Small painted Victorian houses have been converted into shopfronts, with produce crates and racks of secondhand clothes set out on the sidewalk.
What Kensington Market looks like
Kensington Market is a few blocks of narrow streets between Dundas Street West and College Street. Small painted Victorian houses line them. Their ground floors have been converted into shopfronts, with produce crates, fabric racks and secondhand clothing set out on the sidewalk.
The houses run two to three storeys on narrow lots set close together. Augusta Avenue, Nassau Street, Baldwin Street and carry most of the shopfronts. Shopfronts are painted in different colours from one building to the next, sometimes across the whole face of the house rather than just the trim and the door.
Hand painted signs run above many of the storefronts, stacked one over another where a shop has changed hands more than once. On Augusta Avenue, a spice shop keeps its doors painted with fruit and pepper patterns beside a mural covering the next wall.
New construction along these streets keeps to the same low scale, with shops built at street level and goods displayed on the sidewalk rather than behind glass. The , a red brick building with an arched doorway and a tall lookout tower, stands where College Street meets Bellevue Avenue.
On the last Sunday of the month, Augusta, Baldwin and Kensington Avenue close to motorized traffic for street music and market stalls filling the roadway. A decommissioned car, planted with grass, has sat in the market since 2007.
Shot in Kensington Market
King of Kensington, 1975
Played Larry King's variety store
The CBC sitcom's storefront exterior was filmed at Augusta Avenue and Nassau Street and opens every episode. Al Waxman, who played shop owner Larry King, grew up nearby and was later honoured with a bronze statue in .
Police Academy, 1984
The 1984 comedy's street riot sequence reaches Kensington Market at Augusta Avenue opposite Baldwin Street, then runs along Kensington Avenue and Baldwin Street to a counter mob at Nassau Street. The getaway car doubles back to Augusta Avenue at Baldwin Street for its last shot.
Twitch City, 1998
The CBC series is set in Kensington Market, and its season two shoot began with two weeks filming on the market's own streets before moving into a studio built around the lead character's apartment set. Al Waxman appeared in the first episode as a homeless man killed by another character, two decades after playing the neighbourhood's best known shopkeeper on King of Kensington.
What Kensington Market can double for
Bella Vista in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Italian Market along 9th Street runs through the same kind of converted rowhouses, produce stalls and awnings crowding the sidewalk in front of ordinary storefronts. Both markets keep trading on streets built as housing rather than as a shopping district. Philadelphia's market runs straight for several blocks, so keep more than one corner in frame rather than a single stall. Try searching converted rowhouses produce market now.
Brick Lane in London, England
Brick Lane runs through the same scale of Victorian terraced houses turned into market shopfronts, with food stalls and secondhand racks out on the pavement most days. Both streets grew as markets inside houses never built to be shops. British street signs, postboxes and right hand traffic would need dressing out of any wide shot. Try searching victorian terraced shopfronts market now.
Orchard Street on the Lower East Side kept its own tradition of pushcart vendors and secondhand clothing racks set out in front of tenement storefronts. The buildings are narrow store conversions in the same way Kensington's houses are, though built taller. The Lower East Side's five and six storey tenements read taller than Kensington's houses in any shot wider than the storefront line, so keep the frame low. Try searching pushcart vendors secondhand clothing now.
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