The Annex: The Story of a Toronto Neighborhood

There's a version of Toronto that spent decades pretending it didn't have a culture. Too practical for that. Too busy building. The Annex is where that story breaks down.

For over a century, writers, professors, politicians, and artists clustered in its Victorian houses. Not because rent was cheap, but because something about those streets made the city feel worth thinking about. Batten traces how that happened. How a neighbourhood becomes a place. How brick and the right collection of people generate something you can't manufacture: a genuine intellectual character.

Toronto doesn't give itself enough credit for producing serious thought, serious writing, serious argument. The Annex is the proof.