Thorncliffe Park Toronto Guide: Racetrack Story, Market, Park
A Block by Block guide to Thorncliffe Park: the racetrack story, the library and park at its centre, a community market and a coming Ontario Line stop.
Long before the apartment towers, this corner of East York had a mile-long racetrack and a grandstand for 4,000 spectators. It is where the neighbourhood’s story starts.
This is a Block by Block guide to Thorncliffe Park, built from City of Toronto records, the public library, the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee and Metrolinx. For the wider area, see our East York neighbourhood page.
What came before the towers?
A house and a farm. The City’s heritage report says a house named Thorn Cliff passed in the late 19th century to Robert Davies, a prominent Toronto brewer, who renamed the tract Thorncliffe Farm. After Davies died in 1916, the model farm was bought for a racetrack.
The track ran thoroughbred and harness racing on a mile-long course, with stables for more than 600 horses, and operated from 1920 to 1952. Two street names still tip their hats to it: Grandstand Place and Milepost Place.
Toronto Planning Department / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
How did a racetrack become a neighbourhood?
Quickly. In 1952 the Ontario Jockey Club acquired the racetrack and handed the land to a development company. Leaside annexed the nearly 400-acre tract in 1954, and the area was organized into distinct manufacturing and residential sectors, an arrangement the report says recalled a planned community. Overlea Boulevard became the main commercial thoroughfare.
During the 1960s, 30 mid- to high-rise residential complexes were built. The tallest apartment towers, at 85 and 95 Thorncliffe Park Drive, were finished in 1971. For the larger story of the borough around it, read our history of East York.
How many people live in Thorncliffe Park?
The City’s 2016 Neighbourhood Profile, drawn from the 2016 Census, reports a population of 21,108. It gives a density of 6,787 people per square kilometre. Those are census snapshots, so think of them as a sense of scale rather than today’s headcount.
Where is the neighbourhood’s living room?
Along Thorncliffe Park Drive, where the City lists the park and the recreation centre at neighbouring addresses.
Library service came early. In 1959, staff wrote to more than 400 Thorncliffe Park apartment residents, encouraging them to use the Leaside library branch. The branch itself began in rented quarters in Chapel-in-the-Park United Church on 16 November 1966. The present building at 48 Thorncliffe Park Drive opened on 30 May 1970 and was officially opened on 5 October. In 1997 the Jenner Jean-Marie Community Centre was added to the same building.
Today the library lists a KidsStop Early Literacy Centre and a Youth Hub among its featured services. Check the branch page for programs.
The City lists the centre at 48 Thorncliffe Park Drive. It is attached to the Thorncliffe Library, and the City places it in a high-density multicultural community. The City calls it a free centre and lists a gymnasium and a weight and cardio room. For drop-in times, use the City’s page.
The City lists the park at 46 Thorncliffe Park Drive. The 1.5 hectare park has a community garden, a splash pad, a children’s playground, a sheltered picnic area and what the City calls Canada’s first public tandoor oven.
The Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee says it has worked to revitalize the community’s public green space since 2008. In 2013 the City Parks Alliance named the park a Frontline Park, which the committee describes as the first such honour given to a park outside the U.S. We love a park with that much community behind it.
It is a seasonal gathering run by the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee, which calls itself a grassroots not-for-profit organization. In a March 2024 post the committee described the market as a hub for the past 15 years, held every Friday from May to October in R.V. Burgess Park. Its events page lists a market season at the park from May 9 to October 9, 2026, filed under past events, with no upcoming events shown when we checked on October 20, 2026. Check the committee’s site for any future season before you plan a visit.
The committee’s own summer 2025 report gives a taste of a past season. An average of 10 to 15 vendors came every Friday. Women of the community sold items such as jewelry, clothes and artisan food. A bread-baking demo in the tandoor oven turned out fresh naan and bolani. The committee’s Park Café served chicken biryani, samosas, pakora and kachori.
There were festivals too: a fourth annual Culture Fest in mid-August and a ninth consecutive Canada Day celebration.
How will transit change Thorncliffe Park?
Metrolinx lists a future Thorncliffe Park Station on the Ontario Line at Thorncliffe Park Drive and Overlea Boulevard, which it says will bring rapid transit to a community that has long relied on buses. Nearly 30 per cent of residents already use public transit as their primary way of travelling. The agency says the station will improve transit access for more than 12,800 residents within walking distance and support nearly 3,000 jobs in the area.
The Ontario Line is a new 15.6-km subway line that will run from Exhibition Place through downtown to Line 5 Eglinton at Don Mills Road. Metrolinx set up a Thorncliffe Park Station Construction Liaison Committee in November 2024. Infrastructure Ontario has also proposed a transit-oriented community for the site, with more housing, jobs and retail within easy reach of transit. For more on transit and the neighbourhoods nearby, see our Line 5 Eglinton guide and our Leaside guide.
How should you spend a day here?
Begin at the library on Thorncliffe Park Drive, then walk over to the recreation centre and the park. For a meal afterwards, browse our East York restaurants list.
Send this to the friend who loves a neighbourhood with a good origin story.
