The Beaches is an upscale neighbourhood and popular tourist destination located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The trendy shops of Queen Street East lie at the heart of The Beaches community, with the boardwalk by the lake and several large parks being just a few steps south. The neighbourhood is a mixture of single and semi-detached homes, low-rise apartment buildings, and some mansions. The beach itself is a single uninterupted stretch of sandy shoreline bounded by the water works to the east and Woodbine park (a small peninsula in Lake Ontario) to the west. Although it is continuous, there are four names which correspond each to approximately one quarter of the length of the beach (from east to west): Balmy Beach, Scarboro Beach, Kew Beach and Woodbine Beach.
The Beaches area is generally considered to be bounded by Woodbine Avenue to the west, Victoria Park Avenue to the east, Kingston Road to the north, and Lake Ontario to the south. The lakefront is divided into three sections; Woodbine Beach to the west, Kew Beach in the centre, and Balmy Beach to the east. It is these beaches which give the neighbourhood its name and defining principal characteristic.
Because of the desirability of living in the Beaches neighbourhood, local real estate agents have also given adjacent areas "Beach-y" names. The area north of Kingston Road up to the CNR tracks is now known as "The Upper Beaches", and the triangle formed by Woodbine Avenue, Kingston Road and Queen Street East is called "The Beaches Triangle." However, it's a matter of some dispute as to whether these areas are an actual part of the Beaches neighbourhood, though it is generally recognized that the area east of Coxwell Avenue is part of Leslieville.
Still, whatever the definition of its borders, before amalgamation in 1998 the Beaches neighbourhood was at Toronto's extreme eastern limit and formed part of the city's border with the suburb of Scarborough. Even now, residents refer to The Beaches as being in the east end of the city, though since the amalgamation of city services in 1998, it is strictly speaking part of the east-central district of Toronto.

The origins of the Beaches community can arguably be traced to the arrival of Joseph Williams in 1853. Williams settled in the vicinity of Queen Street and Lee Avenue and began "Kew Farms."
The area remained isolated until the 1870s, when it began to take shape as a summer resort for Torontonians. In 1876, a new subdivision between Silver Birch and Balsam Avenues reserved a "private promenade" on the waterfront for lot buyers. After suffering from a variety of private encroachments, the promenade was transformed by provincial legislation into "Balmy Beach Park" in 1903. A special management body, the Balmy Beach Park Commission, opened the new public facility in 1904. Building a pavilion for the Balmy Beach Club was one of the Commission's park improvements for 1904-05.
In 1879, Williams turned part of his property into "The Canadian Kew Gardens." A brochure from that year described the site as "a pretty pleasure ground of twenty acres, fifteen in bush, fronting on the open lake." It offered "innocent amusements in great variety, including dancing," and "[a]ll temperate drinks, but no Spirituous Liquors." Williams' own milk and buttermilk were among the temperate drinks available. In 1907, the City purchased the grounds and adjoining properties for its own Kew Gardens. The Kew Williams stone cottage (1901-02) was retained for use by the park superintendent. It survives along with a public library built in the park in 1916.
In 1880, Queen Street was opened west from Woodbine Race Track to the Scarborough Township boundary at Nursewood Road. By the decade's end, road improvements allowed the Toronto Street Railway Company (TSR) to extend its line to Lee Avenue, the point to which the City had provided plank sidewalks and water mains. Many subdivisions were registered in late 1880s and a number of new streets were laid out. The resort continued to flourish in the 1890s, and additional community facilities gave support to a growing number of hotels and boarding houses. A volunteer fire brigade was organized in 1891 at Queen and Lee, though a permanent facility - the present brick fire hall - did not arrive until 1905-06. Many places of worship were established, including the Kenilworth Avenue Baptist Church in 1895. This church became Kenilworth Hall in 1909. In 1920, the Beach Hebrew Institute was took over the surviving building, which was soon altered to evoke traditional Shtibel design.
After assuming the TSR's franchise, the Toronto Railway Company (TRC) extended streetcar tracks along Queen to Balsam in 1891 for summer-only service. A final extension into "Munro Park" was realized in 1898. Munro Park was leased to the TRC by the heirs of the original owner, former Toronto mayor George Monro [sic]. The 16-acre site opened in 1896, and was managed in conjunction with Victoria Park to the east, a fare-attracting strategy common across North America. What began with a dance pavilion and bandstand soon featured a mineral well, a 150-foot Ferris wheel, a water merry-go-round, and, for a time, Lundy's Ostrich Farm. After the TRC's lease expired in 1907, Munro Park was subdivided for housing, despite local hopes that it might become a "public breathing place."
By the end of the 1890s, the Beaches was developing into a year-round settlement. Kew Beach Public School, a four-room brick affair, was erected at Queen and Kippendavie in 1899. In 1900, the World reported nearly a third of the 287 lakefront houses east of Woodbine Avenue were occupied on a permanent basis. (At that point, the Beaches had slightly more cottages and tents than Toronto Island did.) Queen Street emerged as the commercial spine of the east end; in the 1910s and '20s, it also became the setting for low-rise apartment construction.
The last privately operated pleasure ground in the Beaches was also the largest and most ostentatious, though it sprang from humble beginnings. From 1895-96 to 1906, the Sisters of St. Joseph operated the "House of Providence Farm" on the lakeshore between Maclean and Leuty Avenues. The Farm was sold to the Toronto Park Company for $165,000 in 1906 after the City balked at the asking price. The "Scarboro' Beach Amusement Park" opened the following year. This $600,000 facility, modelled after similar enterprises on Coney Island, included a Scenic Railway and a Shoot-the-Chutes, staged disasters and sideshows (including Toronto's first "genuine monkey circus"), and a stadium hosting professional lacrosse. The first public flying demonstration in Canada was apparently held over the park in 1909.
Scarboro' Beach Park met the same development fate as Munro Park. The TRC, which had owned and operated the site since 1913, tried to have the new Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC) purchase the grounds once the TRC's streetcar franchise expired in 1921. The TTC refused, and after a final season in 1925, the site was subdivided and rapidly covered with streets and houses. Hubbard Boulevard, at the south end of the property, was evidently laid along the line of the Scarboro' Beach boardwalk. It was named after Frederick Langdon Hubbard, general manager of the amusement park and father of Toronto's first black alderman and Board of Control member.

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