A jump away from Downtown Toronto, this small but high-class residential community is for families looking for a quiet oasis in the middle of a city. For city slickers, you’ll find busy Yonge Street bordering the west side of Teddington Park. For those who like a more suburban feel, on the opposite (N,E) border you’ll find the Rosedale Golf Club and the Riverview Drive Ravine. Riverview Dr/Snowden Ave are to the south, and cutting right through the neighbourhood is Teddington Park Avenue. You can expect to have middle-aged parents and school-aged children as neighbours in this tiny neighbourhood.

Eglinton Park, a vast 22-acre green space with loads of activities for locals of all ages.

This long community stretches from Avenue Road in the west all the way across to Mount Pleasant Road in the east. Along the northern edge, the boundary runs across Briar Hill Avenue to Sherwood Avenue; along the southern edge, the border runs across Hillsdale Avenue, up Yonge Street and across Eglinton Avenue West. Most of the locals are under 40, but lots of boomers and seniors live in the neighbourhood, too. Half of the couples here have kids, the other half don’t; most folks live in condominiums and apartments, but there are lots of detached, semi-detached and duplex homes in the community as well.

The best part of Yonge and Eglinton is the spectacular Eglinton Park, a 22-acre gem with an explosive array of activities for everyone from toddlers to seniors. In the summer, locals come to play on five sports fields, four tennis courts and two baseball diamonds, making this a hive of community activity on summer evenings. Children cool off in the wading pool or burn off some energy in the playground. In the winter, the city maintains two ice rinks. It’s a great asset in this burgeoning community, and locals quickly fall in love with it.

Single-family detached homes average roughly $1.6 million, and condominium prices range from about $230,000 to as high as $1 million, averaging about $575,000.

Single-family detached homes of all architectural styles, and lots of sparkling new condominiums on the main arteries.

Transit in the Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood is already excellent, and it will get even better with the completion of The Crosstown in 2021. The community sits right on top of the Eglinton subway station on the Yonge line, so it will take you just 25 minutes to get to Union Station – the same amount of time it would take you to drive. Cycling to work is an option to, as you can cycle downtown in just 45 minutes. Getting to Yonge and Bloor is a breeze – 15 minutes by car or transit, and just 20 minutes by bike.

There are plenty of schools to choose from in the neighbourhood. Elementary schools include St. Monica Catholic, John Fisher Junior Public and Eglinton Junior Public, which received a 7.4/10 in the Fraser Institute’s 2015-16 review of Canadian schools. Secondary schools include Marshall McCluhan Catholic (5.2/10), North Toronto Collegiate (8.4/10) and Msgr Fraser College, which was not ranked.

Yonge and Eglinton is at the centre of the biggest urban transit expansion effort in Toronto history: The Crosstown Light Rail Transit (LRT) project. This $5.3 billion project won’t be completed until 2021, but when it is finished, locals will be able to jump on a new LRT line that will carry them from Weston Road clear across the city to Kenney Road. The neighbourhood already enjoys a stop on the TTCs Yonge Street subway line, and with the new LRT it will quite possibly become the most transit-friendly communities in the city. This will be a boon to homeowners, who will see property values rise – and might well able to get rid of their cars entirely. The shopping is fantastic. You’ll find the standard assortment of chain retailers at the RioCan Yonge Eglinton Centre, from Toys R Us and Reitmans to The Body Shop and Naturalizer. At street level you’ll find bigger outlets like Urban Outfitters and Best Buy, David’s Tea and Restoration Hardware. For a more eclectic selection of local and independent retailers, head over to the eastern edge of the community to the Mount Pleasant Village, which features an eclectic assortment of one-of-a-kind shops that cater to the affluent midtown neighbourhoods to the south – from a bespoke jeweller to a custom florist and a cat café, this little neighbourhood village feels like a small-town main street. The area around Yonge and Eglinton boasts an exceptional selection of restaurants, far too many to name here. Standouts include Tabule for a modern take on Lebanese food, Grazie for unpretentious, home style Italian cooking, and Little Sister Indonesian Food Bar for yummy Balinese snacks. Satisfy your sweet tooth at Bakes and Goods, a one-of-a-kind cookie and cupcake spot right on Yonge Street. If you’re looking to fill your fridge with special treats, head to Uptown Brie (for cheese), Douce France (for macarons) and Rowe Farms (for locally grown, antibiotic-free meats). There are no fewer than three juicing spots in Yonge and Eglinton –Refuel Juicery, Greenhouse Juice and The Raw Juice Company. You’ll easily find everything you need close to home. Yonge and Eglinton is notable for its diverse housing stock. Unlike its southern neighbours, the neighbourhood has welcomed the construction of several high-rise condominiums, soaring glass and steel towers that have infused the area with a glamorous, urban ambiance and elevated the dour, suburban streetscape. The condos may be small, but the buildings typically offer fantastic amenities, and if you combine the condo lifestyle with a TTC pass you can live completely car-free. It’s a spectacular option for small families, couples and singles who want to live downtown but are priced out of the detached market. You’ll find an eclectic mix of freehold properties for sale in Yonge and Eglinton. Among the older homes, you’ll find craftsman, Georgian and Tudor styles of architecture; there are mid-century bungalows here, 1970s style duplexes and flashy new infill houses that reflect the skyrocketing value of land close to downtown. This is certainly a middle-class neighbourhood in transition, as property values are sure to rise after The Crosstown is completed, and we can expect many of the older homes to be torn down and replaced with multi-million dollar builds in the coming years.

This neighbourhood’s 15 minutes of fame happened way back in 1837. On the corner of Yonge Street and Montgomery Avenue, there stood, at the time, a popular watering hole called Montgomery’s Tavern. It was here that William Lyon Mackenzie mustered his rebels in the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion. They wanted to replace Canada’s ruling Family Compact with a democratically elected government, and on Dec. 5, 1837 they marched on city hall. After a brief exchange of gunfire they retreated again to the tavern for the night. Two days later, nearly 1,000 loyalist soldiers marched up Yonge Street to the tavern, where Mackenzie and his roughly 300 (mostly unarmed) rebels were ready to fight. The loyalists opened fire on the building, and the rebels posted outside fled into the tavern. This caused panic among those who were assembled inside the tavern, and they all fled the scene. The loyalist soldiers looted the building and burned it down. In all, The Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern is said to have lasted all of 15 minutes. The consequences, however, were tremendous. Mackenzie’s Upper Canada Rebellion, and a similar (though more violent) rebellion in Lower Canada, prompted the crown to appoint Lord Durham to investigate the situation in the colony. Durham’s report offered a scathing rebuke of the Family Compact, a group of wealthy families that governed without any accountability to the people. Durham condemned them as “a petty corrupt insolent Tory clique,” and by 1841, The Province of Canada had been established, and responsible government was in place.