Gerrard India Bazaar BIA

This guide to the Gerrard India Bazaar in Toronto traces how a quiet working-class street became a South Asian shopping strip, starting with Gian Naaz, a mechanical engineer who immigrated from India in 1968. In 1972 he rented a shuttered cinema on Gerrard Street East and began screening Bollywood and Pakistani films there, drawing families from across the city and beyond. You'll hear how that single theater drew restaurants and record stores to line up beside it. Listen for the block where the line used to stretch on screening nights.