Toronto Street Names: An Illustrated Guide to Their Origins

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Toronto is a city rich in history and quirky twists of fate. The
evidence is Toronto’s streets, which have been named after athletes,
butchers, bankers, blacksmiths, clergy, construction workers, doctors,
housewives, politicians, philosophers, soldiers, works of literature,
real-estate developers, and a remarkable number of brewers. This book
explains the origin of more than 350 Toronto street names ranging from
Yonge Street, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the
world’s longest, to Todmorden Lane, which is named after a dead toad.
Included in the book are scores of intriguing black-and-white
photographs of Toronto street scenes from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Although the text is entertaining to read, the book is not without
drawbacks. First, quite a few streets are listed as “probables”; in
these cases in which no one knows why a street bears a particular name,
the authors have made an educated guess—a troublesome practice in a
work of nonfiction. Second, the authors sometimes forget to mention why
someone decided to name a street after a person; for example, the text
gives an excellent of Emperor Hadrian but no clue as to why there is a
Hadrian Drive in Toronto.

Third, the prose suffers from an awkwardness that can compromise
meaning. For example, we’re told that “White was killed in a duel
with his neighbour, John Small, in 1800, and buried in his backyard.”
Whose backyard is White buried in, Mr. Small’s or his own? Here is
another example: “Anne Powell … was infatuated with Robinson for
years and pursued him, even when he was married. Eventually she followed
him across the ocean and was drowned.” Did Mr. Robinson personally
drown Ms. Powell or did he leave it up to the proper authorities?

Despite its deficiencies, this book deserves a place on every Toronto
history buff’s bookshelf.