Lawrence Heights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lawrence Heights is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the former city of North York, which was merged with five other municipalities and a regional government to form the new "City of Toronto" in 1998.

Lawrence Heights is part of the area known as Downsview. It is bounded by Allen Road, Lawrence Avenue, and Highway 401. The area is also referred to as "the Jungle', a sixties' reference to John Houston's film noir The Asphalt Jungle, initially due to the visual impact and the residents' desire to escape a low-income lifestyle. More recently. the media has used the name to reference the levels of crime within the maze of affordable housing projects. Demographically, the area consists largely of immigrants from the Caribbean and East Africa, but there are also small pockets of Europeans.

Nearly all the housing in Lawrence Heights is short-term public housing. Because of promixity to the airport, high-rise buildings were not originally permitted to be constructed in this area, and the majority of the housing is in low- to mid-rise buildings.

[edit] Notable locations

Lawrence Heights Community Centre
Lawrence Heights Community Health Centre
Bathurst Heights CI — once home to one of Toronto's elite basketball teams, the school was closed by the Toronto District School Board, and was temporarily the home of Brebeuf College as Brebeuf underwent a school restoration construction
Lawrence Square — shopping mall
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Head Office Operations — 750 Lawrence Avenue West