Sometimes referred to as Old Chinatown, the Chinatown on Spadina Avenue around Dundas Street West is one of the largest in North America, but just one of seven distinct Chinatowns in the greater Toronto area. Local businesses reflect a mix of Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese influences making this area a great (and cheap!) place to eat. Many restaurants are open late. Spadina is a hub of activity as residents and tourists elbow for affordable housewares, fruits and vegetables.
The History of Chinatown
Beginnings
Toronto's first Chinatown was situated in The Ward, an area that attracted new immigrants to the city.
The Chinese population in Toronto was sparse and located in the much of the Toronto Financial District in the 1800s. The earliest record of Toronto's Chinese community is traced to Sam Ching, who owned a hand laundry business on Adelaide Street in 1878. Ching was the first Chinese person listed in the city's directory and is now honoured with a lane named after him.
The first Chinese café (the term referred to Chinese owned establishments that served a combination of western and Chinese food) in Toronto was opened in 1901 on Queen Street West, opposite City Hall.
Despite the strict limitations placed on Chinese immigration with the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, the first Toronto Chinatown took shape in the early 1900s as hundreds of Chinese men settled close to Union Station after helping to build the Canadian Pacific Railway across Canada. The men originally found lodgings close to the railway station due to its convenience.
The 1909 Toronto city directory showed the Chinese immigrants as two distinct clusters of Chinese shops located at:
Queen Street East and George Street, adjacent to the reformist Chinese Empire Reform Association
Queen Street West and York Street, adjacent to the Chee Kung Tong a Chinese secret fraternal organization supporting the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen.
When the Qing dynasty fell in 1912 the reform association became defunct and the business next to it move away from the Queen Street East neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the Chinese community in Queen Street West and York Street continued to grow and moved into the adjacent properties within Toronto's Ward district vacated by the Jewish population.
By 1910, the Chinese population in Toronto numbered over a thousand. As in the rest of Canada and the US, due to entry resistance into other areas of employment, the Chinese of Toronto had to resort to the labour of food service and washing laundry. In this time, hundreds of Chinese-owned businesses had developed, consisting mainly of restaurants, grocery stores, and hand laundries. The Chinese laundries competed with the other Torontonian laundries leading to publicly called boycotts and demands for the city government to cancel or withhold business licenses from Chinese operators.
Growth
By 1912, there were 19 Chinese restaurants, half of which were in The Ward. By the early 1920s, this figure had risen to around 100 cafés and restaurants.
The growth of Chinatown prompted a moral panic among moral reformers and xenophobes who warned of the "lure of the Chinaman" and accused Chinese businesses of being dens of iniquity linked with opium and "white slavery" and of being a danger to the community and, in particular, to white women. As a result, in 1908 the city threatened to deny licenses to Chinese restaurants that employed white women and in 1914 the provincial government introduced legislation barring white women from working in Chinese restaurants. The legislation was not well enforced and by 1923 there were 121 white women recorded as being in the employ of 121 Chinese restaurants in Toronto.
The Toronto Police regularly raided Chinese restaurants for alleged alcohol and gambling offenses, particularly after the passage of the Canada Temperance Act in 1916.
By the 1930s, Chinatown was a firmly established and well-defined community that extended along Bay Street between Dundas Street and Queen Street West. Like the rest of the country, Chinatown suffered a severe downturn in the Great Depression, with the closing of more than 116 hand laundries and hundreds of other businesses.
Many Chinese restaurants in the area fell into disrepair in the 1940s, however the community began to recover after World War II as Canada's general economic fortunes improved and Elizabeth Street experienced a restaurant boom in the late 1940s and 1950.
Expropriation
Regardless of the investment by its owners and the success of the area with customers, plans emerged in the late 1950s to construct the new Toronto City Hall at the northwestern corner of the intersection of Queen and Bay Streets, it became clear that most of Chinatown would be displaced by the project. As Chinese businesses began to relocate west down Dundas and up Spadina Avenue around Kensington Market, some stores were taken over by other developers, and most stores that occupied the project site were cleared through expropriation. More than two-thirds of Elizabeth Street from Queen to Dundas Streets were destroyed.
Due in part to the high land value in the area of Chinatown, city planners in 1967 proposed that the rest of the first Chinatown be demolished and the population moved for the development of office buildings north of City Hall. This endangered many more local businesses, and even with the support of most Torontonians to save this part of Chinatown, the city was adamant to clear the buildings arguing that preserving Chinatown would turn it into a ghetto. At this time, community leaders established the "Save Chinatown Committee".
In 1970 and again in 1975, city officials proposed to demolish the Dundas Street portions of Chinatown for the expansion of the street to six lanes, however, due to community protests, the proposals were quashed.
Transformation into Little Japan
Since the mid-2010s, the Dundas and Bay Street area, west to University Avenue, has been developing into a Little Japan district though several Chinese establishments remain in the area as well.
Real Estate in Chinatown
Rents in Chinatown are lower than the downtown average, as are purchase prices for houses here. In some areas, unlike nearby Grange Park, the houses and apartments can be a bit run-down.
Tiny Victorian homes are the staple of the area, many of which can be hard to locate tucked behind the storefronts that have been built out in front of them. A number of these tiny houses have re-arranged themselves to orient the daily entrances at the rear, where laneway access offers a quieter, peaceful escape from the constant market traffic that buzzes morning till night.
Looking for something specific in Chinatown?
Parks
Schools
Please click here for a comprehensive list of schools in Chinatown.
Restaurants
Rol San: Popular late-night spot known for ample plates of Chinese food, fast dim sum and plastic table cloths.
Swatow: Traditional Chinese cuisine is served at this modestly decorated but popular fixture.
Dumpling House: Cozy Chinese eatery for fried & steamed pork, shrimp and veggie dumplings, plus rice & noodle dishes.
Cafés
Dark Horse Espresso Bar: Espresso specialist serving baked goods, with communal tables and free WiFi in an exposed-brick space.
Icha Tea: Traditional Asian teas, boba drinks & desserts are offered in a tranquil space with a tasting bar.
Kung Fu Tea: Natural flavors are used in some of the teas at this funky chain venue originating from Taiwan.