Cliffcrest is a residential neighborhood in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. It is located along the shores of

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The Canada–United Sta ...

in the district of

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

, bordered by Midland Avenue to the west, the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

to the north, and Bellamy Road to the east. The name Cliffcrest is in reference to the

Scarborough Bluffs The Scarborough Bluffs, also known as The Bluffs, is an escarpment in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. There are nine parks along the bluffs, with Bluffers Park being the only one with a beach. Forming much of the eastern p ...

, which are sandy cliffs along the lake's edge. The neighborhood feels much more like being at a cottage than being in Canada's largest and most densely populated city. For the smaller

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide ...

-like homes, the average value is only middle of the pack, making it affordable by Toronto standards. Most homes are single, detached houses with a high ownership rate. There are fewer high or mid rise buildings in the area.

Education

Two

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

school board A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional area, ...

s operate schools in Cliffcrest, the

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

Toronto District School Board The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franco ...

(TDSB), and the separate

Toronto Catholic District School Board The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB, known as English-language Separate District School Board No. 40 prior to 1999) is an English-language public-separate school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. ...

. The French

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

public secular school board,

Conseil scolaire Viamonde The Conseil scolaire Viamonde (CSV) is a public-secular French first language school board, and manages elementary and secondary schools in the Ontario Peninsula and the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The school board operates 41 elementary school ...

, and it separate counterpart,

Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (also referred to as Csc MonAvenir) is a French-language Catholic school board that manages elementary and secondary French schools in South-Central Ontario. The school board operates 47 elementary schools, 12 ...

also offer schooling to applicable residents of Cliffcrest, although they do not operate a school in the neighbourhood. TDSB is the only school board that operates a public secondary school in the neighbourhood, R. H. King Academy, one of the oldest high schools in the former city of Scarborough. The school began in 1922 as Scarborough High School with 116 students using the Birch Cliff Congregation Church before the

Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

building on St. Clair opened that same year. The school became Scarborough Collegiate Institute in 1930 and became R. H. King Collegiate Institute, named after the founding principal of that school, in 1954. In 1975, the western section was erected to replace the 1922 building, which has been reduced to an entrance arch and boiler room. King was designated as an "academy" starting in September 1989. The TDSB also operates four elementary schools in the neighbourhood, Anson Park Public School, Bliss Carman Senior Public School, Fairmount Public School, and H. A. Halbert Junior Public School. TCDSB operates one public elementary school in the neighbourhood, St. Agatha Catholic School.

Recreation

Several parks are located in Cliffcrest, many of which are situated near

and the waterfront. Municipal parks in the neighbourhood include Cudia Park, McCowan District Park, and portions of Bluffer's Park, including Bluffer's Park Yacht Club, and Bluffer's Beach. Municipal parks in Cliffcrest are maintained

Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division Toronto Parks and Recreation (P&R) is a division of the City of Toronto which maintains the municipal park system and delivers community recreation programs at city-operated facilities. P&R operates 1473 named parks, 839 sports fields, 137 comm ...

. The Cliffcrest branch of the

Toronto Public Library Toronto Public Library (TPL) is a public library system in Toronto, Ontario. It is the largest public library system in Canada, and in 2023 had averaged a higher circulation per capita than any other public library system internationally, making i ...

is also located in the neighbourhood, situated on Kingston Road.

References

External links

Toronto Neighbourhood Maps
Neighbourhoods in Toronto Scarborough, Ontario {{Toronto-geo-stub