Queen Street West is the stretch of Queen Street running west from University Avenue past Spadina and Bathurst toward Parkdale. It began in 1793 as a survey road called Lot Street and was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria in the 1840s. Trinity College, a provincial asylum and Irish and Eastern European immigrants shaped its first century, and artists reshaped it from the 1970s.
Lot Street and the park lots
Queen Street began as the first east-west road in the town of York. Wikipedia’s summary of Mike Filey’s Toronto Sketches says Alexander Aitkin surveyed it in 1793 for Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe and that it was called Lot Street. The south side held the first park lots, large properties laid out for officials and the well-connected. The section west of Spadina was called Egremont Street until about 1837. In the 1840s Lot Street was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria, although the exact year varies by source. Our article on Parkdale describes the same concession road further west.
The strip’s oldest institution sits at its eastern end. Osgoode Hall, at 130 Queen Street West, has housed the Law Society and senior provincial courts since 1846, and its east wing dates from 1829 to 1832.
Gore Vale, Trinity College and the park
Further west, on Park Lot 22, the merchant and militia officer Duncan Cameron bought land in 1819. The Lost Rivers project says Cameron built a three-storey brick house named Gore Vale in 1817, close to a ravine carrying Garrison Creek. The page gives 1817 for the house and 1819 for the purchase, so the order of events is unclear. After the Reform government made the University of Toronto secular, Bishop John Strachan obtained a royal charter and bought about 20 acres from Cameron’s sister Janet in 1851. Trinity College opened on January 15, 1852. The university bought the remaining property in 1904 and moved to the main campus in 1925.
Lost Rivers says the City bought the grounds in 1912 and that Gore Vale was demolished in the mid-1920s. The park we know as Trinity Bellwoods appeared as “Bellwoods Park” on a 1903 map, and the name is believed to honour a former alderman, William Bell, according to Wikipedia. Only the stone gates at the Queen Street entrance remain from the college. The original iron gates went to Trinity College School in Port Hope, and the ones in the park are replicas, Wikipedia says. The wider story of the creek is in Lost rivers and ravines. Wikipedia adds that the ravine was backfilled with soil from the subway excavation, which created the park’s popular toboggan slope.
The asylum on the south side
Another institution took the land to the south. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says the Provincial Lunatic Asylum laid its cornerstone on August 22, 1846 and opened on January 26, 1850, with 211 patients moved in from a temporary asylum in a former jail. By 1861 masonry walls built with patient labour enclosed the grounds. In 1889 the east and west walls were moved and rebuilt, which reduced the site to 27 acres. The institution changed its name many times, from Asylum for the Insane to Hospital for the Insane, Ontario Hospital, Queen Street Mental Health Centre, and in 1998 the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The 1850 building was demolished in 1976. The City designated part of the wall and a carpenter’s shop in 1997. The address today is 1001 Queen Street West.
Immigrants and small shops
Queen Street served a series of arriving communities. Wikipedia’s article lists Irish immigrants in Claretown, near Queen and Bathurst, from the mid-19th century, and Jewish immigrants in “the Ward” to the north-east from the 1890s to the 1930s. It says the area was a centre of Toronto’s Polish and Ukrainian communities from the 1920s to the 1950s, with Portuguese settlers arriving from the 1950s through the 1970s. Those dates come from a summary, not a primary count, so they mark general patterns. Our articles on Jewish Toronto, Ukrainian Toronto and Portuguese Toronto give more detail.
Artists arrive in the 1970s
By the 1960s the stretch between University and Spadina was an ageing commercial strip, according to Wikipedia. Heritage Toronto explains what happened next. In the 1970s artists were drawn by cheap rents and by the nearby Ontario College of Art and Design. In April 1972 the collective General Idea published the first issue of FILE Megazine, which promoted the new Queen West scene. The Peter Pan restaurant at Queen and Peter Streets became a gathering place, and Sandy Stagg co-managed it from 1976. Wikipedia says students and others turned the strip into a music and arts hub through the late 1970s and 1980s, and that Citytv moved to 299 Queen Street West in the late 1980s.
The Gladstone Hotel, at the western end of the strip, was built in 1889. Heritage Toronto says the Tippin and Zeidler families bought and renovated it in 2000. The section west of Bathurst became known as West Queen West, and a local business improvement area covers the street from Bathurst to Gladstone, according to Wikipedia.
Ossington and the western strip
Ossington Avenue, further west, is the part of the story with the least documentation. Heritage Toronto records that the bar Sweaty Betty’s opened at Ossington and Queen in the early 2000s and was one of the first in what became a busy nightlife area. It also says the Beaver, a bar that opened in 2006 near Queen and Gladstone, closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond those two entries, this article does not date the growth of Ossington as a district, because the sources reviewed did not give a firm date. Wikipedia’s summary of news reports adds that a six-alarm fire on February 20, 2008 destroyed several buildings between Bathurst and Portland.
Queen West today
Wikipedia describes nearly every north-side storefront between Bathurst and Gladstone as a gallery, bar or nightclub. Liberty Village lies a few blocks to the south, and the strip runs on into Parkdale at its western end. Wikipedia also reports that Vogue ranked the neighbourhood second in a 2014 list of the world’s coolest, a ranking that is opinion, not history. Check the West Queen West business improvement area for current events and any construction on Queen Street.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called Queen Street?
It was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria in the 1840s. Before that it was called Lot Street, the first east-west road in York, surveyed in 1793.
What was on the site of Trinity Bellwoods Park?
Bishop John Strachan’s Trinity College opened there on January 15, 1852. Lost Rivers says the City bought the grounds in 1912, and only the stone gates remain.
What is the large hospital site on Queen Street West?
It is the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which began as the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. The asylum opened on January 26, 1850.
When did Queen West become an arts district?
Artists began moving in during the 1970s, drawn by cheap rents and the Ontario College of Art and Design. The first issue of FILE Megazine appeared in April 1972.
Where is West Queen West?
It is the part of Queen Street West between Bathurst Street and Gladstone Avenue, according to Wikipedia’s description of the local business improvement area.
Sources
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, “History of the Queen Street Site” (accessed October 2026)
- Lost Rivers project, “Gore Vale” (accessed October 2026)
- Heritage Toronto, “Queer Street West” (accessed October 2026), used for the 1970s arts scene, the Gladstone Hotel and the Ossington bars
- Wikipedia, “Queen Street (Toronto)” (accessed October 2026), used for the name, immigration patterns and the Citytv move, hedged in the text
- Wikipedia, “Trinity Bellwoods Park” (accessed October 2026), used for the park’s name, gates and ravine
Related reading
- Parkdale history
- Liberty Village history
- Trinity College history
- Osgoode Hall history
- Lost rivers and ravines of Toronto
- Roncesvalles Village history
Last verified: October 2026
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 31). Queen West History: From Lot Street to Trinity Bellwoods. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/queen-west-history
MLA: “Queen West History: From Lot Street to Trinity Bellwoods.” History of Toronto, 31 Oct 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/queen-west-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Queen West History: From Lot Street to Trinity Bellwoods.” Last modified October 31, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/queen-west-history.
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