Queen Street (Toronto)

Queen Street is a major east–west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east–west avenues of Toronto's and York County's grid pattern of major roads. The western section of Queen (sometimes simply referred to as "Queen West") is a centre for Canadian broadcasting, music, fashion, performance, and the visual arts.

History

Since the original survey in 1793 by Sir Alexander Aitkin, commissioned by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, Queen Street has had many names. For its first sixty years, many sections were referred to as Lot Street, section west of Spadina was named Egremont Street until about 1837. East of the Don River to near Coxwell Avenue it was part of Kingston Road (and resuming as Queen Street thereafter), and was the westernmost section of that historic route to Kingston, Ontario, whose western terminus today is just east of Coxwell. The first park lots laid out in the new city of York (which would be renamed Toronto in 1834) were given to loyal officials who were willing to give up the amenities of modern cities such as Kingston to take up residence in the forests north of Lot Street. These 40 hectares (99 acres) lots were placed along the south side of the first east–west road laid in York, Lot Street. In the 1840s, Lot Street was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria.