lived at Carluke/Bayview when I came to Toronto in 1970 ( I still go to the dentist at the corner ). A high school friend lived on Bannatyne. They were still developing and building on the fields over at Leslie in those days.

I used to walk down Bayview to York Mills Collegiate. What a strange introduction to Canada that place was - going to school with kids who drove up in huge cars every day and lived on Post Road or the Bridlepath, and having friends who lived in the apartment buildings on Carluke. Talk about cultural confusion, trying to figure out the values ...

 

[miketoronto]

Talk about cultural confusion, trying to figure out the values ...

I am sure my family caused alot of cultural confusion on that block, with my grandmother making cases and cases of tomato sauce in the garage, and the huge huge parties in the backyard of like 50-60 Italian people talking in their usual loud voices. All while the rest of the street was so stuck up and quiet.

 

[building babel]

I know, those WASPS ... peering out between the venetians and going "tisk tisk". But Italians are such happy people, always laughing and dancing and having fun, growing grapes and making wine. Ya gotta just love 'em ...

 

[MrOttawa]

Building,

While steriotypes can hurt, in some cases they are based upon a generalized truth. Oh, don't forget the horny cousins coming over from Italy trying to take the virginity of the unsophisticated Canadian boys.

 

[adma]

Y'know, other than "this used to be my playground" sentimentality (or the mood of upscale gentility), I don't see the deal about York Mills being "likeable", or on what grounds it is "likeable". It's a suburb, plain and simple--and as this past week is reminding us, it's hardly the Jane Jacobs model. (Sure, it's more "Scarsdale" than "Levittown", but still...)

 

[miketoronto]

York Mills is amazing. It has great public transit access and is only min from the core. Its also got amazing ravine trails, etc.

While I would maybe not live in the area I took pics of, due to the fact that it is a little isolated in that particular street, because once that bus stops at 7PM you gotta walk like 10min to the york mills bus. But I still think it looks like a nice area, and some of the houses have cool designs. I jsut did not get pics of the them.

But York Mills is a nice area. And the older parts closer to Yonge have cute little old homes.

The only problem is York Mills is a little to stuck up for me. But other then that, the setting is very nice.

You know I almost ended up being MIKEYORKMILLS
When my parents moved back to Toronto my dad wanted to buy house on my grandparents street in York Mills. But my mom pushed for Scarborough, because she felt York Mills was to isolated. So if it was not for my mom, I would have a big ravine house now

But I am glad we live in Scarborough. My area is much more down to earth and more neighbour friendly.

 

[building babel]

I worked part time selling shoes in a store in Bayview Village Shopping Centre to help pay my OCA(D) tuition. In those days it was an outdoor mall with a K-Mart at one end ( closed in 1998 ) and a Loblaws at the other. According to the Dominion Modern website, Peter Dickinson designed my old school, York Mills C.I.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

A K-Mart at Bayview Village? I can't imagine the $700 jean-clad trophy wives and Lulumon hottie mommies who inhabit its current incarnation would have set foot in the place back then. Now I can see why Hazelton Lanes is a shadow of its former self.

 

[building babel]

And few of us, in 1970, could have imagined what Bayview Village would become in 2006!

 

[Ed007Toronto]

It was less than 10 years ago that Zellers (which replaced K-Mart I think) left the mall.

 

[Observer Walt]

York Mills / Bayview Village

I remember this place; I worked almost across the street for a couple of years. It changed when Zellers pulled out or was kicked out, when mall management decided to upgrade. They got Renovation Hardware, an LCBO with a full-scale "Vintages" section (only about 6 of these in all of Ontario), Chapters, and a whole pack of upscale clothing stores.

Babel: You must also remember Sunshine's, the restaurant which sat in the south parking lot. They served good nachos.

 

[building babel]

Re: York Mills / Bayview Village

I think it was called something else, 'Town and Country' or something, in my day.

My first job, so to speak. Agnew Surpass, earning $1.30 an hour part time plus commission on certain shoes. I can barely believe it was me when I look back. Our competition was 'The Three Little Pigs' a shoe shop for kiddies that we'd refer to dismissively as 'The Pigs'. There was a bank too, with two queeny tellers about 35 who scared the life out of me. Is the little library still there I wonder? There was even a girl I was fond of ( that shows how long ago it was! ) who worked in the smoke shop at the intersection of the two branches of the mall. This sounds like from a time before the flood, but York Mills and Sheppard were much, much quieter and narrower streets and the biggest thing at Yonge and Sheppard was Dempsey's Hardware - which was moved somewhere else eventually.

 

[Ed007Toronto]

Re: York Mills / Bayview Village

You and miketoronto worked at the same mall!

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Re: York Mills / Bayview Village

Actually, so did I. Briefly. I was seconded from the Bloor Banana Republic store in order to help the new store at Bayview Village get on its feet. I was actually thinking of transferring over there permanently as it was a shorter commute for me, but then I heard that my ex-girlfriend of that era was going to become one of the managers there, and well, needless to say, I quickly squelched that idea.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I remember York Mills still having two lanes immediately east of Yonge, past the office building that houses York Mills station and up that sharp incline. I think it was within the past five years or so that that section of the road was widened to four lanes, or at least rebuilt.

And the library's still there.