Cabbagetown

Cabbagetown, a district in east-central Toronto, the general boundaries of which are the Don River on the east, Parliament St on the west, Gerrard St on the north, and Queen St on the south. It was settled by working-class immigrants from Ireland and England in the 1860-80 period, who erected cottages and terraced (row) housing with some Victorian and Georgian ornamentation and grew vegetables on the small lots, especially cabbages, which lent the district its name.

Cabbagetown deteriorated into a slum between the world wars, but thereafter its character changed with urban renewal and subsidized housing in the 1950s and renovation of many still-standing houses by young professionals from the 1960s to the present. A number of the neighbourhoods were painted by Albert Jacques Franck. Hugh GARNER, born in the district, depicted working-class conditions in his popular novel Cabbagetown (1950, 1968). Street signs now identify the district as "Old Cabbagetown."