Church-Wellesley · Yorkville · Downtown
A neighbourhood built around a subway crossing
Charles Street East sits one block below Bloor and a few steps east of Yonge, which puts it on the northern edge of Church-Wellesley, across the road from Yorkville and a walk from the University of Toronto. Toronto’s two main subway lines cross under the corner. The people who live here are young, mostly renting and mostly on their own.
Church-Wellesley, 2021 census
About twice the Toronto share of 24%
Against 48% across Toronto
Line 1 and Line 2, both at Bloor-Yonge
Getting out
Four ways off this block
Most people who move here ask how long it takes to get anywhere. The honest answer: less than from almost any other address in the city, because both subway lines are a three-minute walk and a third of your neighbours do not take either.
Line 1 Yonge–University
Six stops south to Union Station
Bloor-Yonge station · 3 min walk
Wellesley, College, TMU, Queen, King, Union. Trains run every 2 to 3 minutes in rush hour and every 4 to 5 minutes outside it.
Line 2 Bloor–Danforth
East and west across the whole city
Bloor-Yonge station · 3 min walk
Line 2 crosses Line 1 under the same intersection and runs from Kipling in the west to Kennedy in the east. St George, for the middle of the University of Toronto campus, is two stops west.
A second way in
Two more stations inside eight minutes
Wellesley and Bay stations · 7 min walk
Wellesley is the next Line 1 stop south and Bay is the next Line 2 stop west. When Bloor-Yonge is crowded, and at rush hour it is, either one gets you onto the same trains from a quieter platform.
On foot
One commuter in three here walks to work
2021 census, Church-Wellesley
32% of employed residents in this neighbourhood walk to work, against 8% across Toronto. Another third take transit. That is what living on top of the subway crossing does to a commute.
Around you
What is actually within reach
Four places you will end up using in the first month, whether you plan to or not.
Bloor-Yonge station
The busiest station on the subway, where Line 1 and Line 2 cross. The Yonge platforms opened in 1954, the Bloor ones in 1966. Three minutes from the front door.
Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge Street, five minutes north. Raymond Moriyama's 1977 building is the largest public reference library in Canada, and the best free desk in the city when your room is not where you want to work.
Village of Yorkville Park
A strip of small gardens along Cumberland Street, with pines, crabapple trees, a wetland and a granite boulder big enough to sit on. It is the closest patch of green, about nine minutes away across Bloor.
University of Toronto, St George campus
Victoria University, the eastern edge of the campus, is a ten-minute walk west along Charles Street. King's College Circle, the middle of it, is about eighteen.
The practical list
Where you buy things
Downtown is well served for groceries and expensive if you pick the wrong shop. This is the honest version.
- H Mart
- 703 Yonge Street. Korean and pan-Asian supermarket, open late.
- 2 min walk
- Shoppers Drug Mart
- 728 Yonge Street. Pharmacy, toiletries, the things you forgot.
- 2 min walk
- Rabba Fine Foods
- 9 Isabella Street. Small, and open 24 hours, which is its point.
- 3 min walk
- Longo's
- 100 Bloor Street East. The nearest full supermarket.
- 3 min walk
- No Frills
- 345 Bloor Street East. The discount shop, worth the walk weekly.
- 10 min walk
- Loblaws
- 60 Carlton Street, inside the old Maple Leaf Gardens. The big one.
- 15 min walk
Who lives here
A neighbourhood of people who live on their own, close to everything
Charles Street East is the northern edge of Church-Wellesley, the neighbourhood that runs south along Church Street and has been the centre of LGBTQ life in Toronto for decades. Pride Toronto takes over these streets every June. Cross Bloor and you are in Yorkville; cross Yonge and you are walking towards the university.
The 2021 census counted 22,320 residents here. Almost half of them, 48%, are between 20 and 34, against 24% across Toronto. Six households in ten are one person living alone, three in four rent, and more than nine homes in ten are in buildings of five storeys or more. It is dense, it is young, and nearly everyone is a tenant, so nobody finds it odd that you are one too.
Source: City of Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles, 2021 census, Church-Wellesley
And when you want the city
Six stops, one train, no transfer
Line 1 runs from Bloor-Yonge straight down Yonge Street to College, Queen, King and Union. You do not change trains, which in February is the part that counts.
See the residence