Mount Dennis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mount Dennis is a neighbourhood located in the former city of York, now officially part of the 'megacity' of Toronto. The neighbourhood is bordered by the intersection of Jane and Weston Roads to the North, and Black Creek to the East and South, as the creek curves parallel to Alliance Ave. before crossing under Jane Street on its way to drain into the Humber River. To the West the Humber River creates a natural border.

The area gets its name from the Dennis family, who owned the property at the turn of the 19th century, Loyalist shipbuilders who had a boatyard on the Humber. It was largely rural, with orchards, gravel and clay pits and a few market gardens until Kodak Canada moved their factory to a site at Eglinton and Weston Roads, along the rail line running next to Weston Road, during World War One. The area became what urban geographer Richard Harris described as an "unplanned suburb" in his book (Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy 1900 to 1950, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

Workers at Kodak and the nearby stockyards once located at Weston Road and St. Clair Ave., as well as CCM, Willys Overland and other factories north and south of Mount Dennis built their own homes before municipal services were in place, and small developers built "infill" homes, gradually filling the streets with the current housing stock of former cottages and small, fully detached homes, among the most affordable housing stock in Toronto for recent immigrants and first-time homeowners.

The neighbourhood is a hilly neighbourhood which has an abundance of ravines, parks and rivers. Half of the people in this area live in high rise buildings which, though generally run down, provide in many instances an excellent view of the surrounding natural beauty.

A Diverse Neighbourhood Although income levels are low there is a fair share of ownership in the area due to the relatively affordable housing in the area. The neighbourhood truly is a classic Toronto example of diversity with dozens of ethnicities represented.

With respect to religion there is an above average number people from many faiths including Roman Catholic, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Pentecostal and Adventist. With respect to languages spoken it is equally diverse and above average when it comes to the number of people speaking Vietnamese, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean and more! (Source: Statistics Canada 2001 Census). The visible minority statistics also lend credence to the fact that this is without question a very diverse neighbourhood.