[URBAN NOTE] The Bathurst Corridor
Oct. 23rd, 2005 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThis evening's pleasant visit north required me, as I mentioned, to venture to the extreme north of the City of Toronto, within a couple of minutes' walking distance of Steeles Avenue. My destination, located in the former municipality of North York, was located just off of Bathurst, placing me in what Wikipedia calls the Bathurst Manor neighbourhood, which forms the northern tip of what is commonly known as the "Bathurst Corridor," a high-density community known for its strongly Jewish character.
Toronto's Jewish population was originally concentrated in the old pre-amalgamation City of Toronto, in what is now the Korean Business District on Bloor and the Kensington Market district. As Toronto's Jewish population became more middle class and accepted, Torontonian Jews took part in the great suburbanization of the post-Second World War era, moving north along Bathurst Street. This push continues to this day, with a growing Jewish community in the York Regional Municipality outside of Toronto's political frontiers.
I am quite familiar with the street of Bathurst between Bloor and Dupont. Once, driving back from Stouffville with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bitterlawngnome and danthered last December, I saw a bit of Bathurst as it was becoming dark. This evening, I decided to see the street while it was light, and boarded northbound bus #7 at the Dufferin TTC station. The trip, perhaps 35 minutes in length, was a standard dissection of Toronto, with high-density mixed residential and commercial along Bathurst almost to Lawrence, thereafter switching over to widely spaced highrises and strip malls.
Going over to the City of Toronto's website and its demographic information pages for the Bathurst Manor and Westminister-Branson neighbourhood, I notice above-average proportions of immigrants, with the Russian Federation and Ukraine ranking as the largest sending countries along with the Philippines, Russian being the main non-English language, and people of Jewish ethnic background forming a plurality. This fits with my strictly limited observations along Bathurst, with all the temples and Jewish day schools and Chabad centres and signs advertising UJA appeals, with Hebrew script predominating along the south of the route only to be joined by Cyrillic Russian further to the north. The north end of the Dufferin corridor is a suburban area within Toronto, and like many suburban areas it has become a popular destination for immigrants, including Jewish immigrants. As I noted in my Arrival Day 2004 posting, Canadian Jewry is one the most demographically dynamic Jewish populations in the world. It's unsurprising that the upper Bathurst corridor is marked by the presence of these Jewish immigrants.
And anti-Semitism? On my arrival, I did notice that someone had crudely sketched, on a restaurant advertisement, a phylactery and sideburns on a presumably Jewish person.erins_pub told me that she'd seen a lot of that petty, stupid graffiti about. Here's hoping that this stops.
Toronto's Jewish population was originally concentrated in the old pre-amalgamation City of Toronto, in what is now the Korean Business District on Bloor and the Kensington Market district. As Toronto's Jewish population became more middle class and accepted, Torontonian Jews took part in the great suburbanization of the post-Second World War era, moving north along Bathurst Street. This push continues to this day, with a growing Jewish community in the York Regional Municipality outside of Toronto's political frontiers.
I am quite familiar with the street of Bathurst between Bloor and Dupont. Once, driving back from Stouffville with
bitterlawngnome and danthered last December, I saw a bit of Bathurst as it was becoming dark. This evening, I decided to see the street while it was light, and boarded northbound bus #7 at the Dufferin TTC station. The trip, perhaps 35 minutes in length, was a standard dissection of Toronto, with high-density mixed residential and commercial along Bathurst almost to Lawrence, thereafter switching over to widely spaced highrises and strip malls. Going over to the City of Toronto's website and its demographic information pages for the Bathurst Manor and Westminister-Branson neighbourhood, I notice above-average proportions of immigrants, with the Russian Federation and Ukraine ranking as the largest sending countries along with the Philippines, Russian being the main non-English language, and people of Jewish ethnic background forming a plurality. This fits with my strictly limited observations along Bathurst, with all the temples and Jewish day schools and Chabad centres and signs advertising UJA appeals, with Hebrew script predominating along the south of the route only to be joined by Cyrillic Russian further to the north. The north end of the Dufferin corridor is a suburban area within Toronto, and like many suburban areas it has become a popular destination for immigrants, including Jewish immigrants. As I noted in my Arrival Day 2004 posting, Canadian Jewry is one the most demographically dynamic Jewish populations in the world. It's unsurprising that the upper Bathurst corridor is marked by the presence of these Jewish immigrants.
And anti-Semitism? On my arrival, I did notice that someone had crudely sketched, on a restaurant advertisement, a phylactery and sideburns on a presumably Jewish person.
erins_pub told me that she'd seen a lot of that petty, stupid graffiti about. Here's hoping that this stops.
