St. Clair Avenue

St. Clair Avenue is a major street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was laid out in the late eighteenth century by the British as a concession road (the Third Concession), one and a quarter miles north of Bloor Street and two and a half miles north of Lot Street (now Queen Street).

St. Clair Avenue has two sections. The western section extends from Moore Park in the east to Scarlett Road in the west, a distance of approximately six miles (10 km). An eastern section picks up on the far side of the Don Valley at Taylor Creek Park, extending for 7 km to Kingston Road. Like all streets in Toronto which cross Yonge Street, St. Clair is divided into separate East and West sections, each with its own street numbers beginning at Yonge Street.

Its name is reputed to have become St. Clair after farm children who were reading Uncle Tom's Cabin gave names from the book to the local trails and posted them at intersections, the St. Clair name being the only one generally adopted. Another story has their father, Albert Grainger, adopting St. Clair as his middle name after reading the novel, and the street later being named for him. However St. Clair got its current name, the first known printed use of the St. Clair name was in an 1878 publication, Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of York.

The first European settlement on St. Clair was at Yonge Street, where the Heath family bought land in 1837. A thriving neighbourhood, Deer Park, was established by the 1850s. The next settlement was about three and a half miles west, at Old Weston Road (then Weston Road), where settlement of Carlton Village began in the late 1840s. The western end of St. Clair experienced the greater development, with the municipalities of West Toronto, Earlscourt, Dovercourt, and Oakwood established there.

These municipalities were annexed by Toronto between 1908 and 1911, and the western section of St. Clair Avenue became entirely managed by the City of Toronto. To stimulate development along what was then largely a rural road, the city built a streetcar line from Yonge Street to Caledonia Road (this line, extended west, still survives as the city's most northerly streetcar line). The street was heavily developed by 1930.

Much of the development from this era survives. St. Clair West is one of many streets in Toronto which has experienced little development since an initial building boom. The exception is the intersection with Yonge Street, which has experienced heavy nodal development since the opening of a subway station there in 1954. The buildings there include the world headquarters of George Weston Foods Inc.

As it proceeds east from Yonge Street, St. Clair passes through the neighbourhoods of Deer Park and Moore Park. The chief neighbourhoods west of Yonge are Deer Park, Forest Hill, Oakwood, Earlscourt, Dovercourt, and The Junction. The eastern section of St. Clair passes eastward through Parkview Hill, Woodbine Gardens, Clairlea, Birchmount Park, and Kennedy Park to Cliffcrest. Corso Italia, Toronto other Italian enclave is found on St. Clair Avenue West between Bathurst Street and Old Weston Road.

St. Clair Avenue West has heavy automotive and public transit traffic. Over half the commuters in the congested rush hour traffic travel by streetcar. The streetcar line connects with two subway stations on the Yonge-University-Spadina line. Recently there has been talk about turning the existing streetcar line into a dedicated line allowing it easier access along its route.

References

Nancy Byers, St. Clair West in Pictures, Toronto Public Library, 1997

• Toronto: Italy (http://toronto.com/Toronto/Tourism_Toronto/Media_Gallery/News_Releases/Italy_/)