William Baker Park is like a ghost town. A whole row of empty houses sits with overflowing mailboxes and weathered, unused phone books on the porch. The only sound you can hear other than a passing airplane is the buzz of cicadas and the wind blowing through the thick canopy of mature trees. A deer sits peacefully on the grass between two houses. An emaciated tomcat slinks up a driveway nearby.
This is the last Canadian military housing area in Toronto. It is set to be bulldozed as early as this fall to make way for condos after the military completes its eviction process.
The result is a peaceful, empty neighbourhood that feels like a cottage district outside of tourist season. Weeds overflow from the flower boxes but the lawns are perfectly shaved. Furniture sits on the curb of one house while a sign at the entrance to the neighbourhood reads “All salesmen must be licensed by Canadian Forces Housing Agency.” One of the last residents in the neighbourhood describes it as looking “like one of those nuclear test communities.”
“I’m going to miss it,” says a resident from the Royal Canadian Air Force as movers carry furniture from his duplex into a truck that looked larger than his house. “If you were here two years ago there would be kids running around, riding bicycles,” he says. “It was a really bustling neighbourhood.”.......................
