Richard Silver

Downtown Toronto Neighborhoods: Leslieville

Years ago I lived south of Queen Street East .  Nights were noisy with police and fire trucks responding to parties or family squabbles gone wrong… but we were braving new worlds.

Then Realtors began speaking of a hot new area they liked to call “Cabbagetown II ,” with Victorian homes in poor repair being gentrified. If you could not afford the real thing, then number two was not too bad.

Leslieville’s  old factories and warehouses have now been reborn as lofts; there are new restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, infill housing and stylish renovations everywhere. It’s certainly popular with gay and lesbian homeowners. But what used to be a bargain is now slipping out of reach.

The odd bargain (non-real estate) still exists among the antique shops, stores like Here and Now Clothing Co  and Carbon Computing  and cafés like Bonjour Brioche  — my personal favourites. However, walk along Queen and it won’t take long to damage your credit card with some excellent retail therapy.

Benefits: Close proximity to downtown, great shopping and restaurants, 24-hour streetcars and easy access to the Beach.

Disadvantages: Mixed housing, concerns over tainted soil because of the number of factories originally in the area, and termites (always a concern south of St Clair Ave).

Leslieville has not taken second place for years.

Reprinted from INTorontomag.ca

More Neighborhoods at http://torontoism.com/2010/07/02/toronto-neighborhoods-kensington-market/

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Around TORONTO, Neighborhoods, Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Why Live in Leslieville? » Riverdale Homes and Neighbourhood || HomeZilla said at August 1st, 2010 at 6:03 am

   [...] It’s gay and lesbian friendly, something that has made Leslieville popular with gay homeowners, according to local real estate guru Richard [...]

2. MO said at August 7th, 2010 at 10:22 pm

   Another great thing about the neighbourhood is the people. We have a mixed crowd and most are active in various neighbourhood improvement projects. Many young professional families too.

   This puts the neighbourhood on the right path…

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Email (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail