At one point, I passed a little stump of a street I remembered from the map. It was called Passmore Avenue. I decided to drive down it and see it if emptied onto one of the little streams. The ironic thing was, I didn't realize I was actually fulfilling an old goal of mine from pouring over my old maps, which show, at very stages of completion, Passmore Avenue's course. At one time, it ran almost completely across the entirety of Scarborough, about a half a kilometre south of Steeles Avenue, parallel to it. In fact, a map book produced by Metro Toronto in about 1970 shows Passmore as complete across the city, except for one gap where it does not cross the concession cut by the Little Rouge River. Otherwise, it spanned Scarborough... at least according to that map. It's my intention to check that with the aerial photos at the City Archives... stay tuned, if you care.
Today, Passmore Avenue is largely erased, from the maps, from the land. It still exists as a few discontinuous segments, and as part of other streets that have assumed parts of its course. Large stretches where it once was, at least on the map, are now empty. As I took these photos, I hadn't made the mental connection yet. It wasn't till I was on my way home, coming down Pharmacy Avenue and passing Gordon Baker Road and Glendinning Avenue, and a noticed a store with the name "Passmore Variety" (or some such) on the Glendinning side. That's when it struck me... Gordon Baker and Glendinning were once part of Passmore Avenue... the same street you'll see below, but at the other extreme of Scarborough.
But as I began my trip, still ignorant of what I was actually exploring, I parked just past a few rural homes, and stepped out onto a part of the road that is no longer really amenable to traffic...
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