The Globe and Mail

Marlborough Avenue is a wonderful urban hodgepodge. Connecting Yonge Street and Avenue Road just south of Summerhill, it's a pretty little walk offering a little bit of everything: a heritage commercial building, Victorian workers' housing, the racket of the occasional freight train, a former gravel yard that's now home to a racquet club, and an award-winning architect's home. It's even the subject of a published tale of the David-versus-Goliath variety. Care to join me? We'll start at Avenue Road and Dupont Street, near the Hare Krishna temple. See the variety store just to the north? The hardscrabble part of Marlborough is hiding behind it, cheek by jowl with the railroad tracks. Here, Canadian Pacific has peremptorily pinched the street's western end -- called Marlborough Place -- to a mere 14 feet, allowing only garages that belong to homes on MacPherson Avenue to stake a claim.