LOCATION:
Between Strachan Ave and Dufferin Street, north of the Gardiner and south of the tracks below King Street.
EPICENTRE:
Liberty Street and Atlantic Ave.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:
Young professionals, dogs everywhere, great gym, large condos, energetic.
DID YOU KNOW?:
Before it became a centre for manufacturing in the late 1800s, Liberty Village was once the site of Toronto’s Central Prison and the Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women. Upon serving out a prison sentence, the freed prisoners would step out into the Village for their first taste of “liberty”. Hence the name “Liberty Village”.
For a good portion of the past fifty years, Liberty Village was a collection of old warehouses south of King Street that few people saw. There were functioning businesses there – pubs, pioneering restaurants like Mildred Pearce, a rock climbing gym and lot of television production companies, but not a lot of people lived there with the exception of a few pioneering artists in the lofts nearby.
Then the condos came, and they kept on coming. Many of the old industrial brick building were converted to lofts. The neighbourhood stuffed new condo into every corner they could, and the stuffing ain’t done yet. It has come to the point where some locals are calling out the developers to stop building more condos. For them, the neighbourhood is already full.
The new businesses are not all in the same spot. There’s no central promenade or main street or hub to this area. The businesses are scattered around and tucked into different areas, but it’s not hard to find a good brunch place, a gym or excellent coffee.
Liberty Village has become a young and middle class enclave without some of the urban woes of other neighbourhoods. It’s like the graffiti and homelessness issues of other neighbourhoods just don’t seem to be as visible here. With Parkdale next door, a neighbourhood with a great deal of this kind of street life, it’s strange that Liberty Village has so little of it.
Condos vary from massive and cookie cutter to excellent conversions from old lofts. The newer ones tend to be much larger.
Location-wise, it’s pretty good. Close to downtown, the highway and the lakeshore, but don’t be fooled. With all of the incoming condos, there will be an issue with traffic. With that much density, getting to highway should take a few minutes, but at 9am in this area, it could take much longer.