Centre Island
Ferry-only park island with gardens, a maze, and a vanished lakeside village beneath its lawns.
Location
About this audio guide
Centre Island's tree-lined boulevard once ran along Manitou Road, the island's lost Main Street of hotels, dance halls, and shops serving 1950s day-trippers. The guide follows Toronto's 1956 decision to clear the island for parkland, and the fight of shopkeepers like Percy Miller, who ran a hardware store on that vanished street. Miller asked for thirty-five thousand dollars for his business and told the Toronto Star that the city's offer fell far short.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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