Thorncliffe Park is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, bounded on the east by the Don Valley, on the west by Millwood Road, on the north by Wicksteed Avenue, and on the northwest by a railway track between Millwood and Wicksteed.
Thorncliffe Park has both an industrial and a residential section. The residential section is in the south, and consists chiefly of 35 high-rise and low-rise apartment buildings grouped in and around a rough oval formed by Overlea Boulevard and horsehoe-shaped Thorncliffe Park Drive. Some townhouses have recently been added on Overlea.
Overlea Boulevard used to be the dividing line between the industrial and residential sections, but the decline of the industrial sector in Toronto has led to the appearance of retail establishments and service organizations in the former factories on the north side of Overlea.
The residential section of Thorncliffe Park was originally designed for 12,500 residents, but now houses 30,000. Despite low income and high unemployment, Thorncliffe Park has one of the lowest crime rates in Toronto. The population consists largely of immigrants, 40% of whom are Muslim. The neighbourhood is heavily served by public transit.
The site of Thorncliffe Park was a farm until the 1920s, when a racetrack was built; it is commemorated by two streets named Grandstand Place and Milepost Place. This track revitalized harness racing in Toronto; it also offered thoroughbred racing.
In the 1960s, developers tore down the racetrack and created one of Toronto's first high-rise neighbourhoods. The neighbourhood embodies some standard planning ideas of the era – high concentrations of similar housing types, strict separation of retail and residential development, and the assumption that everyone has a car. Low-rise buildings are clustered inside the enclosure created by Thorncliffe Park and Overlea, while high-rise buildings line the outside of Thorncliffe Park. Retail establishments are concentrated in a single shopping mall, now called the East York Town Centre, between the two arms of Thorncliffe Park Drive at Overlea Boulevard. Residents at the opposite end of Throncliffe Park Drive are therefore not within easy walking distance of shops, especially in winter.