Pape Village is a commercial district in

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, located within the neighbourhood of Old East York. It is a

mixed-use Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to som ...

shopping street, consisting mainly of small-scale retail, restaurant and personal service uses.

Location

The district is located along Pape Avenue, between Mortimer Avenue and Gamble Avenue, in the former Borough of

East York East York is a former administrative district and municipality within Toronto, Ontario, Canada. From 1967 to 1998, it was officially the Borough of East York, a semi-autonomous borough within the upper-tier municipality of Metropolitan Toron ...

The Danforth Danforth Avenue (informally also known as the Danforth) and Danforth Road are two historically-related arterial streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Danforth ''Avenue'' is an east-west street that begins in Old Toronto at the Prince Edward ...

is located several blocks to the south, and the Don Valley is located several blocks to the west and north. Although the Pape Village name was originally the product of local business marketing efforts, some

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s and local residents have since used the term to also refer to the adjacent residential area. Otherwise, the area is generally known as Old East York.

Business Improvement Area

The Pape Village Business Improvement Area represents approximately 110 businesses along the thoroughfare, and undertakes efforts to promote and beautify the area. Since much of the existing building stock in Pape Village dates to the 1940s and 1950s, the City of Toronto adopted a new community improvement plan for the district in 2003, in order to assist local businesses to renovate and restore aging commercial façades.

History

Historically, the entire area was known as "Todmorden", which extended from the Don Valley to the west and north, to approximately what is now Mortimer Avenue to the south and Donlands Avenue to the east. Todmorden was named by John Eastwood, an early settler in the early 19th century, who believed that the landscape was reminiscent of

Todmorden Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax. In 2011 it had a population of 15,481. Todm ...

in Yorkshire, England. Although Todmorden was never incorporated as a village, the use of the name both colloquially and as a postal address persisted until the 1940s. Today, the name is used solely for three areas of this community

Todmorden Mills Todmorden Mills was a small settlement located in the Don River valley in Toronto, Ontario. It started out as a lumber mill in the 1790s. Originally known as "Don Mills", it grew into a small industrial complex and village before becoming part of ...

, a historic industrial settlement in the Don Valley, for a library reference room in the East York Community Centre on Pape Avenue as well as a small street linking Cosburn avenue and Gamble Avenue, its name "Todmorden Lane". The band Rush reference the area in the instrumental "La Villa Strangiato" from the album Hemispheres (1978), in which section VII is subtitled "Danforth & Pape".

References

*''Fascinating Facts About East York'', East York Public Library, 1996, pages 23–30.

External links

City of Toronto - Pape Village BIAPape Village Community Improvement Plan By-law
{{authority control Neighbourhoods in Toronto