Thorncliffe Park
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Thorncliffe Park is a multi cultural neighbourhood in central east Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the former Borough of East York. East York merged with five other municipalities and a regional government in 1998 to form the new "City of Toronto".
It is bounded on the east by the Don Valley, on the west by Millwood Road, on the north by Wicksteed Avenue and Research Road, and on the northwest by a railway track between Millwood and Wicksteed.
Thorncliffe Park has both an industrial and a residential section. The residential section is in the south, and consists chiefly of 34 high-rise and low-rise apartment buildings grouped in and around a rough oval with Overlea Boulevard dividing Thorncliffe Park Drive. Some condominiums (in a converted office building) and townhouses have recently been added on Overlea.
Overlea Boulevard used to be the dividing line between the industrial and residential sections, but the decline of the industrial sector in Toronto has led to the appearance of retail establishments and service organizations in the former factories on the north side of Overlea.
The residential section of Thorncliffe Park was originally designed as a planned community for 12,500 residents, but now houses 30,000. Despite low income and high unemployment, Thorncliffe Park has one of the lower crime rates in Toronto. The population consists largely of immigrants. The neighbourhood is heavily served by 24 hour public transit provided by the Toronto Transit Commission.
The local elementary school, Thorncliffe Park Public School, was largely overpopulated when in 1998 it had a population of 1,500. The following year students had to be sent to the nearby Don Mills school due to a lack of space. Thorncliffe Public School has now been reconstructed and is now Canada's largest elementary school and was reopened in 2003. Both middle school and high schools are all within a short walk of pupils' residences, while buses take pupils to (Catholic) separate schools. In 1998, the local middle school, Valley Park Secondary, stood at around 1,500 students. As of 2004, the school has in excess of 3,000 students, and has been expanded with a new wing and over 20 portable classrooms mounted in the school yard.
The site of Thorncliffe Park was a farm until the 1920s, when a racetrack was built; it is commemorated by two streets named Grandstand Place and Milepost Place and the number of buildings that took on racetrack stable names like Churchill, Maple Glen and Wellow Glen. This track revitalized harness racing in Toronto.
In the 1950s, developers tore down the racetrack and created one of Toronto's first high-rise neighbourhoods. The neighbourhood embodies some standard urban planning ideas of the era – high concentrations of similar housing types, strict separation of retail and residential development, and the assumption that everyone has a car. Low-rise buildings are clustered inside the enclosure created by Thorncliffe Park and Overlea, while high-rise buildings line the outside of Thorncliffe Park. Retail establishments were concentrated in a single shopping mall, now called the East York Town Centre, between the two arms of Thorncliffe Park Drive at Overlea Boulevard. Smaller retail and service plazas have recently opened along Overlea Boulevard. Many residents on Throncliffe Park Drive are at considerable walking distance from shops, although this problem is mitigated somewhat, even in winter, by well kept sidewalks and walkways and by frequent bus service.