What Lawrence Avenue used to look like in Toronto

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At the turn of the 20th century, the territory covered by current day Lawrence Avenue was almost entirely farmland. Named after Jacob Lawrence, a prominent farmer in the area, the street was little more than a narrow concession connection farmhouses. In the years that would follow, the residential core of the street would appear west of Yonge with many of the homes that make up Lawrence Park, one of the city's most affluent neighbourhoods, built during this period. Not so much has changed along this stretch -- between Yonge and Bayview -- in the last century. The street has gotten wider, but its overall residential makeup is the same.

It's a different story east of Bayview. Broken by the west branch of the Don River and Glendon College campus, the street resumes in the ultra-monied Bridle Path area (which wasn't really developed until after the second World War) before becoming the main drag of Don Mills, the city's first planned suburb. Heading east into Scarborough, the heightened retail character of the street continues in the form of 1960s era strip malls beyond Victoria Park.

To the west, the story is similar, if less strip mall-heavy. There's a more-retail oriented section between Bathurst and Black Creek, which was born in the post-war period. Elsewhere, residential sections mix with plazas and, eventually, high rise apartments at Weston Road. The street ends at Royal York, where it becomes The Westway.

To some degree, the central portion of Lawrence Avenue has remained insulated from the massive amount of development that's taken place in Toronto over the last 60 years. Were one to examine the history of Eglinton Avenue or Sheppard, you'd find far more obvious signs of change than you do here. The stately homes of Lawrence Park have kept things slow here, which one expects will be the case for decades to come.

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