Palmerston Boulevard - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Palmerston Boulevard is a residential street located in the city of Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, two blocks west of Bathurst Street, between Koreatown

Koreatown, Toronto

Toronto, Ontario, Canada's Korean Business Area, known more generally as Koreatown , is composed of the retail businesses along Bloor Street between Christie and Bathurst Streets in the Seaton Village section of The Annex...

and Little Italy

Little Italy, Toronto

Little Italy, sometimes referred to as College Street West, is a district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is well known for its numerous Italian Canadian restaurants and businesses. There is also a significant Latin American and Portuguese community in the area...

.

The Boulevard's well co-ordinated nature lends it its charm. Bounded by stone and iron gates both at Bloor Street

Bloor Street

Bloor Street is a major east–west residential and commercial thoroughfare in Toronto, in the Canadian province of Ontario. Bloor Street runs from the Prince Edward Viaduct westward into Mississauga, where it ends at Central Parkway. East of the viaduct, Danforth Avenue continues along the same...

and College Street

College Street (Toronto)

College Street is a principal arterial thoroughfare in downtown Toronto, connecting former streetcar suburbs in the west with the city centre. The street is home to an ethnically diverse population in the western residential reaches, and institutions like the Ontario Legislature and the University...

, lined by symmetrically placed cast-iron lamps and canopied by mature silver maple

Silver Maple

The silver maple —also called creek maple, river maple, silverleaf maple, soft maple, water maple, or white maple—is a species of maple native to eastern North America in the eastern United States and Canada...

trees, Palmerston is one of Toronto's finest residential streets.

Formerly called Muter Street, the street's name was changed to Palmerston at the turn of the 20th century, as it was developed. Muter Street was named after Lt-Col Robert Muter of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment. Palmerston was named after Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, perhaps to promote Victorian ideals to future Torontonians.

Most of the houses on Palmerston Boulevard were built between 1903 and 1910.

An architectural analysis of the Boulevard was published in 1982. Palmerston Boulevard: An Evaluation of a Unique Residential Street written by landscape architects Brown+Storey covers the evolution of the street, its landscape, built form, critical evaluation of renovations, and key landscape items such as trees, porches, street lights and the gates. It also contains a comparison of Toronto streets built around the same time with Palmerston compared to Indian Road, St. George Street and High Park Boulevard. Brown and Storey place great emphasis on Palmerston's trees and lamps - "The trees and street lamps define the space of the Boulevard as a passage."

The grandest house on the street is #469, the George Weston

George Weston

George Weston , Canadian businessman and founder of George Weston Limited, became Toronto’s biggest baker with Canada’s largest bread factory. Weston began his career at the age of twelve as a baker's apprentice and went on to become a bread route salesman...

Mansion, built on 1.5 lots. Weston died in 469 Palmerston Boulevard on April 6, 1924. Former Mayors of Toronto Horatio Hocken and Samuel McBride

Samuel McBride

Samuel McBride was a two-time Mayor of Toronto serving his first term from 1928 to 1929 and his second term in 1936 which ended prematurely due to his death.-Politics:...

lived at #340 and #351 respectively.

Palmerston Boulevard was initially a wealthy Anglo-Saxon enclave. From the 1920s to the 1950s, the street was made up primarily of middle- and upper-middle-class Jews who were often excluded from elite WASP neighbourhoods. In the 1960s, many of the houses were subdivided into rooming houses that served university students. Today, most of the houses are divided into apartments.

The Palmerston Lamps

On June 20, 1973, Toronto City Council added the Palmerston Gates and Lights to the City's Heritage Properties Inventory. Nevertheless, in November 2003, city officials proposed replacing the original lamps with aluminum replicas. Residents of the area opposed the move and succeeded in keeping the original lights.

During Mayor David Miller's December 2, 2003 inaugural speech he spoke of the lamps when he said: "There is no reason, for instance, that we should not preserve the century-old, cast-iron street lamps on Palmerston Boulevard - those lamps are about the history of this city, they are about beauty in public spaces. The passion with which the residents of the Palmerston neighbourhood defend the original lamps is an example of the powerful, physical connection we feel to our neighbourhoods."

By December 2005, the city had refurbished and repainted most of the original lights. However, the Palmerston Area Residents Association noted that the refurbished lights have polycarbonate globes rather than the original glass globes; they also have metal-halide lights rather than the original 100 watt incandescent bulbs.

The lamps, known as 'single pole-top lamps' or 'light pillars' were common in North America by the 1920s. Palmerston is one of the few streets in Toronto that has kept its original lamps. Identical lamps on Chestnut Park in Rosedale

Rosedale, Toronto

Rosedale is an affluent neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which was formerly the estate of William Botsford Jarvis, and so named by his wife, granddaughter of William Dummer Powell, for the wild roses that grew there in abundance....

were replaced in 2002. This style of lighting was designed to light a path for pedestrians, as automobiles had not come into common use. The current luminance of the street is several times higher than the original and a light refractor around the bulbs reflects light downward, causing the top of the globes to appear darkened at night.

The College/Palmerston Church

The church at College/Palmerston predates the development of the boulevard by about fifteen years. Originally the College Street Baptist Church, built in 1889, replacing a smaller structure constructed in 1872, was until recently used by a Portuguese-speaking

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

Seventh-Day Adventist

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

congregation which sold the property. A developer is currently converting the former church into condominium units. The Church was listed on Toronto's Heritage Properties Inventory in early 2006. In 2009, City Council approve the designation of the Church under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario
Heritage Act PDF.

External links

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