Victorian rowhouses in red and yellow brick line block after block, with iron fences and mature trees over the road.
What Cabbagetown looks like
Cabbagetown is a downtown Toronto neighbourhood of semi-detached Victorian houses in red and yellow brick, block after block with almost no gap between one roofline and the next. Bay windows project from the fronts, and wrought iron fences and gates run along the sidewalk in front of small gardens. Mature trees arch over some of the narrower streets, breaking up the brick facades above.
On Sackville Street, the Francis Shields House is a Second Empire mansion built in 1877, banded in pale stone with a mansard roof and arched dormer windows. Similar brackets and cornices repeat on smaller Victorian houses throughout the neighbourhood.
Parliament Street runs the length of the neighbourhood as its commercial spine, lined with red brick storefronts under awnings and a streetcar route down the middle of the road. The Winchester Hotel stands at the corner of Parliament and Winchester Streets, a red brick building with a rebuilt rooftop lantern. On , a red brick building with arched second floor windows houses a row of bakery storefronts under striped awnings.
At Winchester and Sumach Streets, keeps barns and paddocks behind split-rail fencing, with downtown towers visible above the rooftops. The sits a few blocks north off Sumach Street, its granite monuments set among mature pine trees.
Shot in Cabbagetown
The Freeform series Shadowhunters filmed a walk and talk scene on Carlton Street in October 2017, doubling the block for Brooklyn. The CIA thriller series Condor returned to Cabbagetown the same year for pickup shots along Gordon Sinclair Lane and Riverdale Park Road, standing in for Washington, DC. In September 2021, the Apple TV+ children's series Jane filmed around Winchester Street and Metcalfe Street, at a corner residents call the Coop. The show was made with the Jane Goodall Institute.
Shadowhunters
Played a Brooklyn street
The Freeform series Shadowhunters filmed a walk and talk scene on Carlton Street between Ontario and Parliament Streets on October 24, 2017. The same day, a second unit shot a car stopping at a light at the Parliament and Winchester intersection. The series is based on Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments novels and follows Clary Fray, who is accepted into the fictional Brooklyn Academy of Arts and discovers she is connected to the New York Institute. It ran on Freeform for three seasons, from 2016 to 2019. Filming was based primarily in Toronto.
What Cabbagetown can double for
Portobello in Dublin, Ireland
Dublin's red brick terraces share the same bay windows as Cabbagetown's side streets, with cast iron railings running along the sidewalk in front. Traffic keeps to the left and the street signage reads differently, so a tight frame on a single facade holds the match better than a wide street view. Try searching red brick terraces now.
Boston's South End is lined with bowfront brick rowhouses at a similar scale to Cabbagetown's semi-detached Victorians, with the same iron fencing along the sidewalk. The bowed fronts read differently in a wide shot, so this match holds best in a tighter frame on one block face. Try searching bowfront brick rowhouses now.
Rows of narrow brick rowhouses at the same period scale run through Philadelphia's Fishtown, close enough for a passing exterior. Philadelphia's rowhouses more often sit flush to the sidewalk with marble front steps, which shows up in a wider shot. Try searching narrow brick rowhouses now.
