January 21 in Leslieville featuring Riverdale Collegiate Institute

In 1909 the City of Toronto annexed Midway, the area south of the Danforth between Greenwood Ave. & the Beach. In the boom that followed developers rapidly subdivided Midway. It became a working class suburb, a Little Britain.  The City built schools: the Roden School (1907), Duke of Connaught School (1909), Bruce Junior School (1923), & Riverdale Collegiate (1907).

On the former exterior south wall, now inside an atrium, at Riverdale Collegiate Institute, on Gerrard Street East at Jones Avenue is this 1965 Toronto Board of Education plaque. This is what it says:

In co-operation with the Riverdale Business Men’s Association, the Toronto Board of Education persisted in building a school on Gerrard Street, named Riverdale Collegiate Institute. The original school, consisting of a principal’s office, library, auditorium, four classrooms and two science rooms, was occupied in 1907. 

Additions were built in 1914, 1922, and 1924, in accordance with the architect’s original plan for the expansion of the school.