Humewood-Cedarvale

Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard
1075 Eglinton Avenue West
This is Toronto's first community orchard in a public park. Planted in 2009, the orchard includes apple, plum, apricot and sweet cherry trees, as well as a pollinator garden. The initiative is run by Growing for Green in partnership with the harvesting project Not Far From the Tree. The orchard is maintained by volunteers, who participate in irrigation, mulching, pruning and harvesting. Once the trees are old enough to grow fruit, harvests are shared with volunteers and local food banks.

Dov Altman Lane
South of Eglinton Avenue West Between Westover Hill Road and Menin Road
This laneway was named after Dov Altman, a local man who was dubbed 'The King of Westover Hill', thanks to his enormous contributions to the community over the years. Altman required a lung transplant, and afterwards devoted much effort and energy into raising awareness of the importance of organ donation. Hundreds of people obliged thanks to his efforts. He was also very active in several Jewish community organizations, leaving a successful career in commercial real estate leasing to take up a position at Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University, an organization that helps support a research university in Israel.

Holy Blossom Temple
1950 Bathurst Street
The Holy Blossom Temple is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in Toronto, founded in 1856 as the Toronto Hebrew Congregation. It was formed by two dozen Jewish residents and, today, has over seven thousand members. The congregation has moved a number of times, growing from a small meeting on the upper floor of a downtown drug store, to a new downtown synagogue in 1897, before settling into its current location on Bathurst Street in 1938.

Arlington Parkette & Sousa Mendes Children's Playground and Plaque
460 Arlington Avenue
This park features the Sousa Mendes Playground and a plaque honouring Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a Portuguese diplomat. Sousa Mendes was the Consul General for the Portuguese government in Bordeaux, France in the early 1940s, when thousands of refugees came to the Portuguese Consulate seeking visas to escape France. Portugal was officially neutral in the Second World War, and had instructed its diplomats not to issue visas to refugees. Sousa Mendes defied these orders and issued thousands of visas, saving the lives of approximately 30,000 people (including 12,000 Jews). For this act of defiance, Sousa Mendes was severely punished by the Portuguese government. He was stripped of his diplomatic position, and his children were blacklisted from attending university or finding meaningful work. His family has since fought for decades to have his heroic actions properly recognized. The playground and plaque were unveiled in a 2013 ceremony with members of both the Jewish and Portuguese communities present.

Cedarvale Park
443 Arlington Avenue
Cedarvale Park is a hub of activity with sports fields, playgrounds and very steep hills ideal for tobogganing. The south end of the park contains a ravine, wetlands, and a young regrowth forest.

Cedarvale Ravine
In Cedarvale Park, Stretching from Ava Road to Bathurst Street
Cedarvale Park is part of an extensive ravine trail across midtown Toronto. On the south end of the park is the Cedarvale Stream, a reach of the now-buried Castle Frank Ravine and tributary of the Don River that borders Toronto's east end. The park is also notable as a favourite spot of American literary icon Ernest Hemingway, who frequented it when he lived nearby for approximately eight months in the 1920s. The ravine was almost destroyed in the 1960s when plans for the Spadina Expressway routed through it. Widespread community opposition halted the expressway entirely, and in the mid-1970s, plans were made to construct a subway through the ravine instead. Today, the section of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Line 1 subway from St. Clair West to Eglinton West Stations runs right under the ravine, and some of its emergency exits can be spotted by those looking closely while strolling through.

Glen Cedar Bridge
Above Cedarvale Ravine Between the Intersections of Glen Cedar Road and Strathearn Road, and Glen Cedar Road and Heathdale Road
This heritage-designated footbridge is a replica of one originally built here in 1912 by Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, the builder of Casa Loma. Pellatt constructed the bridge in order to open up the area north of the ravine for development. Originally a bridge for cars, it was turned into a pedestrian bridge in 1973 due to safety concerns. The bridge was almost destroyed in the 1980s but the local community successfully rallied for its reconstruction (which took place in 1989).

Connaught Gates
Intersection of Claxton Boulevard and Bathurst Street
These heritage-designated gates were constructed by Sir Henry Mill Pellatt in 1913 with the intention of acting as a grand entrance to Cedar Vale, a proposed new residential neighbourhood development. Pellatt envisioned Cedar Vale to be an exclusive enclave along the ravine that would rival Rosedale in grandeur and natural beauty. Unfortunately for Pellatt, the First World War broke out soon after and his plans failed to come to fruition. While the area did subsequently develop over the ensuing years into a residential neighbourhood, these gates are all that remain from Pellatt's original ambitious plans.

Justin Pape Artbox
Northeast corner of Vaughan Road and Kenwood Avenue
Raccoons and Toronto go hand in hand. Usually, though, they are seen as pesky bandits. This artbox puts them in a happier light, hanging out in nature and being swept up in various elements of the ravines around the city.

Humewood House
40 Humewood Avenue
*Note: Private property. Please observe the house from the street only. A large home was originally constructed on this site in 1860 as the home of William and Catherine Hume Blake, who owned an estate that covered much of the surrounding area at this time. Their son Edward Blake, who grew up here, went on to briefly become the second Premier of Ontario, and also the second leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. In 1912, part of the property was sold to a group of women from St. Thomas Anglican Church, who converted it to a home to serve unwed mothers. The house was demolished in 1924 and replaced with the building still standing now, with an addition added in 1960. Today, it is known as Humewood House, and continues to offer valuable services to Toronto's vulnerable single parents and their children.

Humewood Park
37 Humewood Drive
This small park features a tree canopy and a children's playground. There is a plaque in the park that notes the history of its namesake, William Hume Blake. Hume Blake moved to Upper Canada from Ireland in 1832, and became a prominent lawyer, professor, and politician. While serving as Solicitor-General for Canada West, he introduced important legal reforms, such as the reorganization of the Court of Chancery. The park covers an area that was part of Hume Blake's estate, known as Humewood.