Tuesday Treasures

 Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

Travel Tuesday

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My Corner of the World

Postcards

Toronto ON

Yonge Street is a major arterial route Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes.

Until 1999, the Guinness Book of World Records repeated the popular misconception it was 1,896 km (1,178 mi) long, making it the longest street in the world; this was due to a conflation of Yonge Street with the rest of Ontario's Highway 11. Yonge Street (including the Bradford-to-Barrie extension) is only 86 kilometres (53 mi) long.

These brass plaques can still be found at the bottom of Yonge St. Harbourfront, just east of the Hilton Hotel at the edge of Lake Ontario although in bad shape.

Ontario's first colonial administrator, John Graves Simcoe, named the street for his friend Sir George Yonge, an expert on ancient Roman roads. 

This historic sign is also at the bottom of Yonge St. One Yonge where the Toronto Star was headquartered.

Yonge Street is a commercial main thoroughfare rather than a ceremonial one, with landmarks such as the Eaton Centre, Yonge-Dundas Square, and the Hockey Hall of Fame along its length. The Downtown Yonge shopping and entertainment district is named after it.

This sidewalk map outside the Eaton Centre wrongly refers to Yonge St. as the longest in the world.