Aerial Scenes From My Neighbourhood (1947 to 2013)

Having already conducted and written about a walk around my neighbourhood in Agincourt, I was looking for new ways to understand my surroundings. The City of Toronto Archives website has aerial photographs dating from 1947 to 1992 . I was already aware my local subdivision grew out of the post-WWII suburban boom, but this was a very visual way to track that growth and development.

I had to stitch together two portions of the atlas to retrieve this image. The street running north-south on the left side is Kennedy Road and is the only route that exists – other than what appears to be a farm road for one of the two properties in the area. The CNR track runs north-south on the right hand side. Also of note is the landscape in the lower left corner – quite distinct from the adjacent farmland on the east side of Kennedy. Today this is the Tam O’Shanter Golf Course.

We have roads! To the north Linwood Avenue springs up and south of that, Havendale Road. The farm is now not the only residence either.

Other than the angle of the first image, there is very little difference in nine years. The houses are quite  set back from the street which leads me to believe that during the next decade at least some were lost. Also, I especially enjoy the consistency in the topography of the golf course.

The rise of the subdivision – at least partially. There is a portion of a side street – Fulbert Crescent – that has not yet been built due to the existence of a farm or an orchard on Kennedy Road south of Havendale. I am fascinated by what went on there between the owner and the city that made that portion of the street develop later than the surrounding environ, and whether this sort of event happened in other parts of the city. In addition, there are ‘gaps’ in the street, where houses now exist, which have been pointed out by a darker set of markings.

The subdivision (I’m picturing the Rush song with the music video partially set in Scarborough) is complete! The park in the northeast portion of the image now has a baseball diamond! Also, according to this post on the Golf Werks website (I was unable to track down more supporting sources), by this time in 1980, Tam O’Shanter Golf Course would come into existence after being redeveloped from the old Tam O’Shanter Country Club.

Having lived here for nearly the last twenty years, the neighbourhood is well past its growth period. As a final note, I will say that the property mentioned in the 1947, the one south of Linwood Avenue, still exists. Growing up I thought it was odd because unlike the rest of the houses on the row, it is set back from the street and has this long driveway. I have still never seen the house. Who knew it was a heritage farm property!