Islington Subway Station

Islington Subway

The Islington subway station is located on the Bloor / Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It was opened in May 1968 and serves about 50,000 people a day.  Located in the Toronto neighbourhood called, "Islington".  The neighbourhood of Islington is the west end’s equivalent to “Financial District” of downtown Toronto.  Dundas Street West is the commercial street that runs through Islington and was once known as the Governors Road, which was the first highway that connected Toronto to London, Ontario along the escarpment.

Outside Islington Station

Montgomery Inn

There are plenty of places to eat around Islington subway station and historically many of the old meeting places still exist.  For example, Montgomery’s Inn, located on Dundas Street West, was built in 1832 and once served as a gathering place for the community.  It has been preserved and is now a museum and offers guided tours which includes many artifacts from that time period.  There is also a weekly farmer’s market there as well!

For details on the farmers market go here: Details to Montgomery Inn Market

Look at the size of those goldfish!

I ate at a Chinese buffet located off of Rexdale Blvd. which is a little younger than the Montgomery Inn, but hey the food is great! ;)

Royal York Subway Station

Royal York Subway

The Royal York subway station is located on the Bloor / Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It was opened in May 1968 and serves about 20,000 people a day.  Located in the Toronto neighbourhood called, "the Kingsway", Royal York is situated in what once was known as "Etobicoke" before the amalgamation of the City of Toronto in 1998.   


Just outside the station is a theatre called "the Kingsway theatre" which has been around since the early 1900's still operates daily and shows matinees and evenings and runs current films.  Currently playing.."Social Network." Incidentally I saw this movie which is a documentary about the founder of "Facebook."  I almost fell asleep, but to most it has been rated pretty high this week.


The Kingsway borders the Mimico Creek to the west and the Humber river to the east.  Like Rosedale, Forest Hill and the Bridle Path in central Toronto, the Kingsway is an affluent neighbourhood located in the west end of the City, with the average house priced at over a half a million dollars!

Mimico Creek (SUMMER AND WINTER)

Kingway Theatre

Here are some pictures of Mimico creek as it looks in both the winter and summer months.  It is a 33km stream that flows southeast along the Humber River through the neighbourhood of Islington and eventually empties into Lake Ontario.  At the mouth of Mimico Creek is a landfill park called Humber Bay Park.  Often Mimico Creek is mistaken for Humber Bay because of the name of the park. 

Found this kinda funny, a deflated Santa..

Another landfill in Toronto is the Leslie Spit, located in downtown Toronto. This is an artificial spit, which was created by dumping building rubble for the last 50 years.  Now the "spit" is a Nature sanctuary for birds and over 100,000 birds nest there every year.  In the spring and summer months, you can take your bike down the trail along the Lake Ontario shoreline.  Now I'm really missing summer..

Kipling Subway Station

Kipling Subway, Kipling GO, Kipling Buses

The Kipling subway station is located on the western most part of the Bloor/ Danforth line (Kennedy is on the Eastern most part) of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) .  Both Kennedy and Kipling stations will be expanding in the future. 

Presto Card Machine

These stations use a "Presto card" which is a top off card (almost like a credit card) for frequent travelers outside of the GTA.  Kipling station was opened in November of 1980 and serves about 50,000 a year which includes the passengers that are connecting onto the Kipling GO station on the Milton line.

Kipling Station is at the of the line and therefore, like Kennedy it is designed primarily for commuter travel and connections out of the city.   For practical purposes the site has the space required for parking and in four separate lots can accommodate over 1700 vehicles.  The site is also located under Power lines and a Hydro substation.  Some of the facilities on site are public washrooms (which need a full time attendant!), an ATM, a newsstand and a mini convenience store.  The other asset to this station is that it has only one exit, so that there isn't a lot of confusion as to where the pick up/drop offs and parking lots are located.  Other than that, there is really not much else in the area.

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!