An intro of sorts

Roncesvalles Village is a leafy, friendly community in the heart of Toronto. It offers a mix of commercial and residential on a human scale. It is inhabited by well established families, young hipsters and recent immigrants just days or weeks into their Canadian experience. Million dollar homes share space with dirt cheap tenements and basement apartments. A street car running down its main commercial artery (Roncesvalles Avenue) connects the neighbourhood to the vibrant city that is Toronto (the more observant might notice that the streetcar has disappeared for a while as the city prepares to rebuild the tracks and possibly realign the tracks, vehicle lanes and parking in the process).

Roncesvalles Village is probably (and quite unfairly) one of the least known of the exciting communities that make up the west end of the old (pre-amalgamation) city of Toronto. High Park, Bloor West Village, Parkdale, heck even The Junction and Swansea Village, probably ring more bells with more residents of our megalopolis. Even the unofficial designation for the place “Little Poland” enjoys more currency than Roncesvalles Village. Each of Roncesvalles Village’s neighbours has its pluses and minuses. But when looked at from a perspective that takes into account the quiet solitude of one’s own backyard or porch, affordability, liveability, community vitality and the ease of access to a wide range of businesses and services, Roncesvalles Villages easily out ranks all of its better known cousins.

Toronto is a highly multi-cultural place. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a place in the city that doesn’t feature a polyglot mix of people from every corner of the world. But there are all sorts of areas where one group or another congregates in sufficient numbers to make themselves felt. There’s a handful of China Towns, a Little Italy or two, Greektown and communities of Hasidic Jews, Somalis, Dominicans, Costa Ricans, Newfoundlanders, Coptic Christians, gays, bank executives, Benfica supporters and countless other areas in the city that are identified with a particular group. In Roncesvalles Village, the groups that stand out tend to be from Eastern Europe. Various groups are represented here, but in terms of a “street presence” you can pick out the Poles, with delis, bookstores, restaurants, community centres and churches dotting what you might call the south end of the neighbourhood running up from the Queen/King/Queensway intersection all the way to Howard Park Avenue. The north end of the stretch, roughly from the intersection with Howard Park Avenue up to Bloor Street, features a smattering of Serbian establishments.

Ukrainians, a group more closely identified with High Park and Bloor West Village, and south-central Etobicoke, are nonetheless heavily represented among the residents of the neighbourhood too. Of course just about everyone else is here too! There’s a Greek Orthodox church on Sorauren Avenue a couple of blocks east of Ronces, a Coptic church on Queeen St., many Asian restaurants and fruit shops, and even a Republican or two.

This is the place that I first moved to when I came to Toronto some twenty years ago, a bright-eyed youngster with the world before me. And with so many experiences both good and bad under my belt, I’m back here again and can’t really imagine a greater place. In fact I live only about four blocks away from my old place which was just across from St. Joe’s hospital. The new joint is a few blocks north of the very same.

I love the fact that the street itself has just about everything that I need to enjoy life, but I also appreciate that living here I am not far from anything else that might turn my fancy. A few short blocks away along Queens Street I can be in the heart of Parkdale, another of Toronto’s sorely underappreciated neighbourhoods. Rapidly gentrifying, it nonetheless still has the gritty feel of an artistically minded community. Further west along Queen I can be more of a “hipster” and sample the bars and clubs that now stretch from the Gladstone and Drake, all the way to the trendiest sections of Queens St in the downtown core. To the west, I’ve got High Park for picnics with my son, and Bloor West Village for drinks in the old haunts with buddies from a different time.

Heading North? Why it’s just a short hop over to The Junction, probably the only neighbourhood in Toronto that could possibly turn my amorous gaze away from Ronces. I’ve also lived there, though I moved before the referendum allowed demon rum to stalk The Junction’s streets. Perhaps this may seem counterintuitive to the folks that would like to legislate fun out of existence, but The Junction has seen more than a doubling of real estate prices since the dry law was defeated. Not only that, but with the tripling of prices on Queen Street that has driven out the starving artists, The Junction has (probably temporarily) become the last outpost of the artistic community in the old city of Toronto before it is forced to decamp for good to the Lakeshore in Etobicoke and places further west.

Enough of my nattering. The purpose of this blog is to show you Roncesvalles Village in all its glory, tragedy and just plain boring everydayness. Enjoy reading about it. If you are smart, you’ll come and visit us. If you are smart and can convince a financial institution to spot you the money then I hope one day to see you strolling down our main street looking like you own the place.