The second Jane’s Walk I did this year was of Kensington Market, starting at one of the synagogues on St. Andrew Street. Again, this walk attracted a fairly large group. We all started at the synagogue and were given a really good history lesson on the establishment of the Jewish community in Toronto – where they first lived and their movement into the Kensington Market area.
Throughout the walking tour we were given several stories of the inhabitants of the area, former uses of buildings as it related to the Jewish community, last remnants of Jewish signs, and the role of religious, social and political thoughts in the community during the time when the Jewish people lived in this neighbourhood.
Volunteers from the Ontario Jewish Archives (OJA) led us on this tour. Not only were we given information about the neighbourhood as it exists now but we were also shown pictures of what certain store fronts looked like back in the 1920s and 1930s. I did learn a lot on this walking tour and it was very fascinating look at Kensington Market.
