Another walking day, another part of the city to explore. Sometimes I find new places to wander around but the other day I went back to Sheppard Ave East to see what other changes are happening. This is a section of Sheppard Ave that is living in the shadow of Yonge Street developments. It’s an area of mixed residential and commercial.
below: Sheppard Ave East looking west towards Yonge Street from Willowdale Ave.
below: A smaller bungalow, and architectural “style” that was common along here.
below: Some of the bungalows are being replaced by much larger houses, especially in the side streets behind Sheppard.
below: More signs of the times, no kids playing outside in the playgrounds of the schools and day care centres.
below: A CTR rabbit trying to run away.
below: This front door with it’s clean and ornate door frame has always fascinated me.
below: 176 Sheppard Avenue East has been empty for a while. I found information about the development here on different websites. One of the sites stated that the new building would be ready to move into in 2019.
below: A vacant lot
below: This is the same vacant lot as there was nothing to prevent me from wandering in.
below: The front of Dudley Court at 166 Sheppard Ave East. I have driven past here a few times this year and I keep thinking that I should check it out before it disappears. The orange “tree protection” fence was a more recent addition. Maybe part of the reason why there is no development proposal sign here is that it’s been about 20 years since the owners started “negotiating” with the city about what was going to be built here.
below: The back of Dudley Court from the vacant lot mentioned above.
below: What surprised me is that there are actually 3 apartment buildings that are empty. The plywood is there to protect the trees that are between the apartments and a ditch. The “ditch” continues underground under Sheppard and then south through a small park towards the 401.
below: There is a pedestrian walkway on the west side that continues north a couple of blocks.
below: Sheppard Ave looking east
below: Sheppard Ave looking west. An evolution of sorts… at first there were small houses that became offices; now they are being torn down.
below: Some of the mid-sized buildings that were developed in the 1970s and 1980s are also “moving upward”. In this case, to 11 storeys with 55 residential units and lower floor retail. It is currently home to medical offices.
below: Once upon a time this was a Pizza Pizza. Then it was for sale. Next, it provided headquarters for an election campaign. And now? Possibly in limbo? All that I could find is a 2017 rejection from the city for a 10 storey development on this lot and the one adjacent (where The Beer Store is now). The official plan calls for lower buildings as you move away from Yonge Street. In the meantime you can call it an eyesore.
below: But not everything is ugly!
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as I walk Toronto 
Thanks for the photo collage of my neighbourhood. You might be interested to know demolition has (finally) begun at Dudley Court, 120-166 Sheppard. The first of the structures to be taken down is the garage on the south end of the property. Workers are there today taking the down the allowed trees and smashing windows out of north building.
Just discovered your blog, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Your photos of the now-gone Dudley Court Apartments are welcome sights to my old weary eyes.
Once upon a time, some 30-odd years ago, I was a young mother with a beautiful one-year-old child, living in an apartment at the rear of that front building, facing that parking garage behind. You have neatly captured my tiny daughter’s small world there, with your photos of the garages.
It was there I kept her huge pram to go out for long, long walks in. I would walk along Sheppard Avenue to Bayview Village on dark, dry winter evenings, with her tucked inside, swaying and rumbling along, sleeping blissfully snug in the cold air.
I also kept my bicycle in one of those double garages, with a babyseat on the back. And my little daughter and I would take off regularly from there, helmets secured, excited for the day’s adventures. Which was usually just over to the large park across Sheppard, just down the paved pedestrian pathway.
Where we would spend countless long happy hours in the fabulous playground there, meet the local dogs, cats, and other children. Not to mention picking many purple handfuls (and baskets) of mulberries when they were in season, as there are several huge mulberry trees on the north side of the park there. What a deliciously messy, sticky treat!!
We would also ride over to the Metro store that used to be on the southeast corner of Sheppard and Yonge. And buy our groceries, and put them in the bike’s pannier baskets below her feet. And then ride home again–but not before stopping to knock down some sweet, crunchy red apples from a wonderful old apple tree just around the corner.
Those photos in particular at the west side of the building, where the ‘ditch’ and a tree is? That was a little wild area my daughter enjoyed immensely. In the winter right there, the snow would be whipped up by the wind into a snowdrift about 4-5 feet tall. Which we dug into, and made a snow fort! What fun we had at Dudley Court!
I could go on… the friend I made of a new immigrant mother with two small boys, having barely escaped from Iran with them to Canada, and what a blessing this lovely Persian woman was to me and my child… but I’ll stop now. It was a long time ago.
Your photos brought all these precious memories back to my mind’s eye in vivid colour, texture, and minute detail. It was a difficult time for me, as my marriage had recently collapsed, my father had just died, I had lost everything in the S&L Financial Crisis, and my only child and I were on our own.
Still, in its austere and lonely way it was a simple, beautiful life. And we were very happy together, mother and child. I can’t thank you enough for your excellent photos. God bless you, sir!
Maureen – Thank you for telling me your beautiful story! I remember the Metro grocery store, the one with the rounded roof at Willowdale Plaza – I think it was a Miracle Mart? When I moved to Toronto as a child we lived just south of Shepherd but on the other side of Yonge. The grocery store was just in walking range! I hope that your daughter has some good memories too!
Mary, you are right. It was most definitely not a Metro store!! It could very well have been a Miracle Food Mart, and probably was. It could have been a Dominion store though too, as that’s what happened to Miracle Food Marts after they were no longer Miracle Food Marts. I’m inclined to agree with you though… it was most likely a Miracle Food Mart. In any case, it was the only grocery store within easy walking or bike-riding distance, and the one I frequented weekly with my child.
Does my daughter have some good memories of our days at Dudley Court Apartments? Or the grocery store? Or maybe the beautiful Glendora Park and playground? I don’t think she does, as she was 9 months old when we moved there and only 3 when we moved to the amazing townhouse complex (also gone… the ‘Ravine Condos’ now) at the DVP and York Mills. I do, however, have one very vivid, not-so-great memory of being in the checkout aisle at that grocery store at Yonge and Sheppard, with my 2-year-old.
I gently shooed her forward in front of me, to follow my items on the conveyor belt moving towards the cashier, when she stopped in her tracks. I glanced up to see what caught her eye and saw her staring very studiously at a young woman in a high-tech wheelchair. And that’s when I panicked and began rushing to bag my items, fumbling for my cash to give the cashier, in time to be able to shoo my daughter again in a natural fashion. And distract her from what I just knew was entering her little mind.
Not fast enough! To this day, I don’t know if anyone else understood what my daughter shouted out in her high little voice, but I certainly did. And I felt my entire body turning brilliant crimson from my face down as she loudly piped: “LOOK MOMMY!!! A MONSTER GIRL!!!” I wanted the floor to swallow us both up right there. So mortified… but I didn’t hear anyone laughing or gasping or anything, so I tried to appear calm. I quietly shooed her again in front of me as I took my bags from the end of the checkout counter, steering her away. I replied to her that no, I hadn’t seen what she did.
When we were outside the store, I stopped and explained to her that the girl was paralysed and couldn’t walk or move very well. And that the wheelchair helped other people to assist this young lady to get around and buy groceries, and do essential things. And that it isn’t acceptable to yell out that people in wheelchairs look like monsters. That they aren’t monsters either. They’re simply people who aren’t as lucky as the rest of us happen to be. So calling an unlucky person a ‘monster’, was not acceptable social manners in any way.
This gave her lots to think about. Until she shrieked out “MOMMY!!! LOOK AT THE FAT LADY!!!” in the Parkwoods Village Shopping Mall a year later. A good thing it was a year later though… Parkwoods was having a ‘sidewalk sale’ and she was much better on her feet by then. So I just shoved her under a rack of clothing behind me quickly, as the very large woman in question turned around to glare at the unruly, ignorant child yelling such insults at her. And at the ignorant parent who would let her child do such an awful thing.
Ah yes… memories of early parenthood…. mmmm…