Mount Dennis

Mount Dennis
Neighbourhood
Weston Road south of Eglinton Ave. W. Weston Road south of Eglinton Ave. W.
Location of Mount Dennis
Coordinates:
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
City	Toronto
Community	York
Changed Municipality	1998 Toronto from York
Government
• MP	Ahmed Hussen (York South—Weston)
• MPP	Laura Albanese (York South—Weston)
• Councillor	Frances Nunziata (Ward 11 York South-Weston)

Mount Dennis is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was part of the former City of York before the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998. The area is bordered by Clouston Avenue (north of the intersection of Jane Street and Weston Road) to the north, and Black Creek to the east and south, as the creek curves parallel to Alliance Avenue before crossing under Jane Street on its way to drain into the Humber River, which creates a natural border to the west. Eglinton Avenue West is a major transportation corridor within Mount Dennis. Had Metropolitan Toronto's planned municipal expressway system been completed, the neighbourhood would have been bisected by the Richview Expressway.

History

File:Aerial view of the Kodak campus in Mount Dennis.jpg

Aerial view of the Kodak campus in Mount Dennis in 1917.

The area gets its name from the Dennis family (led by John Dennis (1758–1832)), Loyalist shipbuilders who owned the property, as well as a boatyard on the Humber, at the turn of the 19th century. It remained largely rural, with orchards, gravel and clay pits and a few market gardens. Kodak Canada moved its factory to a site at Eglinton Avenue and Weston Road, along the rail line running next to Weston Road, in 1913. This factory complex, known as "Kodak Heights", was a major employer for Mount Dennis' residents until it was shut down in 2005.

The area became what urban geographer Richard Harris described as an "unplanned suburb" in his book, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy 1900 to 1950. Workers at Kodak and the nearby stockyards once located at Weston Road and St. Clair Avenue, as well as CCM, Willys Overland and other factories north and south of Mount Dennis built their own homes before municipal services were in place, and small developers built "infill" homes, gradually filling the streets with the current housing stock of former cottages and small, fully detached homes, among the most affordable housing stock in Toronto for recent immigrants and first-time homeowners.

Residents

The area is a classic example of Toronto's diversity, with dozens of ethnic groups represented, however the largest ethnic group by far are from the Caribbean and West Africa with the vast majority of visible minorities of Jamaican descent. With respect to religion, there are many black store front churches representing the many faiths of the African and Caribbean communities as well as Western-European, Middle Eastern and Asian faiths such as Christian, Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Seventh Day Adventist), Muslim, and Buddhist. Among the languages spoken are Spanish, Vietnamese, and Portuguese.(Source: Statistics Canada 2006 Census).

Culture

The neighbourhood's 60-year-old library, a branch of the Toronto Public Library system, reopened in 2013 after extensive renovations. Located at Weston Rd. and Eglinton Ave. the new facility was designed to be a community hub and is seen by some to reflect the evolving nature of the neighbourhood.

In 2014 a public art installation titled Nyctophilia opened at Weston Road and Dennis Avenue. Designed by Toronto artists Daniel Young and Christian Giroux, the piece is part of a series of revitalization projects targeted at supporting the neighbourhood and its residents as it evolves beyond its industrial past.

Schools

• Dennis Community School — A public elementary school on Dennis Avenue, near Weston Road and Eglinton Avenue. Mount Dennis was founded in 1797. The first Mount Dennis school opened in 1891.

Transit

Mount Dennis station will be the westernmost terminus of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and a stop on the GO Transit Kitchener line when it opens in 2020. It will also feature a 15-bay bus terminal for local bus routes. The maintenance facility for the vehicles on the Eglinton Crosstown line will be on the site of the old Kodak plant in Mount Dennis.

When he was a candidate for Mayor of Toronto John Tory's platform included a transit plan he called SmartTrack. The centrepeice of the plan was what he called a 53 kilometres (33 mi) "surface-subway", which would run through Mount Dennis. SmartTrack was to share the rights-of-way of existing rail lines -- except for a turn-off at Mount Dennis, where he imagined the route could run parallel to Eglinton, using the right-of-way that had been set aside decades ago for the Richview Expressway. Tory promised that, by the use of existing rights-of-way, this new transit route could be built for a modest $8 billion CAD. Unfortunately Rob Ford, the current mayor, had sold off the Richview right-of-way. This would require multiple tunneled sections along Eglinton, eroding the cost-savings Tory promised. Further, Tory's plan overlooked that the turning radius for large heavy rail vehicles would require extensive tunneling under Mount Dennis itself.

In late 2015 Metrolinks made public its plans to include a gas-fired electrical generator on its Mount Dennis campus.

External links

• City of Toronto - Mount Dennis Neighbourhood Profile