Links to Local Resources

Don Mills - http://donmillsresidents.ca/
Fairview Mall - http://www.fairviewmall.ca/en/Pages/default.aspx
Peanut Plaza - http://www.peanutplaza.ca/
Fairview Public Library - http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?R=LIB010

Profile

Elena Domingo is my Aunt who lived in the Don Mills neighborhood for 30 years.She's retired and used to work for Canada Post for 11 years. Her experience from delivering mail was quite interesting. On most days, she had the usual routine of going to each apartment and house, dropping off those taxes and magazine subscriptions. One day however, she ran into trouble with a local. She once had to fight off this guy who stole a package from her. The guy was a street hoodlum that jumped Elena but then she got up and chased him through the entire neighborhood, jumping fence to fence. He then tripped on this laundry basket and Elena caught up and delivered a beating to him! She taught him a lesson but she didn't call the police even though he stole from her.

Elena told him "Don't you ever steal again or else karma will catch up to you!" so he apologized and thanked her for not calling the police. Apparently he was in rough situation so she gave him some money to help. My Aunt Elena is pretty awesome.

Current News Story

The Fairview Public Library has been around since 1972. The library closed down in October 1972 because they're going under renovations right now. The building has about two floors, a cafe and a theater. The theater is for plays and musicals. The cafe was added to the building in 2009. The library also has Microsoft Word and Internet workstations. I use this place to print off my work and pay 10 cents because my printer at home does not work. There are these study rooms that are great for concentrating on your studies because the rooms are sound proof so you can't hear outside or inside the room. The new library will reopen later this year.

Local Issues

A local problem within the community is that it's not a safe place to visit at night time. There are street hoodlums that roam within the neighborhood therefore the police often patrol the place. In November 2010, Melvin Gomez, 24, was shot at the Col. Mustard's bar due to a fight that occurred that night. In April 2012, a man sexually assaulted a 21 year old woman after he followed her from an elevator in her apartment building. The woman is still alive fortunately but the suspect was not found yet. It's best not to visit Peanut Plaza at night because the place does appear sketchy at times due to the appearance of visitors at the time of night. If you need to go to the convenient store there, it's best to go in the day time.

Local Attraction - Peanut Plaza

Peanut Plaza is a suburban strip mall in the Don Mills area. It has a supermarket, two barber shops, coffee shop, and a few fast food restaurant joints such as Popeye's and McDonald's. It's been around from the 1960's and is a childhood memory to this day. Kids from schools within the vicinity of the area often frequent there after school. It used to have stores such as Roger's Video, IGA, Coffee Time and Bargain Harold's. Roger's Video was replaced by a Chinese bank due to the success of the Tone Tai supermarket which also replaced IGA. Coffee Time was replaced by a local coffee shop that goes by the name of Amazing Coffee Plus and Bargain Harold's was replaced by Dollarama.

An interesting thing to note is that if you look at Peanut Plaza from an aerial view, the mall is in the shape of a peanut.

Local Attraction - Fairview Mall

Fairview Mall is a major shopping center in Don Mills. It's been around since 1970 and has had two major department stores since it was built, The Bay and Simpson's. In 1978, The Bay bought the Simpson's retail company and their department store was replaced by Sears in 1991. Sears and The Bay still exist within Fairview Mall today. Fairview Mall has a dedication towards the environment so they change their 75% of their garbage from landfills!

Fairview has a subway station known as Don Mills Station. It's clean and real convenient for those who live in the Don Mills and Sheppard neighborhood. It has many stores such as Shoppers Drug Mart, LCBO, Forever 21, EB Games, Apple, Sportschek and many others. As well as a fantastic food court with a garden to provide a naturalistic type of feel. The mall includes a theater known as Silver City and is one of the top 20 theaters within the GTA region.

Introduction of Don Mills

Don Mills is located in Toronto, Ontario within the North York community. It was a rural area in 1950 that consisted of 20 farms and it connects to York Mills as well as the Don Mills Road. My neighborhood’s intersection is Don Mills and Sheppard. As of today, it’s a quiet and friendly suburban community with different races residing in the neighborhood. It’s consists of houses, town houses, condominium and apartment buildings, a public elementary school (Kingslake Public) and high school (Georges Vanier) as well as a park, known as Godstone Park.