Kensington Market

Kensington Market is a neighborhood in Downtown Toronto between College Street, Spadina Avenue, Dundas Street West and Bathurst Street with small shops and food outlets. The narrow streets are lined with older brick houses that contain grocers, vintage boutiques, cafés and restaurants, most operating from buildings dating to the early twentieth century.

George Taylor Denison acquired the area starting in 1815 as a cavalry parade ground before it evolved into housing for Irish and Scottish laborers. Jewish immigrants opened many businesses from the early 1900s onward, later joined by Portuguese, Caribbean and East Asian communities who shaped the character seen today.

The streets preserve many hand-painted signs and murals placed by different immigrant communities over decades. Shops today still sell spices, textiles and groceries from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and East Asia, letting visitors sample several world regions in a single afternoon.

The streets become pedestrian zones every Sunday, letting visitors explore vendors, restaurants and specialty stores without car traffic. Parking along the surrounding main streets makes access easier on weekdays, and the Spadina subway station sits a short walk north.

The Garden Car installation combines public art with community gardening and stands as a permanent fixture among the narrow streets. Many building fronts still carry old signs and advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s that were never removed, now serving as accidental records of the past.