page_title: Queen Street (Toronto)
section_title: University to Spadina: Queen West
hierarchical_section_title: Queen Street (Toronto) / Route / University to Spadina: Queen West
caption_attribution_description: Friday lunch on Queen Street West, Toronto, Canada.
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: The area between University and Spadina Avenues was a cultural nexus in the 1980s known for its cheap restaurants, clubs, eclectic mix of musicians and artists and was a haven for the punk rock scene with its famous club kids such as Kinga, Seika, Wanda and a host of others. In the 1960s and into the early 1980s, this stretch of Queen Street West was an aging commercial strip, known for "greasy spoon" restaurants and inexpensive housing in the area. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the area was transformed by local students, including those of the nearby Ontario College of Art & Design, and the area developed an active music scene which was one of the dominant centres of Canadian music in its era.
  The late 1980s saw the relocation of CityTV to 299 Queen Street West which gentrified the area almost overnight. A more mainstream culture soon attracted other artists, wider audiences, and wealthier businesses to the area. Small independent businesses started to move further west on Queen Street West past Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street for the cheaper rent, an area at the time which was desolate after working hours. The push continued into the mid- and late 2000s and into Parkdale until that area also became associated with trendy businesses, and now condos.
  By the mid-1990s with the opening of mainstream stores such as Le Chateau, probably the first chain store on the strip, the name "Queen Street" became synonymous with terms such as "trendy", "hip", and "cool". While original businesses such as the Cameron, the Horseshoe Tavern and The Rivoli have remained and changed little, the strip is now cluttered with mid- and higher-end international chain stores such as H&M and Zara, the antithesis of what the area was about in the 1970s and 1980s.
  The broadcast hub at 299 Queen Street West (formerly called the CHUM-City Building), housing a number of Bell Media's television operations, is located at the corner of Queen and John Streets in this area. By the mid-1990s MuchMusic become associated with Queen Street's culture; the station's VJs have often broadcast their segments live from outside the building, and programs such as Electric Circus and the MuchMusic Video Awards have regularly taken place on the street.
  St. Patrick's Market, at 238 Queen Street West, was founded in the late 1830s. The current building dates from 1912. This property is currently home to a communal food market, currently undergoing renovations the property is slated to re-open in 2018.
caption: Queen Street is known for its shops and restaurants.
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