Kensington Market
Kensington Market is an open-air food and clothing market in downtown Toronto. This multicultural marketplace is known for its independent spirit, colourful shop fronts, vibrant murals, charismatic locals and people-friendly Pedestrian Sundays events. The eclectic businesses located here sell fresh produce, cheese, meats, bread and desserts, bulk spices, nuts, flowers, marijuana and vintage clothing. The area also teems with a variety of restaurants, cafés and bars. The shops in Kensington Market spill out onto the sidewalk, giving the area a vibrant street culture unique to the city of Toronto. It is bordered by Spadina Avenue in the east, Bathurst Street in the west, Dundas Street in the south and College Street in the north.
The Denisons
Kensington Market sits on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation and the Huron-Wendat. In the late 1700s, this land was surveyed by British colonial administrators and then parcelled out to loyal government officials and military officers. This was done in an attempt to establish British aristocratic rule. Kensington Market sits in the middle of what was then called Park Lots 16, 17 and 18.
In 1815, George Taylor Denison, a loyal member of the British militia, purchased Park Lot 17 and half of Park Lot 18, creating a 156-acre estate for himself and his family. That year he built a Georgian style home in the middle of this land and called it Belle Vue. In 1853, the Belle Vue estate was inherited by his youngest son, Robert Brittain Denison. Robert was also a loyal member of the British militia. In 1866, for instance, he commanded a provisional battalion during the Fenian raids. In 1858, he donated the land and funds necessary to erect the Anglican Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, which still stands at the corner of College Street and Bellevue Avenue. This church takes its name from the fact that it was located in an open field when it was first built. By 1854, Denison had his land subdivided into smaller lots for development and within 30 years Kensington became a middle-class Victorian suburb for immigrants, who were mostly from the British Isles. The street names of the area still reflect this era: Denison Avenue, Oxford Street, Wales Avenue, Fitzroy Terrace and Kensington Avenue.
The Jewish Market
Kensington Market became a market in the early 1900s. Jewish immigrants, who originally settled in the Ward District of Toronto, began to move into the area and set up shops that served the specific cultural needs of their community. Toronto during the early 1900s was predominantly an Anglo, Protestant, stratified society. Poor immigrants were, for the most part, excluded from any form of social advancement. The Ward (or St. John's Ward) was located around the area of the city where Toronto's City Hall is currently located. In the late 1800s, immigrants from Italy and Jewish people, primarily driven from Eastern Europe and Russia by anti-Semitic persecution, poured into the Ward and found affordable yet deplorable places to live. Here they also found other immigrants from their home country and jobs in the needle trade in the sweatshops of local garment manufacturers.
The Jews of the Ward began to drift westward into the Victorian suburb of Kensington because of the overcrowded, ramshackle housing conditions of the Ward. They brought with them a fiercely independent spirit, their skills in the needle trade and the independent livelihood they earned from the goods that they sold throughout Toronto from handcarts. Later, stalls were built in front of their homes in Kensington, attracting other Jewish business to the area. Many merchants converted the ground floor of their homes into stores and continued to display their wares on the sidewalk as is done to this day. In 1900, there were approximately 3,000 Jews in Toronto. By 1913, this had increased to over 32,000. By 1931, there were 45,305 Jewish people in Toronto and 80 per cent were living in or around Kensington. Their arrival in the neighbourhood marked the beginning of Kensington Market, which at the time was known as the Jewish Market.
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