Corktown is one of the city’s oldest areas, characterized by housing nestled in between factories, breweries, and large industrial properties. Settled mainly by Irish immigrants, who came here after the Famine of 1846–47, it was dubbed “Cork,” “Paddy,” or “Slab” Town.

The needs of its residents have always been largely satisfied within the community. There are stores (the first Loblaws family store was located on King, east of Parliament), churches (Little Trinity and St Paul’s Basilica), schools (Enoch Turner Schoolhouse on Trinity, which was Toronto’s first free school for children, and the Inglenook Community High School on Sackville), pubs, and once an elegant performance space at the top of the Dominion Hotel and a local swimming hole at the Don River.

Corktown is a fascinating combination of very old row housing (up to 150 years), and the very latest conversions of industrial buildings (for example, 90 Sumach Street, now high-tech, loft condominiums, formerly a CBC sets-and-props location). Most of the housing that you see today on Bright, Percy, Trinity, and Ashby Place was built in the mid to late 1800s for families of local workers. Generally, it consists of narrow, two-storey row houses with dirt-floor basements, a brick front and wood rear walls finishing off a summer kitchen.

Bright Street, which curves gently between Queen and King, has a name that belies a history of poverty, illness (due to rising damp from an underground creek), and hardship.

In 1950, one hundred years after the first immigration from Ireland, the street was still populated by Irish families. According to a local resident, 125 children lived on the street when she grew up there – one family alone had 24 children.

Queen, King and Sumach streets (from Shuter to Queen) have larger-scale terrace homes, built in rows of four or five. The greater width, interior ceiling heights, and level of detailing were enjoyed by business managers and their families. Less imposing and less costly houses were built for skilled labourers. The home at 473 Queen Street East, for example, was built for a brewery manager by a noted local contractor, Mr Davies, who built the Dominion Brewery, directly across the street. There are five houses in this row, Davies Terrace, erected in 1877. The two remaining row houses to the east were also built on the same scale. The original occupant of the 15-foot-wide home at 495 Queen Street East, built in 1892, was James Lee, a typesetter. The western end of the block (Queen and Bright) peters down to a scale more in keeping with the row houses on Bright Street.

Hélène St Jacques