St. Michael's Cemetery, Toronto

St. Michael's Cemetery is another cemetery that is in the 'hood where I work.

St. Michael's Cemetery is a historic Roman Catholic cemetery. It is located just southwest of Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue. The 10-acre cemetery is invisible from the street, being located in the middle of a city block and ringed by homes and stores. It is accessible only through a small alleyway between two stores on Yonge Street. The gates to the cemetery are also usually kept locked.

The city's oldest surviving Catholic cemetery, it opened in 1855. It replaced St. Paul's Cemetery at Queen and Parliament, which had been filled to capacity by the recent influx of Irish Catholic settlers. Some 29,000 people are buried at St. Michael's. It is the final resting place mostly for working class Irish Canadians but some notable figures are interred there including brewer Eugene O'Keefe and Victoria Cross recipient Denis Dempsey. St. Michael's remained the only Catholic cemetery in Toronto until 1900 when it was near capacity and the Mount Hope Cemetery was opened.

Another nice day for a walk so I went looking for the entrance at lunch time and here it is between the buildings.

And the gates are indeed locked.

Alas, I couldn't get in.

It's interesting having such an old cemetery surrounded by office buildings, stores, houses and condos.

I've seen people in there walking their dogs (not allowed!) so there must be another way in!

So I walked around the long long long block to see if I could find it.

I went to the back of an office building on St. Clair W ... the only open spot.

I could have jumped down and wandered around ... but then I would have had a hard time climbing back out again.