Bloordale Village

Bloordale Village is a neighbourhood located along Bloor Street from Dufferin Street to a little west of Lansdowne Avenue, west of downtown in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It sits on the southern border of the Wallace Emerson neighbourhood and the northern border of the Brockton Village neighbourhood. The district is home to restaurants, bars, vintage clothing stores, thrift stores, some variety stores, two strip clubs, a store with postcards and gift items, and a real beach with actual sand and live sandpipers.

Facing west (towards Lansdowne) on Bloor St.

The neighbourhood has a Business Improvement Area (BIA)[1][2] and many pigeons.

A similarly named neighbourhood is Bloordale Park, located in the former city of Etobicoke, Ontario, west of Highway 427, and bounded roughly by Rathburn Road, the Elmcrest Creek, and Dundas St.

Character

Bloordale Village (commonly known as Bloordale) has undergone significant change since 2010, and was once considered one of Toronto's 'up and coming' art districts [3][4]. The area is the location of Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Art. The other galleries have had to relocate due to increased rent, though a few galleries are located on St. Helens Avenue now, just west of Lansdowne. On October 23, 2013 the Bloordale Community Improvement Association was formed. They've organized neighbourhood clean-ups and garage sales, and sometimes they send out newsletters. Bloordale Beach (formerly known as the Social Distancing Compound) officially opened on May 25, 2020, during the very turbulent times of the COVID-19 pandemic. This proved to be such a great space for lounging and social distancing that on June 16, 2020 the beach was declared to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The neighbouring meadow, appropriately called Bloordale Meadow, was officially named towards the end of May 2020. It is full of grass.

The Bloordale BIA was founded in 1976 and celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2016. The former head of the BIA was the owner of House of Lancaster.[5]

The strip along Bloor Street also has a large number of small restaurants and retail outlets. At Dufferin Street, the south side of the street is used by Bloor Collegiate Institute but will be demolished in coming years to make way for condos. The surrounding area is a highly diverse, mixed-income community.[6] A mix of Portuguese, Caribbean, Italian, Bangladeshi, Latin American, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Chinese, and Vietnamese populations are found in the neighbourhood. At one point in time, at a local primary school, 81 per cent of students speak a native language other than English.[7]. The area has been gentrifying since the late 2000s, so since then, this mix of ethnicities has changed.

References
  1. "BIA". Archived from the original on July 25, 2017.
  2. "Discover Bloordale". Archived from the original on August 14, 2017.
  3. "West-End Pearls". National Post. November 22, 2008. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
  4. Whyte, Murray (October 5, 2008). "Bloordale Gentrified: West Queen West's art moves north". Toronto Star. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
  5. "Strip club owner spawns rivals as Bloordale tidies up on his watch | Toronto Star". thestar.com. September 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2017.
  6. Mathieu, Emily (June 5, 2008). "An unpretentious, friendly spirit". Toronto Star. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
  7. "globeandmail.com: Bloordale Village". The Globe and Mail.

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