Mount Pleasant West

John Fisher Public School
40 Erskine Avenue
Opened in 1816, this school's original building was a log cabin (then called Eglinton School as it was located in the then village of Eglinton), steps away from the historic Montgomery's Tavern. The school burnt down and the current building was built in 1887 in the Edwardian Classical style. It was renamed in 1915 after the first mayor of North Toronto, John Fisher, who also happened to be the architect. It is to this day, the oldest school in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) as well as the board's largest French Immersion School.

Catherine Widgery 'Mindshadows'
17 Broadway Avenue
Words are the building blocks for thought. They give shape to our ideas. These cubes embody the energy and power of words within a structure of reason and order. Yet thought is without physical substance so these words dissolve in the shifting light, personifying the effervescence of our intellectual journey. The sculpture is 70% open space: a metaphor for an open, permeable mind. These words were selected intuitively by North Toronto Collegiate Institute students to be evocative without any single interpretation.

North Toronto Collegiate Institute
70 Roehampton Avenue
North Toronto Collegiate Institute was originally located in North Toronto's Town Hall. It was founded there in 1910 but, upon the amalgamation of North Toronto with the City of Toronto, the formal school building was built here in 1912. By 2002, the building was one of the oldest properties in the TDSB. The new school opened in 2010 and kept some of the Collegiate Gothic aspects of the old building in the school's new courtyard. It was constructed as a Gold LEED Facility' and North Toronto Collegiate Institute has since attained an EcoSchools Gold Certification. Being that North Toronto Collegiate Institute has a prestigious reputation within the TDSB the school boasts numerous notable alumni. They include Dan Levy, Keanu Reeves, David Cronenberg, Malin Akerman, Jim Cuddy and Keith Davey.

Blue Republic, Anna Passakas and Radoslaw Kudlinski 'Stargate'
150 and 155 Redpath Avenue
Emerging from two portals at 150 and 155 Redpath Avenue, this multi-component artwork, titled 'Stargate', animates the neighbourhood with a crew of intergalactic characters in varying states of materialization, transforming a busy and populated corner of Canada's largest city into a window of outer space. Embodying Toronto's energy and diversity, 'Stargate's brightly coloured protagonists remind us of our own feelings of arriving at a destination for the first time. Welcome their vibrant looks, enjoy their presence. Home at last.

Ilan Sandler 'What's Your Name'
77 Roehampton Avenue
'What's Your Name' identifies NTCI students' past and present by reproducing their proper names and handwritten signatures on the sculpture's stainless steel surface. 'What's Your Name?' is often the first question we ask someone and by answering we announce ourselves to each other and to the world. During adolescence our relationship to proper names tends to change; a name is no longer something given but something made crafted and personalized through the deliberate art of the signature. Schools, and particularly high schools, are where the proper name and the signature intersect. Paper and print, which are the core tools of education, become dynamic sculptural forms on which an imprint of students' public and private identities is inscribed.

Cowbell Lane
Southeast corner of Eglinton Avenue East and Cowbell Lane
This laneway was named Cowbell Lane in honour of this area's heritage. The area of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue East has come a long way from the dense old forest it once was. By the 1870s, the only significant development in the area were the construction of roads that, even then, didn't attract much residential growth. At the end of the nineteenth century, the area became part of the largest cattle grazing region in Upper Canada. The area was the first in North America to extend the use of cowbells to all cattle. The standard at the time had been to only have a bell on the best cow in the herd.

June Rowlands Park and Sharon, Lois and Bram Playground
220 Davisville Avenue
This park, originally named Davisville Park, was renamed in 2004 in honour of June Rowlands who was a woman of many firsts. June was born in Saint-Laurent, Montreal but grew up in Toronto, attending school at both Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute and University of Toronto. During her long career in municipal politics she served as the first woman Mayor of Toronto (from 1991-94), the first woman to head the Toronto Transit Commission, the first woman to head the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission, and the first woman to serve as the City's budget chief. She was a strong advocate for the elderly, developmentally challenged, the impoverished, and victims of domestic violence. The musical themed playground located in the park is dedicated to children's entertainers Sharon, Lois and Bram. The Canadian trio became incredibly successful internationally, selling millions of copies of their albums and winning three Juno Awards. The three were given the Order of Canada in 2002 and served as Canadian ambassadors for UNICEF.

Dominion Coal and Wood Plaque
379 Mt. Pleasant Road
Note: Private property. Please observe this point of interest from the sidewalk only. Where these condo buildings now stand is the same place where the nine silos of Dominion Coal and Wood once stood. Dominion Coal and Wood was founded in 1912 and, although it was originally located on Danforth Avenue, the facility moved to this site in 1929. Its proximity to the Belt Line Railway facilitated distribution of wood and coal across Canada, and then sold as heating fuel to local businesses and homeowners. The site closed in 2009 and the property was rezoned for residential use. A Heritage Toronto plaque near the stairs leading from the west side of Mt. Pleasant Road down to the Kay Gardner Beltline Trail notes the history of the site. Down the steps and on the left, there's a mural painted by the students of Greenwood School in 2014. The three elements in the mural represent the neighbourhood, the trains that used to run along the Belt Line Railway, and the Dominion Coal and Wood silos.

170 Merton Street
170 Merton Street
This building is distinctly representative of the post-war style called Late Modernism, a style characterized by the octagonal turret and the use of concrete brick and mortar. It was designed by architect Leslie Rebanks, a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. This building was once the former headquarters for the Visiting Homemakers Association (VHA), which was a Toronto-based social-welfare agency, founded in 1925. The agency assisted underprivileged families, the sick, the elderly and people living with intellectual disabilities and homelessness while also researching the co-relations between poverty, health and low wages.

Janet M. Magee Manor
71 Merton Street
*Note: Private property. Please observe the building from the sidewalk only. This senior citizen apartment building was built here thanks to community worker Janet Magee. The proposed plan for the site was for a high-rise building but Magee fought the plan and led the crusade for the construction of this senior's residence instead. Magee was no stranger to the area as she had lived nearby since moving to Toronto in 1918. During her life she was the founder of the Meals on Wheels program in Toronto and organized a walk to save the Belt Line from demolition.

Al Green Sculpture Park
Behind 33 Davisville Avenue
This park is named after Toronto sculptor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Al Green, who was born in Toronto in 1924. He dedicated his professional career to Greenwin, the company co-founded by his father. Green oversaw the construction of tens of thousands of houses, rental units and condos across Toronto. He also established the Al Green Theatre, co-founded the Lipa Green Centre for Jewish Community Services, Al Green Resources Centre and the Al and Malka Green Artists' Health Centre in Toronto Western Hospital. This park space came about after the construction of several Greenwin properties in this area in 1974. Green gave the park to the City until its ownership expired in 1999. After that, he created a sculpture park by acquiring works from his sculptor friends Maryon Kantaroff and Sorel Etrog, placing them and several of his own works throughout. Al Green was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2002, and passed away in 2016.

Storefronts of Yonge Street
2019-2039 Yonge Street
Numerous commercial buildings like these line Yonge Street all the way from Davisville to up past Eglinton Avenue. This row of 11 store fronts between 2019 - 2039 Yonge Street have cultural heritage value for their design. The properties are representative of commercial buildings built on Main Street Rows, and were built in three phases from 1916-1926. They feature commercial space at street level with private residential units above. They were originally built using red brick cladding with brick and stone detailing, though several of these storefronts have since been painted or stuccoed. The modest classical detailing with the corbelled brickwork is typical of buildings dating to the interwar era in North Toronto.