Back in 2011, blogTO ran an article calling Geary Avenue one of the ugliest streets in Toronto. And it’s certainly up there. It’s an industrial street with a mixture of different building types (lots of autoshops), giant power lines running along the south side of it, and a railway disconnecting it from the city to the south.

But as somebody who used to live around the corner from this street, I’ve had my eye on it for a number of years. Despite the fact that it was never very pretty, it always felt like an area with lots of potential. And sometimes it’s the areas that seem most unlikely to gentrify, that end up doing exactly that.

Probably the first signs of hipness came with the opening of places like Kitch Bar on Geary Avenue and Actinolite on Ossington Avenue. More recently though, it was announced that Dark Horse Espresso will be opening on Geary and that Bellwoods Brewery will be opening their second location on Dupont Street in this incredible building:

So whether you call it Dovercourt Park, Dovercourt Village, or some other name, I think it’s only a matter of time before Ossington cool moves north and the area in and around Dovercourt Road and Dupont Street becomes one of the hippest areas in the city. Get ready.

Full disclosure: I own a house very close to this neighborhood.

Images: Actinolite and Bellwoods Brewery