Tag: RoncesvallesAv

Beaty Boulevard Parkette

May 4, 2024 / Marvin Job / 1 Comment

Beaty Boulevard Parkette is a long, finger-like patch of grassy, manicured land situated near the intersection of Queen Street West, King Street West and Roncesvalles Avenue:

There’s plenty to see and do in this historic neighbourhood; if one crosses the Pedestrian Bridge over busy Lakeshore Boulevard West, you will find the Palais Royale, the Boulevard Club, Budapest Park, Marilyn Bell Park and Sunnyside Beach.

A Bit Of History

Beaty Boulevard Parkette is the former location of the Sunnyside Railway Station, located at this King/Queen/Roncesvalles intersection. The Sunnyside Railway Station operated passenger service from 1910 until 1971.

The Sunnyside Station in 1915 (City of Toronto Archives)

The station was built by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1910 and was well-placed, with access to nearby streetcars and the Sunnyside Amusement Park.

GO Transit began service in May 1967 and took over CN’s Toronto to Hamilton route. While CN’s Hamilton train had stopped at Sunnyside, GO’s Lakeshore West line bypassed the station resulting in a significant drop in its use. CN closed the station in 1971 and its buildings were demolished in 1973.

The Katyń Monument

Beaty Boulevard Parkette is home to the Katyń Monument, which commemorates the 1940 Katyń massacre in Poland:

“In remembrance of fifteen thousand Polish prisoners of war who vanished in 1940 from the camps in USSR at Kozelsk, Ostashkov, Starobelsk. Of these over four thousand were later discovered in mass graves at Katyn, near Smolensk, murdered by the Soviet state security police.”

Made of bronze and erected in 1980, the monument was created by artist Tadeusz Janowski. The monument’s location here is quite appropriate in this, a largely Eastern European, neighbourhood.

But what was the Katyn massacre you may ask? The Katyn Massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD (“People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs”, the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by German Nazi forces (Source: Wikipedia).

The Smolensk Tragedy

Also in Beaty Boulevard Parkette is a secondary monument related to the Katyn Massacre. The inscription on the plaque for this memorial reads:

In memory of the 96 person Polish delegation headed by the President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczynski, who all died tragically in a plane crash at Smolensk, on April 10, 2010, en route to the official commemoration ceremony of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. Without the Katyn Massacre there would have been no Smolensk tragedy.
Canadian Polish Congress, April 10, 2011

Memorial For Perished Polish Soldiers & Civilians

A few feet away from the last two monuments there is a third: this is the Memorial For Perished Polish Soldiers & Civilians:

The plaque on the memorial reads:

1940-2000

In Memoriam… Lest We Forget

May the tragic death of tens of thousands of Polish citizens in Soviet forced labour camps, political prisons and execution sites, always remind the world that freedom is bought with great sacrifice.

Dedicated to the memory of over one million seven hundred thousand Polish soldiers and civilians arrested in eastern Poland by the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) in 1940-1941, for the only reason that they were Polish citizens and were departed to the far reaches of the Soviet Union (Siberia), where many were executed or died of hunger, cold, disease and exhaustion during World War II.
Alliance of the Polish eastern provinces in Toronto, February 10, 2000

Stay tuned for the second part of this post – a look at Budapest Park, which is on the other side of Lakeshore Boulevard West beside Lake Ontario.

A Walk Down Roncesvalles Avenue

March 15, 2024 / Marvin Job / 2 Comments

I love Roncesvalles (aka Little Poland) – it has such a welcoming village-feel to it and exudes a laid-back yet slightly hip vibe. Roncesvalles Avenue itself stretches for 1.8 km, and is filled with gardens and charming, independent shops along the way. About 15,000 people live in Roncesvalles Village’s vintage buildings.

Known as “Roncy” to the locals, Roncesvalles consists of the stretch of Roncesvalles Avenue from Bloor Street south to Queen Street West.

**“They Came From Roncesvalles”**
The mural wall which greets visitors. The artists who painted this mural are Spud1, Wales, Random & Cruz.

**More of the Mural**
Artists: Spud1, Wales, Random & Cruz

A Very Brief History of Roncesvalles

Roncesvalles Avenue was originally owned by Colonel Walter O’Hara who named the street after the Roncesvalles gorge in Spain, where he had won a battle against Napolean’s army circa 1813. British settlers began to arrive in the early 1900’s as residential homes appeared. After WWII large numbers of Polish immigrants arrived and set up all sorts of businesses; that is why this neighbourhood celebrates the Roncesvalles Village Polish Festival every year.

Little Poland

Culturally, the area is known as the centre of the Polish community in Toronto with prominent Polish institutions, businesses and St. Casimir’s Catholic Church located on Roncesvalles Avenue. The businesses along Roncesvalles have formed the Roncesvalles Village Business Improvement Area and hold the largest Polish Festival in North America, which takes place every September.

**Mural Outside “Jimmy’s Coffee”**
2210 Dundas Street West. You know the area is urban-hip when there’s a Jimmy’s Coffee in the ‘hood.

**The Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue**
Built between late-1911 and early-1912, the theatre is a designated heritage site and is Toronto’s oldest standing movie theatre in use for showing movies. When news of its closure became public, a grass-roots community movement sprang up in order to save the cinema. After a great deal of effort, the movement was ultimately successful and the Revue reopened in October 2007. It is now operated by the not-for-profit “Revue Film Society”.

Roncesvalles is very well known for the large number of small restaurants, cafés and specialty food shops of various cuisines. There are several bakeries and delicatessens found along the full length of Roncesvalles.