Danforth Avenue is the main east-west street of Toronto’s east end, running east from the Don River valley. Most of its present buildings date from 1910 to 1929, after the Don section of the Bloor Viaduct was completed in 1918 and tied the district to the rest of the city. The Greek character that gave the stretch near Pape Avenue its name grew from the 1950s to the 1970s, the name “Greektown” was in use by 1986, and the local business association adopted it officially in June 1993.
Who the avenue is named for
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes Asa Danforth Jr. (born June 29, 1768, in Brookfield, Massachusetts) as an American colonizer and road builder. On April 9, 1799, the Executive Council of Upper Canada contracted with him to open a road from York to the mouth of the Trent River. The biography says he completed it on December 18, 1800, that the council was unhappy with the work and made only a partial payment, and that the road “had deteriorated and was largely unused” within a few years.
The City of Toronto is more cautious about how that road relates to today’s avenue. Its heritage context statement (a preliminary draft for discussion, prepared in March 2021) says the avenue shares his name but states, citing local historian Barbara Myrvold’s timeline, that he never had anything to do with the road’s construction. The road he contracted for ran along Queen Street and Kingston Road before branching northeast along what is now Danforth Road. The statement adds that the Broadview Danforth business association credits the avenue’s name to him. The sources therefore agree on the man and on the road he was hired to build, and differ on how direct the link to the avenue is.
From plank road to city street
The line of today’s avenue was known as the Second Concession Road, running between 200-acre farm lots granted to Loyalists, disbanded soldiers, and officials, and the City statement says it was slow to be cleared and little was built on it until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1851 the Don and Danforth Plank Road Company was organized to build a plank road from the Don River to Danforth Road in Scarborough. The company stopped maintaining it on November 1, 1879, and maps show the name changing from Don and Danforth Road to Danforth Avenue between 1882 and 1889.
Annexation came in two steps. The south side, as far east as Greenwood Avenue, joined Toronto in 1884 (see the Leslieville article for the neighboring district). The north side stayed in the Township of York until the Midway annexation of 1909. An 1889 atlas shows fewer than 30 buildings along the avenue in the section the City studied, and horse-drawn streetcars reached the corner of Broadview and Danforth in May 1889. By 1903 the road was still largely rural.
The building boom of 1910 to 1929
The Toronto Civic Railway built a Danforth line, and the avenue was paved from Broadview to Greenwood in 1912 and to the city limit at Luttrell Avenue in 1913. The Bloor Viaduct, begun in 1915, gave a direct crossing of the Don Valley. The City statement says the Don section was completed in 1918, and the Toronto Public Library blog gives an official opening of October 18, 1918, while the City of Toronto Archives exhibit says the viaduct fully opened to traffic on August 23, 1919 (the structure is covered in the Prince Edward Viaduct article). The City statement says the Toronto Transit Commission, established in 1921, introduced direct single-fare crosstown streetcar service along Bloor and Danforth on July 1, 1923.
The City statement reports that the Globe observed a six-fold rise in the population bordering the avenue between 1912 and 1922. About 69 percent of the properties standing in the studied section in 2021 were built between 1910 and 1929, mostly two- and three-storey brick buildings with shops below and homes above. Allen’s Danforth Theatre, now the Danforth Music Hall, was completed in 1919.
The settlers of this period were mainly of English, Irish, and Scottish descent, joined by Italians who first came to work in a brickyard near Coxwell Avenue. Joseph Graziano opened a fruit market at 238 Danforth Avenue in 1913, and by 1925 there were at least nine fruit traders’ stores on the avenue.
Postwar immigration and the Greek community
The City statement uses census tract data to show the change. People of British Isles origin made up 83.5 percent of residents of the area in 1951 and 63 percent in 1961. Italians rose from 1.3 percent in 1951 to 11 percent in 1961 and 17 percent in 1971. Published tract bulletins did not record Greek origin, but members of the Greek Orthodox Church were under 5 percent of the population in 1961 and 15 percent in 1971. The statement links continued Greek emigration in the early 1970s to the 1967 military takeover in Greece.
By 1976 a Globe and Mail article called the strip “Little Athens”, and the City statement repeats a figure of 30,000 Greek immigrants living near the avenue at that time. That number comes from press reporting, not from a census count. Bilingual English and Greek street signs went up along the avenue in 1982.
Timeline of the Danforth
| Year | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1799 | Asa Danforth contracted to open a road from York to the Trent River | Dictionary of Canadian Biography |
| 1851 | Don and Danforth Plank Road Company organized | City of Toronto |
| 1884 | South side annexed to Toronto | City of Toronto |
| 1909 | North side annexed (Midway annexation) | City of Toronto |
| 1918 | Don section of the Bloor Viaduct completed | City of Toronto |
| July 1, 1923 | Through streetcar service on Bloor and Danforth | City of Toronto |
| 1966 | Bloor-Danforth subway extended to Woodbine Station | City of Toronto |
| 1982 | Greek and English street signs installed | City of Toronto; GreekTown on the Danforth BIA |
| June 1993 | Business association renamed GreekTown on the Danforth | GreekTown on the Danforth BIA; City of Toronto |
The subway, business associations, and the name Greektown
The subway line reached Woodbine Station in 1966 and Main Street and Victoria Park stations in 1968. The streetcars closed, and some residents feared that shoppers would leave the area; the City statement records a petition to restore surface transit. In the 1970s the strip revived as a commercial street, and a live music scene grew, with the Danforth Music Hall hosting shows from 1978.
Sources disagree on when the first business improvement area began. The City statement says the Danforth Village BIA was established in 1972, while the GreekTown on the Danforth BIA says its predecessor, the Danforth Village Business Improvement Area, was established in August 1981. Both agree on the June 1993 renaming. The City statement adds that the Broadview Danforth BIA was set up in 1986, the Taste of the Danforth event began in 1994, and a separate Danforth Mosaic BIA was formed in 2008 for the stretch from Jones to Westlake avenues.
A mix of communities
The Greek community was never the only one on the avenue. The City statement lists Ukrainian, Estonian, Finnish, Italian, and Chinese residents in the postwar decades, and notes that Madinah Masjid at 1015 Danforth Avenue was bought in 1983 by a congregation that began in early 1974 among Sunni Muslims from Gujarat, India. Neighbourhood census data for 2001 list British, Scottish, Italian, Greek, German, French, Chinese, Jewish, and East Indian origins among the most common. For the wider story of newcomers in the city, see the immigration history article.
Frequently asked questions
When did the name Greektown first appear?
The City’s heritage statement says the area apparently began to be called Greektown in 1986. The business association made the name official in June 1993.
Was the Danforth the largest Greek neighbourhood in North America?
The business association says the area was regarded as North America’s biggest Greek district in the 1970s and early 1980s. The supporting number, 30,000 Greek immigrants in 1976, is a press figure repeated by the City, not a census count.
When did the subway reach the Danforth?
According to the City of Toronto, the Bloor-Danforth line was extended to Woodbine Station in 1966 and to Main Street and Victoria Park stations in 1968.
How did the Danforth get its name?
Asa Danforth Jr. contracted in 1799 to build a road from York to the Trent River. How closely that road is linked to the avenue is disputed, as explained above.
Sources
- City of Toronto, City Planning, Historic Context Statement: The History and Evolution of the Danforth, Broadview Avenue to Coxwell Avenue, Danforth Avenue Phase 2 Cultural Heritage Resource Assessment (preliminary draft for discussion, March 2021; file dated August 23, 2021)
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Danforth, Asa, vol. 6
- GreekTown on the Danforth BIA, History
- Toronto Public Library, Local History and Genealogy blog, 100th Anniversary of the Bloor Viaduct, 2018
- City of Toronto Archives, Bridging the Don: The Prince Edward Viaduct (online exhibit)
Related reading
- Prince Edward Viaduct (Bloor Viaduct)
- Leslieville: history of the neighbourhood
- Immigration and communities in Toronto’s history
- Toronto’s lost rivers and ravines
- Toronto neighbourhoods: how the districts grew
Last verified: October 2026
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). The Danforth and Greektown: History of an East End Street. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/danforth-greektown-history
MLA: “The Danforth and Greektown: History of an East End Street.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/danforth-greektown-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “The Danforth and Greektown: History of an East End Street.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/danforth-greektown-history.
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