User:Geo Swan/Unwin Avenue

Unwin Avenue is a street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately 2.6 km long, running east-west south of the turning basin, north of Cherry Beach. The avenue follows the path of the old sandspit that protected the Ashbridge's Bay Marsh, prior to the marsh being filled with landfill. Fishermen's shanties lined the route. The opening of the Cherry Street Bascule bridge in 1931 provided easier access to the road.

The Hearn Generating Plant, a retired coal-fired electrical plant, anchors the east end of the avenue at Leslie Street. Port facilities and the International Marine Passenger Terminal anchor the west end of the avenue at Cherry Street.

The entrance to the Leslie Street Spit is at the intersection of Leslie and Unwin.

Toronto's Portlands, including Unwin Avenue, was originally a large marsh. After the marsh was poisoned by reckless 19th Century waste disposal techniques it was filled with landfill, that was also contaminated. Nevertheless the city plans to demolish most of the remaining industrial buildings along Unwin Avennue and Commissioners Street and replace them with parks or amateur sports facilities.

Environmental concerns
In 1988 Don Peuramaki published a natural history of the roadway.

According to The Canadian Entomologist Cherry Street, between Unwin Avenue and the Keating Channel was the first recorded site of termite infestation in Ontario.

In 2001 Les Termineaux Rideau Bulk Terminals Incorporated pled guilty to "discharging or causing or permitting the discharge of a contaminant, namely salt particulate" from its depot at 206 Unwin Avenue. Similar charges were dismissed against its client, Sifto Canada. The firm was fined $12,000 CAD.

Unwin Avenue is the site of a repository for snow collected from Toronto's streets. An article in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering described the environmental effects of runoff from the snow dump.

The nearby Leslie Street spit is an important habitat and stopover site for migrating birds. A report on Tommy Thompson Park's bird sanctuaries recommended Unwin Avenue as one of the possible locations for an interpretive center, explaining the importance of the spit to the public.

Present and planned sports facilities on Unwin Avenue
The Cherry Beach Sports Fields at 275 Unwin Avenue are built on contaminated land that had formerly been part of the greenbelt.

Toronto bid, unsuccessfully, for the 1996 and 2008 Summer Olympics. As a large and under-utilized block of land the Port Lands figured largely in both Olympic bids. In the 1996 bid athletes' housing was going to be built along Unwin Avenue.

In fiction and popular culture
Shawn Micallef's Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto tells sightseers how to recognize the site of the horrific crashes of David Cronenberg staged on Unwin Avenue for his 1996 film Crash.

Several novels have set scenes on Unwin Avenue. In Lethal Rage: A Mystery Brent Pilkey describes Unwin Avenue as "the perfect setting for a horror movie".

Early on the morning of November 29, 2011, a passing motorist discovered mortally wounded Leanne Freeman, on Unwin Avenue, Toronto's 42nd murder victim of 2011. On January 8, 2012, an engraved 360 kg granite stone was placed at 450 Unwin Avenue, near where her body had been found.