Suburban Market Essay

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Introduction
Kensington Market is a small, historic neighbourhood located west of Spadina Avenue in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It forms a part of this larger area of residential, institutional and commercial buildings, similar to many other urban ethno-cultural communities. In 2005, it was declared a national historic site of Canada. There is a vibrant commercial and residential neighbourhood with distinctive narrow streets of small stores with colourful awnings built onto former homes. These stores sell food, spices and clothes from around the world. Behind and between the stores, there are also discreet back alleyways winding through the neighbourhood where short rows of small late-19th century cottages sit on narrow lots. The streets mainly …show more content…

He constructed Bellevue Estate on a 100-acre piece of land west of Spadina Avenue. In the 1850s and 1860s, the Denisons gradually subdivided the land and sold it to British and Irish immigrants. As the urban density increased, workers built small cottages along the many laneways. In the early 20th century, there was a surge of Jewish immigrants, mainly from Russia and eastern and south-central Europe. Over the course of the next 30 years, these immigrants established the dynamic character of the area as a market. dynamic character as a market. In the 1920s and 1930s, in response to growing competitiveness, the shops extended even farther out onto the already narrow streets. Canopies and outdoor stalls reached the street and additions were built onto many of the houses to provide more shop space. Beginning in the 1950s, Kensington Market hosted an increasingly diverse cultural mosaic of ethnic groups, races and religions. This included post-war immigration from Eastern Europe, Portugal and Italy. In the 1960s a considerable number of Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and East Indian businesspeople moved into the neighbourhood and opened up shops. The diverse character of Kensington Market’s history has created a continually evolving cultural and architectural environment that remains evident in the market area today. (Source: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, November

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