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Gerrard India Bazaar
Gerrard India Bazaar, also known as Little India, is a commercial South Asian ethnic enclave in the Leslieville neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Known as the city's prime Little India and Little Pakistan, it consists of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali and Sri Lankan restaurants, cafés, grocery stores, and clothing stores catering to Toronto's Desi community.
The area of the bazaar has never housed a significant South Asian population, but it has historically served as a commercial centre for South Asians living in Greater Toronto and eventually established itself as one of the city's top cultural landmarks. It celebrates the annual Festival of South Asia in late August.
The Gerrard India Bazaar Business Improvement Area (BIA) sponsors events that appeal to the different South Asian groups that shop in the area: in 2004, Diwali, the Hindu and Sikh festival of lights, and Eid ul-Fitr, the Islamic feast day that marks the end of Ramadan, occurred around the same time in November. The BIA held a joint Diwali-Eid festival.
Each July, the BIA holds its annual two-day Festival of South Asia, one of the largest South Asian festivals in North America.
The neighbourhood is serviced by the 506 Carlton streetcar.
Toronto's Little India started in 1972 when businessman Gian Naaz rented (and later purchased) the Eastwood Theatre on Gerrard Street, which he named the Naaz Theatre, and began to screen Bollywood and Pakistani films, reputedly the first cinema in North America to exclusively screen South Asian films. This attracted large numbers of Indo-Canadian visitors from across the Greater Toronto Area, leading to a number of new businesses opening to cater the South Asian community. The area expanded rapidly and to nearly 100 stores and restaurants spreading over a large stretch of the street between Greenwood Avenue to Coxwell Avenue. Despite there being few South Asians residents in that part of the city, Naz opened his theatre in the economically depressed, largely British-Canadian area because it was the cheapest venue he could find.
The success of the theatre resulted in South Asian restaurants and retailers opening in previously empty storefronts as the area became a gathering point for South Asians in the 1970s and the Gerrard Indian Bazaar developed and thrived with daily visitors. The first of these restaurants was MotiMahal, which was opened by Gurjit Chadha and his wife in 1975, with the encouragement of friends. By the 1980s, “Little India” was firmly established. The area contained approximately 100 South Asian shops and restaurants and received an estimated 100,000 tourists in 1984, including visitors from as far as Detroit.
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Gerrard India Bazaar
Gerrard India Bazaar, also known as Little India, is a commercial South Asian ethnic enclave in the Leslieville neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Known as the city's prime Little India and Little Pakistan, it consists of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali and Sri Lankan restaurants, cafés, grocery stores, and clothing stores catering to Toronto's Desi community.
The area of the bazaar has never housed a significant South Asian population, but it has historically served as a commercial centre for South Asians living in Greater Toronto and eventually established itself as one of the city's top cultural landmarks. It celebrates the annual Festival of South Asia in late August.
The Gerrard India Bazaar Business Improvement Area (BIA) sponsors events that appeal to the different South Asian groups that shop in the area: in 2004, Diwali, the Hindu and Sikh festival of lights, and Eid ul-Fitr, the Islamic feast day that marks the end of Ramadan, occurred around the same time in November. The BIA held a joint Diwali-Eid festival.
Each July, the BIA holds its annual two-day Festival of South Asia, one of the largest South Asian festivals in North America.
The neighbourhood is serviced by the 506 Carlton streetcar.
Toronto's Little India started in 1972 when businessman Gian Naaz rented (and later purchased) the Eastwood Theatre on Gerrard Street, which he named the Naaz Theatre, and began to screen Bollywood and Pakistani films, reputedly the first cinema in North America to exclusively screen South Asian films. This attracted large numbers of Indo-Canadian visitors from across the Greater Toronto Area, leading to a number of new businesses opening to cater the South Asian community. The area expanded rapidly and to nearly 100 stores and restaurants spreading over a large stretch of the street between Greenwood Avenue to Coxwell Avenue. Despite there being few South Asians residents in that part of the city, Naz opened his theatre in the economically depressed, largely British-Canadian area because it was the cheapest venue he could find.
The success of the theatre resulted in South Asian restaurants and retailers opening in previously empty storefronts as the area became a gathering point for South Asians in the 1970s and the Gerrard Indian Bazaar developed and thrived with daily visitors. The first of these restaurants was MotiMahal, which was opened by Gurjit Chadha and his wife in 1975, with the encouragement of friends. By the 1980s, “Little India” was firmly established. The area contained approximately 100 South Asian shops and restaurants and received an estimated 100,000 tourists in 1984, including visitors from as far as Detroit.