Live in South Riverdale
One of the five Toronto districts whose benchmark did not fall last year, on ground with a documented industrial past that a buyer has to ask about by address.
South Riverdale is the City's neighbourhood 70, and the name covers more than most people mean by it: Leslieville and Riverside along Queen Street East, East Chinatown at Broadview and Gerrard, the studio district on Eastern Avenue, and the whole of the Port Lands down to the lake. That is why the neighbourhood measures 11.01 square kilometres for a 2021 population of 27,815. Its TRREB district is E01, and in July 2026 E01 was one of only five Toronto districts whose composite benchmark was not lower than a year earlier: $1,082,300, up 0.29%, while the City of Toronto composite fell 3.83%. The century semi held its price and the new stacked townhouse did not, and the ground itself carries a lead history that was serious enough for the City to replace the soil at 970 properties in 1988.
The old semi held its price, the new stack did not, and the ground has a file
As the City draws neighbourhood 70: the Don River and the Don Valley Parkway on the west, Jones Avenue on the east, Gerrard Street East on the north, and then south past Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard across the whole of the Port Lands to Lake Ontario.
Ask about South Riverdale and most people will answer about Leslieville, which is one street of it. The City's neighbourhood 70 also takes in Riverside, East Chinatown at Broadview and Gerrard, the studio district along Eastern Avenue, and the entire Port Lands down to the lake. That is how 27,815 people in the 2021 census end up spread across 11.01 square kilometres. Most of that area has never had anybody living on it.
This is the district in Toronto that held. In July 2026 the TRREB district here, E01, carried a composite benchmark of $1,082,300, up 0.29% on the year, one of only five Toronto districts in that month's table whose composite was not lower than a year earlier. The City of Toronto composite fell 3.83% over the same twelve months. Most of what this site records about Toronto in 2026, on the Toronto hub and in the guides around this one, is a market coming down. Understand why this district behaved differently before assuming it will keep doing so.
The split inside the district is sharper than the headline. Single-family attached, which here means the century semis and rows along Queen and the streets off it, was up 0.98% at $1,262,700. Detached was down only 0.92%. Meanwhile the townhouse benchmark fell 11.56% and the apartment benchmark fell 7.21%. The old low-rise stock held its price and the newer stacked and apartment stock did not, in the same district and the same month. In E01 the type of property moves the number further than the address does.
The ground here has a documented industrial history. Children living near a smelter in this neighbourhood were tested in 1973 and found to have an unusually high mean blood lead level. In 1988 the City replaced lead-contaminated soil at 970 properties here, and in 1989 professional lead cleaning was done in 717 households. Blood lead in Toronto children fell everywhere between 1984 and 1992, and the researchers were honest that they could not separate the effect of the abatement from falling air lead and falling emissions. What is not published is which lots were in the programme, or what the soil on any particular address reads today. Only a soil test answers that, and no listing will.
The south end of the neighbourhood is newer than the river. The Don was rerouted into a naturalised mouth in 2024 after six years of work, the island that created was named Ookwemin Minising, and Biidaasige Park opened along the new river on 18 July 2025. Two Ontario Line stations are being dug at Queen and De Grassi and at Gerrard and Carlaw, with East Harbour west of them. Metrolinx publishes no opening date for any of the three. The hoarding and the closed lanes, meanwhile, are here now.
- Order a soil test before growing food, and ask the seller whether the property was part of the 1988 replacement programme
- Check whether the address sits inside the Ontario Line construction zone on Queen or Gerrard, because that is happening now rather than later
- Basement backup history and the sewer backup endorsement on the insurance quote, on stock this old and this close to the Don
- Whether the house has a shared laneway, who is responsible for clearing it, and whether a laneway suite is possible on it
- For anything near the studio district, that overnight shoots and street closures on Eastern Avenue are routine
- The land transfer tax is charged twice in this city, provincial and municipal, and the first-time buyer rebate covers at most $4,475 of the municipal half
How South Riverdale got here
- 1850sA village grows around George Leslie's Toronto Nurseries and takes his name. Its other employers are the brickyards and the abattoirs along the lakeshore.
- 1884The area east of the Don is annexed to the City of Toronto.
- 1973Children living near a smelter in South Riverdale are tested and found to carry an unusually high mean blood lead level. The finding starts twenty years of monitoring in this neighbourhood.
- 1988Lead-contaminated soil is replaced at 970 properties here. Professional lead cleaning follows in 717 households in 1989.
- 2008Pinewood Toronto Studios, then called Filmport, opens on Commissioners Street on a former Imperial Oil brownfield, and the Port Lands become a studio district.
- 2024After six years of construction the Don River is rerouted into a new naturalised mouth, and the City adopts the name Ookwemin Minising for the island that work created.
- 2025Biidaasige Park opens on 18 July at the new river mouth, the largest park to open in Toronto in a generation.
- 2026Ontario Line station construction is under way at Queen and De Grassi and at Gerrard and Carlaw, with the surrounding streets dug up and no opening date published.
Biidaasige Park, Tommy Thompson Park and the open space nobody had in 2019
Most of the open space at this end of the neighbourhood is new. Biidaasige Park opened in July 2025 along the new mouth of the Don, on ground that was a shipping channel and a brownfield. South-east of it, Tommy Thompson Park is the Leslie Street Spit, built out of construction rubble and now closed to cars and full of birds. Closer in, Jimmie Simpson and Greenwood are the working parks: a pool, a rink and a playground each.
What the map does not show: the tree canopy stops sharply. North of Queen Street East the streets are shaded by mature silver maples. South of Eastern Avenue there is very little canopy at all, because the land was industrial until recently, and that difference shows up on a thermometer in August. Walk both halves before you decide which one you want to live in.
Elsewhere in Toronto, not South Riverdale
22 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 22 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from a representative point in the neighbourhood, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times. One caution for this page. Because the City's boundary runs south across the empty Port Lands, the representative point sits further south than the streets most people mean by South Riverdale, so distances to the northern amenities read a little long.
Every gym within reach
Two City recreation centres do most of the work: Jimmie Simpson on Queen Street East and Matty Eckler on Gerrard, each with a pool. Greenwood Park adds an artificial ice rink that runs whatever the winter does and an outdoor pool for the weeks it does not. Private studios are thick along Queen Street East, which is worth walking before signing anything, because several sit within a block of each other.
- Indoor pool, gymnasium and programmes, in the park of the same name
- Matty Eckler on Gerrard Street East is the second City centre, with a weight room
- Greenwood Park has the artificial rink, so skating does not depend on the weather
- The Martin Goodman Trail runs along the waterfront at the south edge, flat and continuous
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre open | The City centre on Queen Street East, with the indoor pool and the gymnasium, in the park of the same name. | 4–7 min |
| Matty Eckler Recreation Centre open | The other City centre, on Gerrard Street East, with a pool and a weight room. | 6–9 min |
| Greenwood Park open | The artificial ice rink and the outdoor pool, which between them cover most of the year. | 6–9 min |
| Tommy Thompson Park open | The spit is closed to cars, so the paved road out and back is the neighbourhood's long run. | 6–8 min |
The free option is the spit. Tommy Thompson Park is closed to cars, so the road out to the lighthouse and back is the neighbourhood's long run and costs nothing.
Two elementaries, one collegiate, and boundaries that split a block
Morse Street and Leslieville are the two TDSB elementaries covering this part of the neighbourhood, both JK to grade 6, and the board decides which one an address falls into. A family does not. Riverdale Collegiate Institute on Gerrard Street East is the secondary school for much of it. The Catholic board runs St. Joseph on Leslie Street, whose parish school dates to 1863.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Morse Street Junior Public School | Toronto District School Board | JK to grade 6, south of Queen Street East. Elementary catchments here are small, and two houses a block apart can be assigned to different schools. |
| Leslieville Junior Public School | Toronto District School Board | The other JK to grade 6 school serving Leslieville. Which of the two an address falls into is a boundary question, not a preference. |
| Riverdale Collegiate Institute | Toronto District School Board | The secondary school on Gerrard Street East, grades 9 to 12. It is the designated school for much of the neighbourhood, though addresses further east and north are assigned elsewhere. |
| St. Joseph Catholic School | Toronto Catholic District School Board | On Leslie Street, with roots in a parish school founded in 1863. Catholic assignment runs on its own boundaries, which do not match the public board's. |
| Toronto District School Board optional attendance | Toronto District School Board | The board runs a central admissions process for specialised schools and programmes alongside home-school assignment. Apply in the board's window, which closes in the autumn for the following September. |
Catchments in the old city are small and irregular, and this neighbourhood is long enough north to south that the assignment changes across it. Addresses further east and north go elsewhere for secondary. Confirm the specific address in the board's boundary finder rather than trusting the neighbourhood name, and remember the Catholic boundaries are drawn separately.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Daily mean around −5 °C, and nothing in the Port Lands breaks the wind coming off the lake
- Greenwood Park's rink is artificial ice, so skating does not wait on the cold
- What is listed now has usually been listed since November
- The cycle that works on the mortar of a century semi, and on the parging below grade
- Bare ground and low sun make it the easiest month to read a foundation from outside
- Agents begin preparing March listings, and showings pick up in the last week
- Snowmelt fills the valley, and this is the month to ask a basement what it has done before
- The low-rise stock is the first thing to move when the spring market opens
- Empty garden beds are the best look you will get at what the soil is actually like
- The year's widest choice of listings, right across the city
- Planting season, and the month to have soil tested before food goes into a bed
- Ontario Line work restarts in earnest on Queen and Gerrard after the winter
- Offer nights are still normal on semis here, which is no longer true of the condominium market
- Spring migration through the spit, and Tommy Thompson Park at its best
- Queen Street East patios open and the street parking tightens
- Film production peaks and closures around Eastern Avenue become part of the week
- Long evenings along a river mouth that did not exist five years ago
- The last strong month of the spring market before the summer lull
- Humid, high twenties, and when Toronto's heavy rain arrives
- Ask the insurer about sewer backup cover specifically, on old stock this close to the Don
- The slowest weeks for sales, and the most room a buyer will get to negotiate
- Heat holds on the industrial blocks south of Eastern Avenue, where there are almost no trees
- Trades are fully booked, so get renovation quotes well before a closing date is set
- Cherry Beach traffic runs through the Port Lands most weekends
- September is when families discover the school boundary was not what they assumed
- The autumn market opens and runs until the last week of November
- The best walking weather of the year for judging a street properly
- Tax instalments and assessment notices arrive, still calculated on 2016 values
- Leaf fall on a two-storey semi is a short ladder rather than a contractor
- The last comfortable month for exterior work before the frost
- Listings drop away in the second half of the month and stay down until March
- Wet and grey more than cold, which is the honest version of a Toronto November
- Book the furnace and chimney service now, on housing stock a century old
- The lowest listing count of the year, and almost no competing offers
- Year-end closings pile up, so get a lawyer booked before the middle of the month
- If the house shares a laneway, ask a neighbour who actually clears it in January
3 more photographs of the community and its surroundings
All freely licensed, via Wikimedia Commons. Filter by category.
Showing 1–3 of 3 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near South Riverdale, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Toronto library.