Historically, the Hallam/Dovercourt community was served by two streetcar lines. One, the Harbord line (whose tracks were laid on Hallam St. in 1915), ran from downtown Toronto along Harbord Ave., up Ossington Ave., along Hallam St., jogged slightly north on Dufferin St. and then continued west on Lappin Ave. The other was the Dovercourt route that ended near St. Clair Ave. The intersection of these two sets of tracks at Hallam and Dovercourt produced a bustling “centre” for this neighbourhood and, without a doubt contributed significantly to the concentration of small businesses that spread from this intersection in all directions. This feeling of being a village centre is a feature that has stubbornly (and happily) survived to this day. The Progress Bakery at the SW corner is still a lively hub for the neighbourhood and the Sone’s Pharmacy location (SE corner) has been a drugstore since 1915.
In 1947 several major changes occurred that deeply affected the nature of the neighbourhood. A new transit line up Ossington Ave. was initiated using electric trolley buses and the streetcar service along Hallam was discontinued. As well, the streetcar that ran up Dovercourt was replaced with a bus that ran until February 26, 1966 when it was also discontinued as a result of the opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway. At this point the the busy “village” center no longer was serviced by any public transit. The 1976 City of Toronto Neighbourhood Improvement Plan for the Hallam/Dovercourt neighbourhood acknowledges the negative influence of removing the streetcar lines - “There is a small area of commerce at the intersection of Dovercourt Road and Hallam Street that has been in a state of decline since the Dovercourt streetcar line was removed years ago.”
After almost twenty years of complaints and petitions to the TTC from local residents and businesses in the community a bus service (Route 161) was restored on February 13, 1994 that ran up Dovercourt from the Ossington subway station to Rogers Rd. and west to Jane St.
See http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4118.shtml for a detailed history of the Harbord route.
