Paradise Lost and Found: The Transformation of Centre Island in the 1960s

If you were to stand on the deck of a ferry crossing Toronto Harbour in the summer of 1960, the breeze would have carried the sounds of a bustling, lived-in village. You would have heard the clatter of bicycle chains, the screen doors of cottages slamming shut, and the faint, tinny music drifting from the dance hall at the Manitou Hotel. But if you made that same crossing just ten years later, in 1970, the village was gone. In its place stood manicured gardens, a petting zoo, and the calliope music of a brand-new amusement park.

The 1960s were the most turbulent and transformative decade in the history of Centre Island. It was the decade that killed a town to build a park.

A Lost Main Street

To understand what was lost, you have to picture Manitou Road as it was in the early sixties. This wasn't just a path through a park; it was the "Main Street" of a tight-knit community. It was lined with businesses that catered to the island's year-round population. There was Clayton’s Grocery, where residents picked up their daily bread; the Island Milk Bar for a cold treat; and the legendary Manitou Hotel, a three-story hub of social life where locals gathered to drink and dance. It was a place where everyone knew everyone, a floating suburb separated from the grit of the big city by a mile of water.

The Master Plan

But the city of Toronto had a different vision. In the eyes of the Metropolitan Council, the islands were too valuable to be private backyards. They belonged to the public. And so, a massive master plan was set in motion to bulldoze the residential community and replace it with recreational parkland.

Throughout the early and mid-sixties, the wrecking balls swung. One by one, the cottages on Centre Island were expropriated and demolished. The demolition of Manitou Road was particularly symbolic—it was the heart of the community being ripped out. Residents watched as their grocery stores, their pharmacy, and their meeting places were reduced to rubble. Families who had lived there for generations were forced to pack up and leave, scattering to the mainland. By the mid-60s, the "village" of Centre Island had effectively ceased to exist, leaving only the residential pockets on Ward’s and Algonquin Islands to fight a battle for survival that would last for decades.

1967: The Great Transformation

But as the dust settled, a new vision began to rise from the debris. The year 1967 was Canada's Centennial, a year of national pride and massive infrastructure projects. As part of the celebrations, the newly cleared land on Centre Island was transformed.

In place of the old cottages, the city opened Centreville Amusement Park in 1967. Ironically, the park was designed with a "turn-of-the-century village" theme. The city had destroyed a real, living village only to build a replica of a fake one just a few hundred yards away. Families flocked to the new attraction to ride the antique carousel, drive the Model T cars, and visit the new Far Enough Farm, which had opened nearby in 1959 but expanded significantly during this era.

A Legacy of Ghosts

The atmosphere of the island shifted entirely. The smell of home-cooked dinners wafting from cottage windows was replaced by the scent of cotton candy and popcorn. The sounds of neighbors chatting over fences were replaced by the screams of children on the log flume. Centre Island had become a playground—a beautiful, green escape for the city's millions, but a ghost town for those who remembered what used to be.

By the end of the decade, the transformation was complete. The 1960s began with a fight for a home and ended with the creation of a destination. Today, when you walk past the swan boats or the manicured flower beds, you are walking over the ghosts of Manitou Road, a lost village that lives on only in the memories of those who were there before the bulldozers arrived.