 View of Church Street looking north from Maitland Street Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented community located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gould Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the intersection of Church and Wellesley Streets at the centre of this area. The boundaries are not fixed, as some gay and lesbian oriented establishments can be found outside of this area. Church Street in the Church and Wellesley gay village, Toronto (Personal snapshot by Montrealais) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Torontos Church and Wellesley district, one of the largest gay villages in North America Rainbow flags are displayed in The Castro area of San Francisco as a symbol of gay pride The entrance to Chueca metro station in the Plaza de Chueca (Chueca square) in Madrid, during gay pride...
Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Official languages None Flower White Trillium Tree Eastern White Pine Bird Common Loon Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) Parliamentary representation - House seats - Senate seats 106 24 Area Total...
A sign for Yonge Street at the intersection with Maitland Street. ...
A number of alternative names for Church and Wellesley exist in local vernacular, including the Gay Ghetto, the Village or the Gay Village, the Gaybourhood, Gay & Wellesley or Queens Park (a play on words with Queen's Park, the seat of Ontario's provincial government); however, many of these "nicknames" are generic to gay villages across North America, and are therefore not descriptive of Church and Wellesley specifically, but of gay villages in general. Some people refer to it simply as Church Street, since most of the gay-related establishments in the area are located on that street. Queens Park is an historic green space in central Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Church and Wellesley is home to the annual Pride Week celebrations, the largest event of its kind in Canada with over 90 floats and an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 800,000 people. The Pride Parade is always on the last weekend in June. It runs southward along Yonge Street. The Dyke March is a woman-only parade that runs on Saturday afternoon and has a smaller parade route. There is also a weekend-long community fair that closes off Wellesley between Yonge and Church and also goes into Church Street. The community fair includes tables from a wide variety of groups involved in or associated with queer culture. Gay Pride Week or Pride Week is an event held in Toronto, Ontario during the last week of June each year. ...
A sign for Yonge Street at the intersection with Maitland Street. ...
The American television series Queer as Folk was also filmed in the Church and Wellesley area. Queer as Folk was an American/Canadian television series co-production, produced by Showtime and Temple Street Productions, which was based on the British series of the same name created by Russell T. Davies. ...
The 519 Church Street Community Centre is the meeting place for numerous social and political groups and became well known as a LGBT-friendly space. "The 519" as it is most often called, is a City of Toronto-run recreation centre that has been adopted locally as the Queer Community Centre, though its programming is not exclusive to LGBT groups and organizations. It is currently under renovation including expansion of the building (now complete) and upgrades to the existing spaces. The facility will remain open during the upgrades, which are scheduled for completion sometime in 2007. This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
LGBT (or GLBT) is an abbreviation used as a collective term to refer to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people. ...
While the neighbourhood is home to the community centre, parks, bars, restaurants, and stores catering to the LGBT community (particularly along Church Street), it is also a historic community with Victorian houses and apartments dating back to the late 19th and early 20th century. Many LGBT people also live in the nearby residential neighbourhoods of The Annex, Cabbagetown, St. James Town and Riverdale, and in smaller numbers throughout the city and its suburbs. The Annex is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Buildings in Cabbagetown Rich in culture and history, Cabbagetown is a neighbourhood located on the east side of downtown Toronto, Ontario. ...
St. ...
Riverdale is a large neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Church and Wellesley is also home to the AIDS Memorial, located in Cawthra Park, where the names of members of the community who have been lost to AIDS are etched into bronze plaques. A memorial candlelight vigil is held each year at the AIDS Memorial, during Pride Week. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). ...
"The Steps", in front of the Second Cup coffee shop on the south-west corner of Church and Wellesley, was an infamous communal stoop. It had often been packed with people chatting, flirting, and drinking coffee. Indeed, the Steps were parodied by The Kids in the Hall, who themselves were from Toronto and had an openly gay member, Scott Thompson. The Steps' significance as a social gathering spot diminished in the early 2000s, in part because the business association of the neighbouring Yonge Street commercial strip hired private security to patrol its streets. Some homeless youth and street kids migrated from Yonge Street to nearby Church Street as a result. Some people saw these youth as 'undesirable'. Some older gays felt threatened by incidents of aggressive panhandling and insults. The upwardly mobile gay clientele began to move on when they found the relocated street culture incompatible with their own. Second Cup is a large Canadian-owned chain of cafés, the largest specialty coffee retailer in Canada. ...
The Kids in the Hall was a Canadian sketch comedy group, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson. ...
Scott Thompson (born June 12, 1959) is a Canadian television comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe Kids in the Hall. ...
This migration caused a backlash from Church Street business owners who threatened to remove the Steps and other loitering areas altogether. In April 2004, the property owner expanded the retail space of the shops to the street front, due to the backlash mentioned above. However, this created further controversy, as the expansion meant that the shops in that building were no longer wheelchair-accessible. (They had previously been accessible because the street's gradual slope meant that the northernmost end of the Steps was in fact a ground-level ramp. In 2005, however, a new wheelchair ramp was added at the front of the building.) The international symbol of access depicts a person in a wheelchair A wheelchair is a wheeled mobility device in which the user sits. ...
The "communal stoop" area has moved two blocks south to the corner of Church and Alexander, near Timothy's and the statue of Alexander Wood (see below). Timothys World Coffee (a/k/a just Timothys) is a large Canadian chain of coffeeshops. ...
In the summer of 2004, the business association launched a pilot project. Every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. throughout the summer, two blocks of Church Street, from Wellesley south to Alexander, were closed to traffic to encourage more pedestrian activity. However, this proved controversial when some business owners accused other businesses of "stealing" customers by providing street entertainment, and ended three weeks earlier than planned due to a lack of money.
The business association also sponsored a Church Street Fetish Fair in August. In 2003, San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair had licensed a consortium of Toronto community groups to use the name Folsom Fair North for a similar fetish fair. That fair was held in a large parking lot near the corner of Wellesley and Yonge in 2003 and 2004, and in Allan Gardens in 2005, and the "Church Street Fetish Fair" was widely perceived as retaliation for the Folsom fair not being held on Church Street itself. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...
The Folsom Street Fair marks the end of Leather Pride Week in San Francisco, California Bondage demonstration at the 2003 Folsom Street Fair The annual Folsom Street Fair happens on the last Sunday in September and is now the final event in San Franciscos Leather Pride Week. ...
Allan Gardens is a park and indoor botanical garden located in Toronto, Canada. ...
Recently, following some political wrangling, Folsom Fair North changed its name to Fet Fete North (FFN is how it will be known to the public). The fair moved last year to Allan Gardens and will be growing by 50% in 2006 with a larger dance area and marketplace than last year.
History
The portion of the neighbourhood bounded by Yonge, Jarvis, Maitland and Carlton Streets was once the estate of Alexander Wood, a merchant and magistrate in Upper Canada who was at the centre of a gay sex scandal in 1810. His lands were derisively known as "Molly Wood's Bush" in the early nineteenth century; molly being a contemporary slang term for homosexual. In spring 2005, a statue of Wood was erected at the corner of Church St and Alexander St (the latter named for Wood), honouring him as a forefather of Toronto's modern gay community. Alexander Wood statue at the corner of Church and Alexander streets in Toronto Alexander Wood (January 1772 – September 11, 1844) was a merchant and magistrate in Upper Canada, who was the center of a gay sex scandal in 1810. ...
Map of Upper Canada (orange) Upper Canada was a British territory in what is now the Canadian province of Ontario. ...
A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about embarrassing sexual activities, such as adultery, being made public. ...
Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Church Street and the area around it has been familiar to the Toronto gay community for many decades. Prior to the 1970s there had been an underground (mostly male) gay scene centred around various bathhouses and bars around the city that were not exclusively gay establishments but were known to be frequented by homosexuals. Allan Gardens, just east of Church Street on Carlton, was a well known cruising area for gay men. The most notable bar for the gay subculture was the St. Charles Tavern at Yonge Street (one block west of Church) just south of Wellesley. During the 1970s, the bar was the focus of many attacks by homophobes, especially on Hallowe'en. There were also a number of gay oriented businesses on St. Nicholas Street, a laneway just west of Yonge in the same area. The Glad Day Bookshop, for many years the city's only gay oriented bookstore, opened on Yonge Street near Wellesley in the mid-1970s. Gay bathhouses, also known as (gay) saunas or steam baths (and sometimes called, in gay slang in some regions, the baths or the tubs), are places where men can go to have sex with other men. ...
Tourists sit outside a bar in Chiang Mai, Thailand A Depression-era bar in Louisiana. ...
Allan Gardens is a park and indoor botanical garden located in Toronto, Canada. ...
Cruising may mean: Cruising (maritime), leisurely travel by boat, yacht, or cruise ship. ...
Glad Day Bookshop is an independent bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, specializing in LGBT literature. ...
Church Street started to become a predominantly gay area, and the centre of the gay life in Toronto, following the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids, an event that galvanized the gay and lesbian community in the city. George Hislop, a gay businessman and co-owner of one of the raided bath houses, ran for Toronto city council with his campaign headquarters located at Church and Wellesley. On February 5, 1981, police in Toronto, Ontario, Canada simultaneously raided four gay bathhouses. ...
George Hislop (June 3, 1927-October 8, 2005) was one of Canadas most influential gay activists. ...
The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
In the 1980s, the 519 Church Street Community Centre became the meeting place for numerous social and political groups and became well known as a LGBT friendly space. A strip of gay bars opened along the street and many LGBT people rented apartments, joined residential co-ops or bought condos close to Church. The area became known as a friendly environment where people could be open about their sexual orientation. This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
Uncertain future As times have changed and Canadian society has become more open to homosexuality, Church Street is no longer viewed, particularly by gay youth, as an essential destination. Many bars and clubs throughout Toronto are now gay friendly; establishments such as the Drake Hotel and the Gladstone Hotel, although outside of Toronto's traditional gay village, are currently popular destinations for young gay and lesbian clubgoers. The Drake Hotel is a hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
The Gladstone Hotel was built in 1889 by George Miller. ...
As well, the area has become more of a "mainstream" destination causing rental rates for both commercial and residential property to rise significantly. Many privately owned businesses have been forced to close down or move to other areas due to these rate increases, and much larger corporations (such as American Apparel) have settled on the street. American Apparel, LLC is a clothing company based out of Los Angeles, California. ...
The residents of the area are now largely middle-aged men with established careers. The high rents mean that the majority of gay youth cannot afford to live in the neighbourhood. Some choose to settle in nearby neighbourhoods such as St. James Town and Cabbagetown, while others no longer feel it necessary to live near the village as they can be open about their sexuality without as much fear of backlash. Many in the gay community have expressed concern about the decline of the neighbourhood's appeal with youth and its loss of small businesses. St. ...
Buildings in Cabbagetown Cabbagetown is an historic neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Therefore, some feel that in the near future Church Street may no longer be the "heart" of the gay community. This prospect has lead many to ponder whether Toronto really needs an enclave for sexual minorities. Others feel that it is time for the gay community to move on to another area of town. Some have noted that many small gay-owned businesses have moved to cheaper areas such as Parliament Street and Sherbourne Street, located east of Church and Wellesley. Some have speculated that within ten years, Parliament and Wellesley may become Toronto's new gay village. Parkdale and the Queen Street West area have also become destinations for gays and lesbians, even earning the new nickname of "Queer West Village" in recent years. Other places named Parkdale include Parkdale, Oregon; Parkdale, Calgary; Parkdale, Victoria and Parkdale (electoral district). ...
Queen Street West refers to both a major east-west downtown street and a series of neighbourhoods or commercial districts within the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
Famous denizens Enza Supermodel Anderson is a Canadian drag queen who has become famous in Canada for his quixotic political campaigns, which are usually based around the slogan 100% Great Legs. ...
Mark Elliot (born ca. ...
CFRB, or CFRB 1010 as it is often referred to, is an AM radio station in Toronto, Canada, broadcasting on 1010 kHz, with a shortwave radio simulcast by CFRX on 6070 kHz. ...
Kyle Rae is a city councillor in Toronto, Canada. ...
The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...
See also Toronto, Ontario, Canada is called the city of neighbourhoods because of the strength and vitality of its many communities. ...
A partial view of Montréals Gay Village, with Métro Beaudry (subway) station at left Montréals Gay Village (French, Le Village gai) is located on rue Sainte-Catherine Est, downtown, centred on Beaudry subway station, in the Ville-Marie borough of the city. ...
Davie Village (aka the Davie District) is a gay village in the West End of Vancouver Canada. ...
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