Work has begun on Jane’s Walk in Long Branch, led by MPP Peter Milczyn, starting 10:30 am on May 5, 2018
A previous Jane’s Walk led by Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Peter Milczyn has been highlighted at two previous posts from May 2015:
May 2, 2015 Jane’s Walks: (1) Spaghetti Junction – The Farewell Tour; (2) New Toronto – Then and Now
The following quick overview will, I am hoping, be of interest to other residents who wish to arrange Jane’s Walks in the future.
Poster of Long Branch Park development. The poster is entitled: “Long Branch Summer Resort lot no. 9, broken front concession, Etobicoke villa lots for villa residence, summer cottages, camping, etc.” Details on how to order a copy of the poster are available at a Toronto Public Library webpage entitled: “Collection Reproduction and Digitization on Demand.” The current names of streets in the area can be accessed at an archival document: Long Branch Street names – May 13, 1935. Click on image to enlarge it; click again to enlarge it further.
How to organize a Jane’s Walk: first decide on the route; walk it a few times by way of rehearsal; get the timing right
Some time ago, I worked with my friend Mike James (years ago we worked at the Munden Park Public School in Mississauga; I was teaching elementary classes and he was principal) to organize and lead local Jane’s Walks for three years in a row.
Screenshot of online City of Toronto Heritage Register map, accessed April 18, 2018. The map indicates that many of the houses on the May 5, 2018 Long Branch Jane’s Walk route, discussed at the post you are now reading, are listed as heritage properties. If you access the map (at the link referred to earlier in this caption) and zoom into the above-noted section of it, you can locate the addresses of each of the properties.
After that, I’ve been concentrating on helping to organize walks, that other people would be leading. I’ve learned a lot of things about organizing and leading walks. I am hoping the following notes will be of interest, for future walk leaders who happen to come across this website.
Create a draft for your route: in a sense, you will be editing the route, taking into account your available time
The May 5, 2018 Jane’s Walk, focusing on aspects of Long Branch history, that Peter Milczyn will lead will start at 10:30 am at the corner of Long Branch Ave. and Lake Shore Blvd. West and will end at 12:00 pm.
I have posted some possible views that can be included in the posting of the walk at the Jane’s Walk website. I can get these on a sunny day, and will make sure the horizon is perfectly straight using Photoshop, to attend to this detail, in the event I can’t achieve a perfect horizon using my camera viewfinder.
Much of my focus, in helping to organize a walk, involves thinking about what I will post, regarding a given walk, at the Jane’s Walk website.
View looking south from near the corner of Lake Promenade and Long Branch Ave. Jaan Pill photo
I have gone over the tentative route, for the May 5, 2018 (10:30 am to 12:00 pm) walk that MPP Peter Milczyn will lead.
Notes for draft version of the May 5, 2018 Jane’s Walk route in Long Branch
Here are some notes related to construction of the route.
The tour would start at the corner of Long Branch Ave. and Lake Shore Blvd. West, heading south toward Lake Ontario.
Looking to the north we see a new townhouse development, with more construction to come, in an area zoned for intensification.
Travelling south on Long Branch Ave., we see the site of a new townhouse development at Dominion Road and Marina Ave.
View from the current version of Long Branch Park, a stretch of land created through infill, extending south into Lake Ontario. Jaan Pill photo
South of Dominion we see an entryway to where horse paddocks used to be in place, in the late-1880s Long Branch Park era, in the days of horses and buggies.
As we pass Park Blvd., we see a great selection of houses remaining from the original Cottage Country era in this area.
We also see the Long Branch Park Cenotaph and the historic tree that has been designated as a historical feature of Long Branch, recently.
At the terminus of Long Branch we see where the Long Branch Hotel, burned in 1958, was located.
We proceed (taking care to watch out for cars along Lake Promenade) to the landfill where the gazebo, the site of summer music festivals in previous decades, is located. The landfill into the lake was constructed after the hotel fire.
Slide 5 from a previous post. We owe thanks to Robert Lansdale for Photoshop colour correction on this image. Caption details regarding the 1958 fire at Long Branch Hotel will be added down the road. Alex Stewart photo. Click on the photo to enlarge it; click again to enlarge it further.
We then start north again (again watching out for cars along Lake Promenade), walking through what used to be the centre of Long Branch Park, which is now residential housing (soon to be redeveloped).
From there were go north on Thirty Third St., passing by a parking lot where tennis courts for Long Branch Park were located.
Along the way we see new infill housing, and houses about to become infill. We see some houses dating from a previous stage of Cottage Era development, as well, and we see a recent split-lot development, located across the street from one of the older houses.
Arriving back at Lake Shore Blvd. West, we see multi-storey, multi-unit residential construction, built in recent years in line with zoning for this area of Long Branch.
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