Willowdale, Toronto

Willowdale
Neighbourhood
Typical houses in Willowdale. In the last decade many of the original ranch style bungalows have been demolished to build neo-eclectic structures such as these

Willowdale is a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. It developed from three postal villages: Newtonbrook, Willowdale and Lansing.

Willowdale began as a postal village (orig. Willow Dale) which covered the area from Finch Ave. at the north to Elmwood Ave at the south and Bathurst St. at the west to Bayview Ave. at the east. The postal village of Lansing was from Elmwood Ave. at the north to approx. Hwy. 401 at the south and Bathurst St. at the west to Bayview Ave. at the east. (East of Bayview Ave. was the postal village of Oriole.) The north-south centreline of Lansing & Willowdale was Yonge St. The postal village of Lansing remained in existence until the post office at Lansing corner (northwest corner of Yonge St. & Sheppard Ave.) was closed. When a new post office was built in Willowdale, the postal villages of Lansing and Willowdale were combined as the new postal village of Willowdale, within the Township of North York. Newtonbrook, originally Newton Brook, was also a postal village, located on Yonge St., north from Finch Ave. to Steeles Ave. The boundaries of the current neighbourhood extend as far east as Victoria Park Avenue, west to Bathurst Street, south to the 401 freeway, and north to Steeles Avenue. The neighbourhood abuts Bayview Village to the east and is considered to overlap Newtonbrook to the north. North York Centre is centred at the intersection of Yonge Street and Empress Avenue and is commonly thought to be a part of Willowdale, though its high-rise residential and commercial development sets it apart from much of the rest of Willowdale.

The Willowdale neighbourhood consists of single-family homes, condominium townhouses and high-rise condominium towers. High density development is restricted along Yonge Street. The single-family homes range in age from the original 1910 to 1950s construction (one- and two-storey pre-war houses and modest one-and-a-half-storey postwar houses). After the 1990s, very large replacement two-storey luxury homes were constructed by tearing down the original houses. It is in this neighbourhood that the term "monster homes" was first applied by Torontonians.