Yorkville is a Toronto neighbourhood just north of Bloor Street that, in the mid-1960s, became the centre of the city’s hippie scene, with cafés, boutiques and coffee houses (Henderson, 2006). The Penny Farthing, opened in 1963, was one of its best-known clubs (Canadian Encyclopedia).
The city pushed back. A licence freeze on new coffee houses in 1965 only made the street seem cooler, the historian Stuart Henderson writes (Henderson, 2006). A City heritage study says police enforced a 10 p.m. curfew for under-18s after an August 1967 sit-in (City of Toronto, 2025). In August 1968 a hepatitis scare cut weekend crowds to an estimated tenth of normal; a provincial report later found that 30 of 32 people hospitalized had injected drugs (Henderson, 2006).
From September 1968 many Villagers moved to Rochdale College (Henderson, 2006). The Le Dain Commission held its Toronto hearing at the Penny Farthing in October 1969 (Le Dain appendices). Developers later turned the area into a high-end district (City of Toronto, 2025).
Sources
- Henderson, 2006, Toronto’s Hippie Disease
- City of Toronto, 2025, Bloor-Yorkville Historic Context Statement
- Canadian Encyclopedia: Penny Farthing
- Le Dain Final Report, appendices M, P and Q
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