page_title: Queen Street (Toronto)
section_title: Bathurst to Gladstone: West Queen West
hierarchical_section_title: Queen Street (Toronto) / Route / Bathurst to Gladstone: West Queen West
caption_attribution_description: w:Drake Hotel (Toronto)
context_page_description: Queen Street is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east-west avenues of Toronto's and York County's grid pattern of major roads. The western section of Queen is a centre for Canadian broadcasting, music, fashion, performance, and the visual arts. Over the past twenty-five years, Queen West has become an international arts centre and a tourist attraction in Toronto.
context_section_description: Between Bathurst Street and Gladstone Avenue is West Queen West, also known as the Art and Design District. For this two kilometre stretch, nearly every storefront on the north side is either a gallery, bar, or nightclub (the south side of the street is largely taken up by the buildings and grounds of the former Queen Street Mental Health Centre, now part of CAMH), a combination that has led to the district being named one of the coolest neighborhoods in the world both in 2015 and 2016. The Stephen Bulger Gallery, founded in 1994, is also located on Queen West, as is the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), which relocated to the area in 2005. The future of the MOCCA in this area is uncertain: in 2013, the developer Urbancorp applied to demolish the MOCCA and the adjacent buildings housing the Edward Day and Clint Roenisch gallery and replace them with the nine storey "MOCCA Condo".
  In 2014, Vogue Magazine ranked the neighbourhood second in their compilation of the world's top 15 hippest neighbourhoods, being beat out only by Shimokitazawa, Tokyo 
  Another cause of this gallery conglomeration was the conversion of a former police building (Art-Deco building was a police station last used as Metro Toronto Police 6 Division built in 1931 and closed in the 1990s) into Gallery 1313, with extensive financial assistance by the city. The large amount of gallery space, including such galleries as Loop and Fly, allowed Toronto artists of all levels of ability to show their work at a low cost. Unlike the boutique-oriented storefronts of the eastern portion of the street, the Gallery District contains an abundance of space available for special events. The Camera Bar—originally established by film director and producer Atom Egoyan—is now operated by the Stephen Bulger Gallery as a rental space that offers a bar and film/video screening venue.
  West Queen West has undergone rapid transformation in the past couple of years. Rents have increased dramatically and many galleries have left. Recent departures include Sis Boom Bah, Luft Gallery, Burston Gallery and Brackett Gallery. At the same time as galleries have closed, many new bars have opened. Many attribute this sudden shift to the development spearheaded by the Drake Hotel, a former flophouse recently renovated and converted to a boutique hotel at a cost of $6 million.
  The Gladstone Hotel is one of a few pre-existing businesses in the area that has been able to capitalize on the recent boom. This grand old railroad-era hotel had over the years fallen into disrepair and maintained itself by renting boarding-house style accommodation. The tavern on the first floor is now home to a weekly "Art Bar", where locals from the arts community converge to socialize. In 2005, it underwent a major renovation spearheaded by the Zeidler family.
  In 2013, Artscape Youngplace opened at 180 Shaw Street, just north of Queen Street West, after a major renovation and community consultation process. Artscape's $17 million transformation of the building, the former Shaw Street School, was completed just before the centenary of its construction in 1914. Artscape Youngplace is a 75,000 sq. ft. centre for creative collaboration housing a diverse mix of creators working in a variety of disciplines, as well as arts, community and social mission organizations. Owners and/or tenants include the Koffler Centre of the Arts and Koffler Gallery, Luminato Festival, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Inter-Galactic Arts Co-op, College-Montrose Children's Place, Paperhouse Studio, Red Pepper Spectacle Arts, SKETCH, Small World Music Society, Typology Projects, The Developing Tank, and artists Barbara Astman, Eve Egoyan, Heather Nichol, Shabnam K. Ghazi, and Vid Ingelevics.
  The Queen West Art Crawl (QWAC) is an annual three-day festival celebrating the arts on Queen Street West and featuring the artists, arts organizations and businesses on the thoroughfare. It is produced by the not-for-profit Parkdale Liberty Economic Development Corporation.
caption: The Drake Hotel, a symbol of the area's gentrification
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