Kensington Market, Toronto

Kensington Market is a multicultural, bohemian neighbourhood, one of the oldest and best-known in Toronto. A bit of a legend as such – replete with indie shops, vintage boutiques, and arts spaces – this district has been photographed more often than any other place in the city.

Nowadays, the area is more and more seen as home to artists, students, and families who populate the local Victorian houses. This, in turn, sparkles speculation that Kensington's long history as an immigrant working-class neighbourhood is nearly over.

Back in the early 20th century, the area was populated mostly by eastern European Jewish immigrants, prompting a nickname "the Jewish Market". With most of the Jews moving out north to the more prosperous uptown and suburbs after WWII, the arrival of new waves of migrants from the Caribbean and East Asia, in the 1950s, made the community more ethnically diverse. The Vietnam War brought in a number of American political refugees, adding further a unique utopian flavour. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, substantial groups of settlers also came from Central America, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Iran, Vietnam, Chile, and other global trouble spots. However, the closeness of Chinatown still makes the Chinese the largest ethnic group here.

Kensington Market continues to hold a wide array of bakeries and specialty grocers selling merchandise from all over the world. In recent years, many of the older ethnic establishments have been replaced by an explosion of trendy bars, upscale cafés, and international clubs and restaurants frequented by hipsters and other colorful lot. Most of these are found along Augusta Avenue and the neighbouring Nassau Street, Baldwin Street, and Kensington Avenue.

Another unique – architectural – feature of the neighbourhood is the extensions built onto the front of many buildings. The annual "Kensington Market Festival of Lights", now known as the Kensington Market Winter Solstice Festival, is celebrated as a street parade during the Winter Solstice in December.

Over the years, Kensington Market has been a filming location for a number of TV series, such as King of Kensington, Twitch City, and Katts and Dog, as well as the street riot scenes of the 1984 comedy Police Academy. It was also the primary setting for Cory Doctorow's novel “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.”

In November 2006, Kensington Market was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.