Corktown is an historic neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located just south of Regent Park and north of the Gardiner Expressway, between Berkeley Street to the west and the Don River to the east.

The southern part of this area borders, but is not part of, the Distillery District and contains many vacated industrial buildings, some in use by production and movie studios. The proposed “West Donlands” urban re-development project, slated to be built over the next few years, will encompass the south-east corner of this area.

The neighbourhood’s name derives from its 19th century origins as an Irish ethnic enclave, particularly for Irish emigrants from County Cork, though some say the presence of a distilleries, breweries and cork-stopper manufactures in the vicinity may have secured the nickname.

In the early 1960s, a significant amount of Corktown was demolished to make way for several elevated roadways, including the Richmond Street off-ramp from the Don Valley Parkway and the re-routed Eastern Avenue overpass.

Currently in the early stages of the same sort of regentrification that revitalized present-day Cabbagetown, examples of late 19th century, intimate, quirky British-style row-housing can still be seen lining Corktown side streets such as Bright Street, Trinity Street, Ashby Place and Gilead Place.

Little Trinity Church just east of King and Parliament is Toronto’s oldest surviving church building, its cornerstone laid on July 20, 1843. Corktown was also the site of the first Roman Catholic church in Toronto: St. Paul’s was originally built in 1822. The current St. Paul’s (located at Queen St. East and Power Street) dates from 1887.

Corktown is also home to Inglenook Community Highschool. One of the Toronto District School Board’s alternative schools.

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Contact Laurin Jeffrey for more information