Introduction

The decline of the historic motels and “motor courts” that once lined both sides of Kingston Road in Scarborough has been extensively documented. Prior to the construction of Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway, Kingston Road served as a principal artery into Toronto as part of Highway 2, connecting eastern Ontario to the city. These establishments were situated within the boundaries of Scarborough’s three original streetcar suburbs—Birchcliff, Cliffside, and West Hill.

In the golden age of the automobile, when road trips and family vacations became commonplace, motels offered affordable accommodation to visitors and tourists. Finding a vacancy was especially difficult during the annual Canadian National Exhibition. Many motels featured attractive amenities such as spacious suites, television sets, telephones, and swimming pools, while more upscale establishments like the Andrews Motel even provided on-site dining in their restaurants. At their peak popularity, thirty-two motels lined Kingston Road between Danforth Avenue and Highway 2A.

An interactive map, illustrated with vintage postcards and photographs, outlines the history of each establishment along the strip.

The motels entered a period of decline in the 1970s, precipitated by the development of the new urban highways that redirected traffic from Kingston Road. At present, only a handful remain, with the majority repurposed since the 1980s to serve as shelters for vulnerable populations. These establishments function as the late twentieth-century analogues of the illegal rooming houses that were once prevalent in historic inner-city neighbourhoods such as the Annex and Parkdale.

It is difficult to reconcile the vibrant Kodachrome colours of the vintage postcards with the current bleakness of the motel strip on Kingston Road. The rise and the unfortunate demise of the motels exemplify the misplaced optimism of the automobile-oriented 1950s, flawed planning that privileged individual mobility in shaping the built environment, and the city’s enduring reluctance to confront the housing crisis.

Gallery

Explore

The motel strip’s colourful history served as the subject of an art exhibition entitled No Vacancy curated by Alyssa Fearon at the Scarborough Arts’ Bluffs Gallery in 2017. CBC News reporter Muriel Draaisma interviewed the curator prior to the opening night, while Toronto Star columnist Edward Keenan offered a review.

In 2015, the writers from Now connected with motel residents, compassionately documenting their personal narratives in an article that situated their experiences amid the development of Kingston Road as a major provincial artery. The piece is illustrated with vintage postcards depicting the Avon and Paragon Motels. Similarly, journalist Mike Adler examined the living conditions at the East Side Motel for the Scarborough Mirror.

Columnist Dave LeBlanc analyzed the architectural details of the motels in a Globe and Mail article, “It’s Check-out Time for Scarborough’s Storied Motel Strip.” Derek Flack explored their history in two articles for blogTO: “The Lost Motels of Toronto” and “What Motels Used to Look Like in Toronto.”

Historian Bruce Forsyth contributed a detailed article, “The Rise and Fall of Scarborough’s Kingston Road Motels”  on the history of the motel strip, situating the decline of the establishments within the broader social history of Toronto.

In 2014, photographer Patrick Cummins documented the derelict Andrews Motel and Drive-In Restaurant (formerly located at 2245 Kingston Road) through a collection entitled “No Room at the Inn.”

Another photographer, Chris Davy, captured the motel strip as it appeared in January 2006 in “Vacancies.” Subsequently, several establishments, including the Montoro and East End Motels (formerly the Paragon), have been demolished.

Ontario Photo Connections has a number of photographs in their album “Neighbourhoods,” featuring the Manor Motel and the Andrews Motel and Restaurant (4434 Kingston Road, demolished in 2014).

In her doctoral dissertation, On the Margins of Gentrification: The Production and Governance of Suburban ‘Decline’ in Toronto’s Inner Suburbs, Vanessa M. Parlette examines the repurposing of motels as housing for refugees and homeless families.

References

Byers, Jim. “Motel Strips Not Endangered Species.” Toronto Star, 25 Sept. 1984.

Daly, Rita. “A Slow Revival on Motel Row.” Toronto Star, 8 Feb. 1983.

“Growth Permanent on Kingston Road: Development of New Highway and Its Environs Continuous, Summer Resort Possible.” The Globe and Mail, 16 July. 1924, p. 13.

Jukes, Mary. “Once Over Lightly.” The Globe and Mail, 9 Jan. 1956, p. 13.

Keenan, Edward. “Kingston Road, Canada’s Gateway.” Toronto Star, 11 Mar. 2017.

Leblanc, Dave. “It’s Check-out Time for Scarborough’s Storied Motel Strip.” The Globe and Mail, 10 Sept. 2009, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/its-check-out-time-for-scarboroughs-storied-motel-strip/article789909/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2021.

“Motels Mushroom Through Ontario.” The Globe and Mail, 26 July 1955, p. 15.

Phillips, Adrian. “Corridor Intensification in the Inner Suburbs: Lessons from Cliffside Village, Toronto.” eScholarship@McGill, https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/papers/8c97kq63g?locale=en. Accessed 11 Apr. 2021.

“Scarborough Has Seen It All Before.” The Scarborough Mirror, 30 Apr. 2009, p. 1.