Agincourt Part II: Agincourt South
Time to finish our exploration of Agincourt with the southern and likely more well known section of the neighbourhood.
Like most fledgling rural communities in this area, both a church and a post office defined the neighbourhood. The church in this case was Knox Presbyterian at the corner of Midland and Sheppard, but the post office is where the neighbourhood gets its name. John Hill was able to acquire one for his general store in 1858 with the help of a Quebec MP, on the condition that it be given a French name. In a truly tongue and cheek manner, he called it “Agincourt” after the site of an English victory over the French in 1415.
The development of two rail lines (currently a CP and a GO corridor) at the end of the 19th century brought this neighbourhood to life. However like much of Scarborough, most of the current development and layout stems from the post-war period. The 80s and 90s influx of Taiwanese and Hong Kong immigrants also represented a boom time for Agincourt, with many new retail establishments, small malls, and shopping centres opening. While this population and retail life continues, Markham has become more of a destination for new Chinese immigrants in recent years.
Agincourt is bordered by Kennedy to the west, the 401 to the south, and the Finch Hydro Corridor to the north. On the east it is bordered by McCowan, the CN rail corridor, and Markham. I drew the north-south line along Huntingwood Drive, so this walk takes place south of there.
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I started walking at Sheppard and McCowan heading west, and finished at Brimley and Heather going south.
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Agincourt South was walked on May 11, 2012.
It is the Chinese retail presence, particularly along Sheppard East, that defines this community. A variety of different retail can be found including, big glassed in corner plazas, stand alone establishments, street level plazas and little semi-enclosed malls with abundant parking. The plaza is the central theme that ties them all together though. Many independent businesses and entrepreneurs fluorish in this area by catering to the local population. Some Chinese franchises can also be found, including many Chinese banks , which often set up shop in these kind of ethnic enclaves, sometimes with humorous labelling. For example the Bank of China labels itself as “Bank of China (Canada)”, as if we might get confused and think that we are in China. Some argue that its heyday is behind it, but I’m inclined to think the GTA is perfectly capable of supporting a multitude of Chinese districts.
The actual “Agincourt Mall” is a larger enclosed mall just east of Kennedy on Sheppard. It tends to host more of your established big name chains with Wal-Mart as its anchor. There is also a cluster of highrises in the vicinity of the mall, with a fenced off empty lot on Bonis, and development notices a precursor of more to come.
Also on Bonis Avenue behind the mall is the Agincourt branch of the library, which contains a beautiful corner vista. Various other community features can be found, such as Agincourt C.I. on Midland, and the Agincourt Community Centre attached to Agincourt Park on Glen Watford. As you can tell, like any strongly branded neighbourhood, the name carries itself across many locations, community features and businesses.
There is also of course the aforementioned Knox Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest community hubs which has existed at Midland and Sheppard since 1846, although the current structure dates from 1872.
While the rail infrastructure that runs through this neighbourhood was once a boon, much of it is now simply there, or even a burden. Although they do also enhance the area still through Agincourt GO station, which provides the area with peak unidirectional service.
The CP corridor carries freight trains regularly, and a particularly long one was heading when I was on my walk. The bridge under it was slightly unusual as there were blue bathroom tiles running along the wall, not what one normally expects to see when walking under an otherwise non-descript rail underpass.
Agincourt station is just north of Sheppard, and used to be a grade crossing. However a large construction project is underway to send Sheppard under the railway tracks. It is obviously causing traffic delays, as well as making it more difficult to access some buildings such as a local church and community services centre. However it should make things smoother and safer in the future. This corridor causes most of the residential streets to the north to be dead ends, but some like Havendale actually cross the tracks. It feels weird to see a grade rail crossing in the middle of a typical residential street. It doesn’t seem like there is a huge right of way to build more track, so one wonders how they intend to implement all day two way service on the route eventually.
Many of the houses are standard post-war bungalows, although there are some larger, more stately houses on Midland.
The GO rail tracks also run through Havendale Park, a typical local park, where I stopped to eat my lunch. The Highland Creek watershed branches throughout this part of Agincourt as well. On major streets like Kennedy, or Sheppard, it is channeled through deep concrete walls. Through the residential streets, it runs through a landscaped spillway. Trails run next to the streams here, which I walked along just south of Huntingwood. Bridges and walkways connect to the trails and community infrastructure like North Agincourt Jr. P.S. And that wraps up the coverage of Agincourt, until next time…
Agincourt Part I: Agincourt North
Agincourt, sometimes called Asian-court (a phonemic deviation so subtle one wonders whether only the most astute listener can even pick up on the difference in casual conversation), is a well known northern Scarborough neighbourhood with a heavy east Asian population. A south Asian population is also prevelant, but in my experience, more so in northern Agincourt.
Like many strongly branded neighbourhoods, the Agincourt name spreads beyond its borders being absorbed into lesser known neighbourhoods like Tam O’Shanter-Sullivan or L’Amoreaux. The Scarborough-Agincourt riding which encompasses only a bit of Agincourt and all of the former neighbourhoods certainly doesn’t help either. Although it is justified by much of northwest Scarborough once being considered Agincourt, much like Riverdale and eastern Toronto.
Most of the history that I’ve researched for Agincourt applies to the southern portion of the neighbourhood, so I will save it for next week.
Agincourt is bordered by Kennedy to the west, the 401 to the south, and the Finch Hydro Corridor to the north. On the east it is bordered by McCowan, the CN rail corridor, and Markham. I drew the north-south line along Huntingwood Drive, so this walk takes place north of there.
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I started walking at Finch and McCowan heading east, and finished at the northern intersection at McCowan and Sandhurst Circle.
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Agincourt North was walked on May 4, 2012
Finch and McCowan is the marquee intersection of Agincourt North. A collection of high rises can be found around most of the corners, often with a variety of private lawns and parkspace around them. The northwest corner on the other hand, contains the local mall, Woodside Square. It is another example of a mall that has come to be a hub of an ethnic community, with many Tamil and Chinese stores. The mall also contains an old movie theatre, which no theatre company would be interested in, but like many of these kinds of mall theatres, it has taken on new life by showing foreign movies that appeal to the local population, in this case, Tamil films.
Even though it is surrounded by parking lots, Woodside Square is still a beacon of community in what can sometimes seem like empty inifinite arterials like Finch or Brimley with backyard fences on either side of the street.
Sandhurst Circle runs in a… well, circle around McCowan and Finch. It is a street absolutely filled with schools such as Albert Campbell C.I., Brimwood Jr. P.S., Our Lady of Grace Separate School, the Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud, Percy Williams Jr. P.S., and Iroquios Jr. P.S. The latter two are pictured below. You can almost imagine some 50s planner coming up with this idea.
Despite many of the dense highrises, the majority of the landscape is still low rise residential homes. Many are detached homes on curving street grids, but townhouse clusters and even some rare suburban semi-detached homes can be found.
There was a newer housing complex on Middlefield Road to the east of the neighbourhood, but much of its masonry was supposed to be reflective of earlier times. Middlefield straddles the industrial and commercial area that runs east to Markham, and the residential area to the west.
There are also some religious instituations on the street such as the neighbours Our Lady Queen of Poland Roman Catholic Church and the Canadian Sri Ayyappon Hindu Temple.
Another interesting church, Rosewood Baptist, can be found at Brimley and McNicoll, just north of the Finch Hydro Corridor. An offroad bike trail runs through the corridor here from L’Amoreaux park east of Kennedy to Middlefield Road. It is a completed part of a proposed larger off road bike trail network along the Finch and other Hydro corridors, as well as other connections being discussed in parks, rail corridors, and on-street.
In terms of natural features, streams that are part of the Highland Creek watershed also run through Agincourt North. Although they are often in the form of concrete channels. Sometimes they can be desolate looking expanses between backyards, even buried with a walkway at times, like at Middlefield. Other times, such as when it runs east of Brimley just south of the hydro corridor, it is lush with trees and walkways enjoyed by many people out for a stroll. You can almost forget the concrete channel, as fence-less backyards give an open feel to the walkway. There are even some interesting houses you may not have noticed if you were on the street frontage.
Another church of note is the relatively new Scarborough Chinese Alliance Church along Silver Star Blvd. The area is a mix of industrial, commercial, and retail, but seems to be shifting more towards retail. Fenced off areas, construction sites, and advertisements indicate the future shift towards more retail.
Also in this area are quite a number of Chinese plazas. Bright colours and spinning signs attract the eye to the Scarborough Village Mall or Sky City Shopping Centre. However, well-meaning streetscapes, murals, benches, fountains and people riding their bikes speak to a very different type of retail area. A carved out niche of community in seemingly unassuming strip plazas. Until next time…
I didn’t end up doing any walks on Sunday, so this will be my last Jane’s Walk post, after which I will get back to my usual walk posts. On late Saturday afternoon, I went on a walk that left from Islington Station entitled “Finding Mabelle: A Walk Through the Gloaming”. I was confused at first as few people seemed to be at the meeting place, but soon our guides would appear. A parade of “Mabelle Pirates” in full costume pushing a shopping cart “vessel” with a parade of children in tow.
The beginnings of the walk were very theatrical, with the walkers staying in character as they talked about the peaks of towers and setting sail to the park. They then led us up a stairway under the rail bridge, to the sea of wheels that are Islington’s commuter parking lots. There we took a break and were told an allegorical story about the people in the towers being nowhere to be found and that the creation of the park as a real community space brought people out. Finally we proceeded through the hallway of greetings to get to the actual Mabelle Park, where the theatrics came to an end, and were given a more firsthand account of the features and creation of the park.
Mabelle is not actually a city park, but a private park attached to an apartment building. Toronto Community Housing used to run programming here in the 70s, but somewhere along the way it was lost, and the features faded. But now, it has been revived due to the hard work of the people in this community of apartment buildings.
They have livened up some desolate parking ventilation stuctures with murals, reactivated and maintained the kiddie pool, built a trellis, benches with inscriptions, and even a community fire pit and bread oven. The fire pit was used to make everyone Jordanian tea for everyone after the walk, along with musical accompaniment from a piano. This type of thing is more often found in central communities like Dufferin Grove, but it has been brought here as well, in one of Toronto’s unique inner suburban apartment clusters.
The best part is that the kids have been intimately involved in all of these creations and park programming, building benches, painting murals, attending meals, and just playing in the kiddie pool for example. And when you bring the children out, their parents come along, meet each other and interact when they might not have otherwise.
Seasonal events also play a big role in this park. During Ramadan, community meals are served for everyone to break the daily fast for iftar, with homemade lanterns providing atmosphere to this special occasion. A spectacular mid-winter parade is also performed with themes of immigration reflecting the experiences of the local population.
Many aspects of this project had to be forced through, as it is easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, a common theme among well done community projects. Empowering communities to undergo these kinds of changes themselves could do a lot of good, but would require much more flexibility in the onerous permit and bylaw process. Nonetheless, it is a great solution to the apparent isolation that the “tower in the park” developments sometimes create. Until next time…
