Islington Avenue

Islington Avenue today begins at Lake Shore Boulevard West opposite the north end of seventh Street in New Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario, in the southwest area of Toronto. It proceeds north, interchanging with Gardiner Expressway and then reaches Bloor Street and Islington station on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth of Toronto's subway system. Just to the north, it reaches the namesake Islington neighbourhood at Dundas Street, where the historic Montgomery's Inn, built in 1832, and now operated as a museum by the City of Toronto, is located. It continues north through a series of suburban neighbourhoods in the former city of Etobicoke including Richview, Kingsview Village, and Rexdale, where it has an interchange with Highway 401. South of Finch Avenue (where it crosses the Humber River, has a stop, Rowntree Mills, on Line 6 Finch West, a light rail line, and enters the former city of North York), the street changes from a straight to a sinuous course which it has for the remainder of its length, passing through the neighbourhood of Humber Summit. North of Steeles Avenue it enters the City of Vaughan, and traversing the Woodbridge district (which includes Pine Grove), passing just east of its historic village centre north of Highway 7. Near Rutherford Road, it borders two suburban conservation areas, the Boyd Conservation Area and Kortright Centre for Conservation. North of Major Mackenzie Drive, it passed through the historic village centre of Kleinburg as its main street before angling westwards to terminate at the parallel Highway 27.

The street was first surveyed in 1799 as the Middle Road.^[3] At the time, the northernmost part of the road in what was then Etobicoke Township was part of the same surveyed concession road as present-day Pine Valley Drive in Vaughan, with a jog at what is now Steeles Avenue. Later, in the 19th Century, a northwesterly diversion was built to connect the villages of Woodbridge and Kleinburg, with the bypassed portion today a residential street named Plunkett Road. in the mid-20th Century, Pine Valley was also realigned eastwards to tie into a new industrial street named Fenmar Drive (See map).

In combination with Albion Road, Islington was historically part of a route connecting the former villages of Woodbridge and Weston. Originally, the later divergent route did not pass uninterrupted through Woodbridge, but had a break between what is now Highway 7 and Woodbridge Avenue (originally Pine Street), with the resumption being a continuation of Pine.^[4] The gap was closed in the early 1960s to create the present continuous road.^[5]

The southernmost section of Islington Avenue between Lake Shore Blvd. West and Birmingham Street in New Toronto, once an independent town, was originally Seventh Street until 1980 (the continuation south of Lake Shore is still designated as such), when Islington Avenue was extended south of Horner Avenue. This connection required a new alignment north of Birmingham Street, which crossed over to the top of Sixth Street before continuing north over a Canadian National Railway yard, now the Willowbrook Rail Maintenance Facility.

In York Region, Islington Avenue was formerly designated as York Regional Road 7, but when Highway 7 was downloaded to the Region in 1997, Islington Avenue was changed to York Regional Road 17 so Highway 7 could retain its number.^[6]

Islington subway station opened on Bloor St in 1968. Today the 110 Islington South serves the street south of the station,^[7] while the 37 Islington runs along the street from the station to Steeles.^[8]

Landmarks and notable sites along Islington from south to north

Landmark	Cross street	Notes	Image
GO Transit Willowbrook Yard	Evans Ave	Crossed by an overpass
Islington subway station	Bloor St
Montgomery's Inn	Dundas St	Historic structure
St. George's Golf and Country Club	The Kingsway
Richview Collegiate Institute	Eglinton Ave
Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School	Dixon Rd	Former Keiller Mackay Collegiate Institute
Rexdale Presbyterian Church	Rexdale Blvd
Thistletown Collegiate Institute	Elmhurst Dr
St. Roch's Roman Catholic Church	Finch Ave
Pine Ridge Cemetery	Finch Ave
Humber Summit Library	Steeles Ave
Boyd Conservation Area	Rutherford Rd
McMichael Canadian Art Collection