 Gerrard Street nearToronto General Hospital | |||||||
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| Maintained by | City of Toronto government | ||||||
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| Length | 9.7 km (6.0 mi)[1] | ||||||
| Location | Toronto | ||||||
| West end | University Avenue | ||||||
| Major junctions | |||||||
| East end | Clonmore Drive | ||||||
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Gerrard Street is a street inToronto,Ontario, Canada. It consists of two separate parts, historically referred to as Lower Gerrard and Upper Gerrard. The former stretches betweenUniversity Avenue and Coxwell Avenue for 6 km, acrossOld Toronto. The latter portion starts 300 m north of Lower Gerrard's eastern terminus and runs between Coxwell Avenue and Clonmore Drive, betweenVictoria Park Avenue andWarden Avenue, inScarborough for another 4 km.
Gerrard Street travels through a few important districts and neighbourhoods of Toronto, most notablyDiscovery District,East Chinatown, andGerrard India Bazaar, Toronto's prime South Asianethnic enclave.
Gerrard is named forSamuel Gerrard (1767-1857), an Anglo-Irish businessman inLower Canada and a personal friend of the HonourableJohn McGill, member of theLegislative Council of Upper Canada.
Upper Gerrard was originally a separate street called "Lake View Avenue", which was in the town ofEast Toronto. The name was changed after East Toronto was annexed by Toronto in 1908.
A short stretch of Gerrard Street West from Bay Street to LaPlante Avenue was referred to as Gerrard Village, abohemian-Greenwich Village like area emerged in late 19th Century to 1920s and disappeared towards the end of the 1960s.[2] A few buildings from the former neighbourhood still exists, but the residents and remaining business no longer hold ties to the past.[3]
People who lived or are associated to it included famous writers, artists:[3]
As is typical in Toronto, the street is divided into East and West addresses atYonge Street. Atypically, the West portion of the street is very short — only four blocks long. Its western terminus atUniversity Avenue lies within the heart ofDowntown Toronto's "Hospital Row", which consists ofToronto General Hospital,Mount Sinai Hospital,Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehab, andThe Hospital for Sick Children. The bulk of Gerrard Street is actually known as Gerrard Street East.Toronto Metropolitan University is located on Gerrard Street East just east of Yonge Street. Further to the east, at Parliament Street, Gerrard Street separatesCabbagetown fromRegent Park.
After crossing over theDon River, Gerrard Street East passes through Toronto'sEast Chinatown which is centred on Gerrard betweenBroadview Avenue and Carlaw Avenue. Continuing east, Gerrard Street East betweenGreenwood Avenue and Coxwell Avenue is home to one of the largest South Asian marketplaces in North America. At the intersection of Gerrard and Broadview Avenue are two bilingual street signs with the words "Gerrard St E / 芝蘭東街".
Upper Gerrard is largely a mix of residential and small neighbourhood businesses. At Victoria Park Avenue, the name of the street reverts simply to "Gerrard Street", rather than "Gerrard Street East", for the last four blocks before it ends by merging into Clonmore Drive. This nomenclature oddity is due to the area east of Victoria Park formerly being in Scarborough, which did not label the streets entering from Toronto with an "east" designation, even after the creation ofMetropolitan Toronto, which used unified cardinal directions for streets elsewhere, including farther north in Scarborough itself for streets continuing fromEast York andNorth York.[4] (Gerrard and Queen were the only streets labelled with an "east" designation that entered directly into Scarborough from Toronto; both only continue for a few blocks into Scarborough before ending.)
TheToronto Transit Commission (TTC) serves Lower Gerrard with theToronto streetcar route506 Carlton, between Parliament Street and Coxwell Avenue. The route then travels along Coxwell Avenue and continues along Upper Gerrard until Main Street, where it turns and terminates atMain Street station. The remainder of Gerrard Street, east of Main Street, is served by theTTC bus route 135 Gerrard, which travels between Main Street station andWarden station.
Gerrard Street Bridge | |
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| Coordinates | 43°39′52″N79°21′24″W / 43.6644°N 79.3566°W /43.6644; -79.3566 |
| Carries | 4 lanes vehicular traffic including double streetcar tracks and pedestrian sidewalk on north and south sides |
| Crosses | Don River |
| Maintained by | Toronto Transportation Services,Toronto Transit Commission |
| Characteristics | |
| Material | Steel and concrete |
| Total length | ~430 feet (130 m) |
| No. of spans | 1 |
| Clearance below | Don River and Don Valley Parkway |
| History | |
| Construction start | 1922 |
| Construction end | 1923 |
| Opened | 1923 |
| Location | |
 Interactive map of Gerrard Street Bridge | |
A 430 feet (130 m) three-hinged ribbed deck steel arch bridge spans theDon River and (formerly railway tracks and now) theDon Valley Parkway below and was completed in 1923.[5]
This single span replaced the previous bridge which consisted of a Warren pony truss span in the middle connected by a shorter riveted Warren deck truss spans to the east and west sides.[5] Decorative steel railing has been replaced with concrete parapet with simple metal railings in 1991.
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| Crossing theRouge River | |
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| Crossing theDon River | |
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| Other bridges over waterways | |
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