Historical Addresses

40 Heath Street West At one time owned by the church, Archbishop Desmond Tutu stayed in the house which was used for visiting Clerical dignitaries. The police occupied the house while staking out the Boyd Gang which resulted in their arrest as noted below.

42 Heath Street West After a stakeout, Canada’s most notorious bank robber of the day, Edwin Boyd, leader of the Boyd Gang, was captured in this house at 6:00AM on March 15, 1952. Even Toronto’s mayor of the day, Allan Lamport, got into the act, escorting Boyd out of the house accompanied by Sergeant Adolphus (Dolph) Payne of the Toronto police force.

50 Heath Street West Constructed in 1923, the McNamara House is a rare example of the Prairie School of architecture in Toronto.

St. Michael’s Cemetery Deer Park is home to one of Toronto’s oldest cemeteries. St. Michael’s Cemetery (Toronto) was opened by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto on September 28, 1855. There are some 29,000 graves in the cemetery. Ten acres in size, St. Michael’s has the unusual characteristic of being surrounded on all sides by the backs of buildings, thus making it nearly invisible from the street. It is bound on the north by stores, apartments and office buildings along St. Clair Avenue West, on the west by houses along Foxbar Road, on the south by houses and a fire hall along Balmoral Avenue, and on the east by stores and office buildings along Yonge Street. Entrance to the cemetery is gained through an alley off Yonge Street. The cemetery’s octagonal mortuary vault was used to store bodies in the winter until the ground thawed. Designed by architect Joseph Sheard, who was also mayor of Toronto in 1871-72, the vault was designated a historic property under the Ontario Heritage Act in December 1975.