Downsview Stories

Everyone knows that SARSStock, featuring the Rolling Stones, AC-DC, Rush and others, took place in Downsview. But few are aware that Downsview is also notable for once having Canada’s largest nightclub and an auditorium featuring Toronto’s biggest bands.

This is the story of a family and the piece of land where they lived for four generations. But it is also the story of Downsview. The Boake family didn’t “settle” Downsview. There’s archeological evidence of Indigenous activity in the area that goes back 11,000 years.

Many of the first European settlers to arrive in Downsview came from Ireland in the 1830s. They cleared fields, built homes, and farmed on large parcels of land in the area that would now be known as Sheppard and Dufferin but, at the time, was called Dublin Village.

Call it Downsview’s greatest gift to the world of aviation. Many successful aircraft were developed at de Havilland’s Downsview plant over the course of its fifty-year run - the Mosquito, the Tiger Moth, the Chipmunk, the Buffalo, the Twin Otter to name but a few – but arguably none had the magnitude of impact of the DHC-2 Beaver.  

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then Downsview's Italian families are doubly blessed. Almost every home has two kitchens!

Downsview is the home of a thriving sports and recreation scene, including the soccer facilities where Toronto FC practices, the BMO Training Ground.