Untitled - History of Yonge Street

For the first time, an eye-opening anecdotal, warts-and-all account of Yonge Street, complete with colourful characters, scandal, controversy, drama, humour, quirkiness, happiness, and sadness.

In communities around the world, certain streets have special meaning. Yonge Street is one of these. It extends thirty-three miles from Lake Ontario at the foot of Toronto's harbourfront up to Lake Simcoe and dates back 220 years, making it one of Canada's oldest streets.

Yonge Street contains fascinating anecdotes about its history, music, food, culture, commerce, and idiosyncrasies. Yonge Street is named after a rather deplorable character, Sir George Yonge. Canada's fourteenth prime minister, Lester B. Pearson, was born on Yonge Street. Toronto's first cocktail lounge was on Yonge Street. The street's nightclubs were the first in Toronto to hire Black entertainers even though attendance was limited to white patrons. And Downtown Yonge was infamous for years as the city's "Sin Strip." It took the murder of a child there to galvanize a cleanup of the district.

These and many more enlightening stories are in this book.