Yorkville was funded in 1830 by the entrepreneur
Joseph Bloor (after whom
Bloor Street, one of Toronto's main thoroughfares, is named) and
William Botsford Jarvis of
Rosedale and began as a residential suburb. Bloor operated a brewery northeast of today's Bloor and Church Street intersection, and Jarvis was Sheriff of the
Home District. The two purchased land in the Yorkville area and subdivided it into smaller lots on new side streets for those interested in living in the cleaner air outside
York. The political centre of Yorkville was the Red Lion Hotel, an inn that was regularly used as the polling place for elections. It is there that
William Lyon Mackenzie was voted back into the Legislature for 1832, and a huge procession took him down Yonge Street. The community grew enough to be connected in 1849 by an
omnibus service to Toronto. By 1853, the population of Yorkville had reached 1,000, the figure needed to incorporate as a village, and the "Village of Yorkville" was incorporated. Development increased and by the 1870s, "
Potter's Field", a cemetery stretching east of Yonge Street along the north side of Concession Road (today's Bloor Street) was closed, and the remains moved to the
Toronto Necropolis and
Mount Pleasant Cemetery. By the 1880s, the cost of delivering services to the large population of Yorkville was beyond the Village's ability. It petitioned the
Toronto government to be annexed. Annexation came on February 1, 1883, and Yorkville's name changed officially from the "Village of Yorkville" to "St. Paul's Ward", Joni Mitchell captured a colorful impression of the nightlife scene on Yorkville Avenue in her song "Night in the City." The hippie scene was also depicted in the
National Film Board of Canada documentary ''
Christopher's Movie Matinée'' in 1968. After the construction of the
Bloor subway, the value of land nearby increased, as higher densities were allowed by the city's official plan. Along Bloor Street, office towers and The Bay and the Holt Renfrew department stores displaced the local retail. As real estate values increased, the residential homes north of Bloor along Yorkville were converted into high-end retail, including art galleries, fashion boutiques, antique stores, bars, cafes, and eateries along Cumberland Street and Yorkville Avenue. Many smaller buildings were demolished and offices and hotels were built in the 1970s, with high-priced condominium developments being built in subsequent decades. ==Demographics==