corktown, toronto

Corktown is an historic neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located just south of Regent Park and north of the Gardiner Expressway, between Parliament Street to the west and the Don River to the east. The neighbourhood's name derives from its 19th century origins as an Irish ethnic enclave, particularly for Irish emigrants from County Cork. In the early 1960s, a significant amount of Corktown was demolished to make way for several elevated roadways including the Richmond Street offramp from the Don Valley Parkway and the rerouted Eastern Avenue overpass, which remain a blight to the neighbourhood. Currently in the early stages of the same sort of regentrification that revitalized present-day Cabbagetown, examples of old-fashioned British-style row-housing can still be seen along Corktown thoroughfares such as Bright Street and Gilead Place. Corktown was also the site of the first Roman Catholic church in Toronto: St. Paul's was originally built in 1822. The current St. Paul's (located at Queen St. East and Power Street) dates from 1887.

Corktown, Toronto

See also