Lawrence Subway Station

Lawrence Subway Station

Lawrence Park

footprints in the snow

The Lawrence Subway station is on the Yonge-University-Spadina line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It was opened to the public in March 1973.  There are about 20,000 people that go through the Lawrence station daily.  Situated in the affluent Toronto neighbourhood, Lawrence Park is rich with history and wealth like the Bridle Path, Forest Hill and Rosedale.  I went for a walk today through Lawrence Park and due to cold temperatures, my camera wasn’t cooperating with me, but did manage to get some fair photos. 

Walk onto residential streets

Playground

Lawrence Park was one of the first planned neighbourhoods in Toronto and it became fully developed after the Second World War.  Lawrence was named after John Lawrence who sold his portion of the park to the Dovercourt Land Building and Saving company in 1907.

Homes of Lawrence Park

Lawrence Subway is also surrounded by several other parks (Bedford Park, Alexander Muir and Lytton Park) ravines, mature trees, winding roads and quiets streets.  Home to many inherently wealthy families as well as young professionals. The houses are mostly original and were constructed between 1890 -1940.   They grace the streets in Tudor, Colonial and English Cottage designs. 

George Herbert Locke Library

From what I could tell the area is inundated with gift shops, sporting good stores, coffee shops and small restaurants.  There is a memorial library named after George Herbert Locke, born in Beamsville in 1870 and who become the chief Librarian of the Toronto Public Library.  He had developed the first library filing system after the First World War.  The library in his honor is situation at the southeast corner of Lawrence and Yonge. 

Dufferin Subway Station

Dufferin Subway Station

Dufferin Mall - Stores

The Dufferin subway station is located on the Bloor / Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It was opened to the public in February 1966.  Daily it sees about 28,000 people.  Dufferin station is currently going under a modernization and more changes will be prevalent into the new year. 

Located within minutes of the station is Dufferin Mall.  Historically it was the site of the Dufferin Racetrack, a horse track that operated from 1907-1955.  About a year a shopping plaza was built and and enclosed in the 70's into a shopping mall.  Dufferin Mall has had a complete interior facelift in the past five years.  Although this mall has all the trimmings of most retail malls, it is much less busy than the larger scaled arenas like the Eaton Centre, Fairview and the Scarborough Town Centre. 

Gift Ideas

More Gifts!

The Dufferin Mall is one of the few shopping centres that have a Wal-mart on the subway line.  This is primarily due to the fact that property on or close to the Toronto Transit line is expensive and Wal-Mart stores tend to be very big.  There is also a Zellers as well, which is the added bonus of cheap competition.

Escalator for shopping carts!

Once inside, we found lots of smaller retail stores that offered specialty items, such as LaSenza, Fairweather, Garage, EB Games, HMV, H&M, Payless Shoes, Carlton Cards and much more.

Maybe I don’t get out much but I have never seen before an escalator especially for shopping carts, and I think they thought I was a little strange being fascinated by this and taking pictures!

SANTA & HELPER?

Last but not least, around this time every mall needs to see a Santa.  This Santa didn’t look very jolly and as a matter of fact, neither did the Gift wrapper, so I figured maybe they just had a long day!