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	Church & Wellesley: Map
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Church & Wellesley
in context

This is a detail from a street map dated 1993. Census Tract 63 -- Tract 72 before 1971, with the same boundaries, Yonge, Bloor, Jarvis, and Carlton -- is just over a kilometre from north to south, and half a kilometre wide (roughly 3,300 by 1,650 feet).

There are only six major thoroughfares: the four boundary streets; Church running up the tract just off centre; and Wellesley crossing it about 200 metres south of its geographic midline.

All the other streets here are narrower, quieter, and many -- in season -- lush with trees. Most (as the map's arrows indicate) are one-way.

The subway and its stations are shown in blue -- though not with absolute accuracy. For most of its route from Bloor to Carlton (College Station), the Yonge line actually runs not under the street but east of it.

Built mostly by cut-and-cover, not tunnelling, and opened in 1954, the Yonge Street line is visible on the ground as a series of parking lots and parkettes, parallel to the street but behind the buildings on its east side. Some newer structures, like Continental Tower at 15 Dundonald Street, now stand on top of the subway line.

Since 1966, when the east-west Bloor-Danforth line opened, the station at the top left, Bloor- Yonge, has been the system's busiest, main transfer point for the entire city. In fact, Bloor and Yonge is often seen of as the city's centre -- though the big bank towers marking "downtown" on the skyline are more than two kilometres south, closer to the lake.

Yonge Street, north from Carlton to Bloor
Centre (signed "HJ"): The former Westbury Hotel
Left: Clock tower once marking the St. Charles Tavern

Yonge Street, however, has nearly always been the city's midline. Toronto began, as the Town of York in 1793, well east of it, ten small blocks hugging the lakefront on the other side of what is now Jarvis Street. But since the early 19th century, Yonge has been both main drag and geographic marker: "East" and "West" in street names mean east or west of Yonge.

Address numbers on east-west streets also take Yonge Street as their starting point. On north- south streets, numbers ascend northwards. So, in the Church & Wellesley area, the higher the number, the farther north or east one is. (Generally speaking: numbers across the street from each other aren't always in synch. For instance, 519 Church is more than a block north of 518.) Even numbers are always on the north or west side of a street; odd numbers on the south or east.

Finally, to some of the landmarks shown on this map. Cawthra Square Park (more often called simply Cawthra Park), north of Wellesley, is home to the city's permanent AIDS Memorial and the 519 Church Street Community Centre. Maple Leaf Gardens still holds the corner of Carlton and Church (but perhaps not for long).

Toronto Grace is a Salvation Army hospital -- but definitely not for long. In a much- fought "restructuring" forced by the provincial Tory government, the Grace and ten other hospitals -- a quarter of all those in Metropolitan Toronto -- will close by 1999. Among them are the Orthopedic, shown here on Wellesley; Women's College, just west of the tract, the only hospital in Canada run by and for women; and Wellesley Central, one of the country's busiest HIV- care facilities, just east, at Sherbourne Street.

The building marked "CBC Museum" isn't that any more, but the designation is still oddly fitting: for decades, this block housed the national production facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Its vast array of buildings old and (relatively) new now stand mostly empty, the CBC having abandoned them for grand new digs on Front Street.

Church & Wellesley Photos: List / Next page: Houses

Time & Place: Toronto, 1971 / More on Church & Wellesley