At 1,178 miles, Yonge Street is claimed by many to be the World's longest street. However, it is broken up at various stages along the way, and so is not officially recognized as such. Instead, it seems the world's longest street is in Pará, northern Brazil and is 311 miles long (although there doesn't seem to be a name for it!). While we are talking of road records, the shortest street in the world is Ebenezer Place in Wick, Scotland – 6 ft 9 in long!
Yonge Street is named after Sir George Yonge, a former British Secretary at War and expert on Roman roads, which is interesting because the Romans would be disappointed that Yonge Street is not as straight as many of their earlier accomplishments.
One place that Yonge Street passes through is Willowdale (the photo above apparently is Yonge Street in Willowdale), famous for being the home of Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush. Recently, a park in Willowdale was named after Lee and Lifeson:
The Lee-Lifeson Art Park opening ceremony also featured Lee and Lifeson receiving the keys to the city of Toronto from Mayor John Tory:
(Image: Chris Suppa)
“There aren’t too many artists who can claim to have affected an entire genre of music, or any other kind of art, and we don’t have many that come right here from Toronto, but these are two...who fit into that category,” said Mayor Tory. Too right!!
At the ceremony, musician Jacob Moon performed his amazing version of Rush's 'Subdivisions' (this one is from his soundcheck):