Downsview Stories

TO KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING,
WE NEED TO KNOW WHERE WE’VE BEEN.

Downsview is not a blank slate. Starting with its significance to Indigenous communities as a ridge linking the Don and Humber Rivers, Downsview has been many things to many people. It continues to be a place where stories—big and small—are evolving for countless individuals, communities, businesses, and cultures.

The future of Downsview will be built on an appreciation of the past; to know where we’re going, we need to know where we’ve been. The project team was eager to know how Downsview sees itself, what people and events have shaped it, and what stories are integral to its identity and future.

We started with these stories and solicited your memories, help and suggestions for other stories that we could write up. We started at the beginning asking: What’s your story, Downsview?

Downsview’s Queer Histories & The LGBT Purge

From the Two-Spirit Pow-Wows in Downsview Park, to the queer-positive roller derbies in the Downsview Supply Depot, to inclusion at...

Play on the Runway 2022

On Sunday, June 26th, 2022, the gates to the Downsview runway swung open. It was the first time in decades the public could stand, ride,...

Downsview’s First Synagogue: Beth Am

“If you build it, he will come.” You may recognize that line from the 1989 hit movie Field of Dreams. The central character, played by...

Film & TV Production in Downsview

It’s called “Hollywood North” for a reason. Film and TV production is a massive industry in Toronto, employing about 35,000 people, and...

Maxie Scheff, Mr. Softball

Let's face it. It's not often you can find anyone with kind words to say about a baseball umpire. They make decisions about balls and...

The Downsview Brass Band

There’s no denying Downsview’s incredibly rich musical heritage. In the 1950s, future stars from the worlds of rock and roll, rockabilly,...

Lot 14 and the Boake Family

This is the story of a family and the piece of land where they lived for four generations. But it is also the story of Downsview. The...

The de Havilland Beaver

Call it Downsview’s greatest gift to the world of aviation. Many successful aircraft were developed at de Havilland’s Downsview plant...

Italians in Downsview

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then Downsview's Italian families are doubly blessed. Almost every home has two kitchens!...

Life on the Downsview Base

The presence of the Canadian military in Downsview was evident in signage, fencing, and occasional truck and air traffic but for the most...

Sporting Traditions

Downsview is the home of a thriving sports and recreation scene, including the soccer facilities where Toronto FC practices, the BMO...

Music in Downsview

Everyone knows that SARSStock, featuring the Rolling Stones, AC-DC, Rush and others, took place in Downsview. But few are aware that...

Jewish Life in Downsview

There were fewer than 50,000 Jewish people living in Toronto in the 1930s when a group of visionary and optimistic community leaders got...

SARSStock Rocks Downsview

It was the biggest rock concert in Canadian history, and one of the largest outdoor ticketed events ever staged in North America. On July...

Downsview United Church

“Let all our churches be built plain and decent, but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable – otherwise the necessity of...

Learning & Teaching in Downsview's Black Community

Knowledge is power is the motto of Downsview Secondary School. And, it’s the sharing of knowledge that empowers many of the Black...

Downsview Park History

The Park emerged out of a commitment of the Government of Canada. In 1994-1995, the government announced that it would decommission the...

The Alouette Satellite

Canada got involved in developing guided missile technology in the 1950s as part of the cold war. The de Havilland plant in Downsview is...

Early Irish Settlement

Many of the first European settlers to arrive in Downsview came from Ireland in the 1830s. They cleared fields, built homes, and farmed...

2018 Masters Indigenous Games

Inter-tribal athletics competitions have been a meaningful part of Indigenous peoples’ way of life for millennia, and that tradition...

Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine

Downsview has been the site of aerospace research for decades, but a lesser known chapter of scientific innovation concerns undersea and...

De Havilland Aircraft

Starting in the late 1920s, land in the Downsview area was being used for airfields—Barker Field, the Canadian Express Airport and the...

Little Manila & a Filipino–Downsview Connection

Toronto has been a destination for many Filipinos seeking opportunity and a new place to call home since the 1960s . At first the...

The Pope comes to Downsview—twice!

By the time Pope John Paul II paid his first visit to Canada in 1984, he was already six years into his pontificate, had made twenty-two...

The de Havilland Mosquito

There was very little that the de Havilland Mosquito couldn’t or didn’t do to help the Allied cause during World War II. “The plane that...

Gore Vaughn Plank Road

Getting goods to market was a constant challenge for Downsview farmers in the years before Confederation. Roads were unpaved and their...

Issac Reid: Downsview’s Black Pioneer

Downsview today is one of the most racially diverse neighbourhoods in the country. But it wasn’t always thus. “Nearly all Downsview folk...

Downsview Military Base

The start of World War II was the beginning of the military’s interest in the lands of Downsview. In 1937, the Royal Canadian Air Forces...

De Havilland Golf Centre

Downsview as the centre of Toronto’s golf universe? The idea might sound outrageous today, but if you were a golfer in Toronto in the...

The Downsview Supply Depot

The military needs large, secure spaces to assemble and stage its missions and supply lines, usually adjacent to airstrips. With the...

The Railroad Comes to Downsview

The opening of the Ontario, Simcoe, and Huron Union Railroad Company (OSHR) line from Toronto north to Barrie in 1853 ushered in an age...

See how these stories inspired arts and culture projects.

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