place

Little Italy, Toronto

AC with 0 elementsEthnic enclaves in OntarioEuropean-Canadian culture in TorontoLittle Italys in CanadaNeighbourhoods in Toronto
Restaurant districts and streets in CanadaUse mdy dates from June 2020
Toronto Little Italy 17 (8365256124)
Toronto Little Italy 17 (8365256124)

Little Italy, sometimes referred to as College Street West, is a district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its Italian Canadian restaurants and businesses. There is also a significant Latin-Canadian and Portuguese-Canadian community in the area. The district is centred on a restaurant/bar/shopping strip along College Street, centred on College Street, imprecisely between Harbord Street and Dundas Street, and spreading out east and west between Bathurst Street and Ossington Avenue. It is contained within the larger city-recognized neighbourhood of Palmerston-Little Italy.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Little Italy, Toronto (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Little Italy, Toronto
College Street, Toronto

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Little Italy, TorontoContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 43.655 ° E -79.413 °
placeShow on map

Address

College Street 575
M6G 1C2 Toronto
Ontario, Canada
mapOpen on Google Maps

Toronto Little Italy 17 (8365256124)
Toronto Little Italy 17 (8365256124)
Share experience

Nearby Places

The Orbit Room
The Orbit Room

The Orbit Room was a Toronto bar owned by Rush lead guitarist Alex Lifeson and Tim Notter. The restaurant was managed by Tim Wilson. The venue was decorated in the style of a 1950s New York City cocktail lounge, and played host to many different kinds of live music; particularly R&B, funk, and jazz. It was located at 580-A College Street, within Toronto's "Little Italy" district, accessible by streetcar. They served some food; more on certain nights of the week. The Orbit Room began in November 1994. The original house band, The Dexters, played classic R&B Thursday through Saturdays, then Fridays and Saturdays, and finally just Saturdays. The Dexters were Lou Pomanti (Hammond B-3, vocals), Bernie LaBarge (guitar, vocals), Peter Cardinali (bass), and various drummers, including Michael Sloski, Greg Critchley, Jorn Andersen, Mark Kelso, Kevan MacKenzie, and Larnell Lewis. They played at the club for ten years, until their semi-retirement in 2004. At its heyday, the club had a long lineup of fans waiting in all weather to get in to the 105-seat area. Special guests included Alex Lifeson, Jose Feliciano, Joey DeFrancesco, Gary Busey, and Jeff Martin. Blues, alternative rock, reggae, soul and/or R & B were heard live seven nights a week. On any given night, local musicians and international celebrities were often present. On July 16, 2020, the venue had announced that despite reopening efforts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they would be closing their doors for good following its initial shutdown in March 2020.

Palmerston Boulevard
Palmerston Boulevard

Palmerston Boulevard is a residential street located in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, two blocks west of Bathurst Street, between Koreatown and Little Italy. Bounded by stone and iron gates both at Bloor Street and College Street, lined by symmetrically placed cast-iron lamps and canopied by mature silver maple trees, Palmerston is one of Toronto's finest residential streets. The name Palmerston continues south as Palmerston Avenue from College Street to Queen Street. 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 Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Muter of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment. Palmerston was named after Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 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+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 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 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, some of the houses were subdivided into rooming houses that served university students.