Caption: TTC 4269 (an air-electric A4-class PCC built in 1944) heads westbound on Dundas Street East on the lengthy Harbord route (bound for Lansdowne Loop) passing by apartment buildings of the famed Regent Park neighbourhood, at Regent Street east of Parliament Street. Visible in the background is part of the Sts Cyril & Methody Macedonian-Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church at Dundas & Sackville, built in 1948 and still present today. I've never seen too many transit photos taken along this stretch, likely because this wasn't the most picturesque part of the city by any stretch, and in later years Regent Park gained a less-than stellar reputation.

Regent Park was a post-war affordable housing project by the government, Canada's largest public housing project at the time. A run-down area to the east of downtown Toronto off Parliament Street (historically considered a slum home to the poor, working class and new immigrants) was razed for new affordable housing apartment complexes and public housing starting in the late 40's, with redevelopment continuing until 1960. Matters seemed to get worse over time, with crime, gangs, poverty, poor living conditions and social problems in the area continuing or taking hold over the decades. Criticisms of the original plan include having much of the area as residential housing only (instead of mixed work-residential-commercial use), much of the design being utilitarian and bland with no frills (not a very aesthetic place to live or visit), and urban planning policies at the time proving to be detrimental (replacing many of the former public streets with sidewalk networks in the new development, creating an inward-focused environment).

Eventually plans for public-private redevelopment and gentrification of Regent Park, including demolishing and replacing the aging apartment buildings, were introduced in the 2000's. Included were plans for a certain amount of affordable housing, i.e. having a mixed social-economic demographic of residents (although some argue it unintentionally forces long-time lower-income residents out through local gentrification and increased property values, but that's another story).

As with most of the TTC's older air-electric PCC's, 4269 was stored following the opening of the new Bloor-Danforth subway line in February 1966, which rendered part of the (older) streetcar fleet surplus. Its disposition is unknown, but photos show it did end up in the Hillcrest PCC deadline, so was likely cut up for scrap there in the late 60's with some other unsold cars. Some luckier sister cars were noted as being sold to Alexandria, Egypt.

Robert D. McMann photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.