Cyrel Troster and Sylvia Lassam of the neighborhood’s historical society showed us Kensington’s historic buildings and new bohemian gentrification. Kensington has certainly transformed since the days of the CBC’s “King of Kensington” television series.

For those of you who don’t know the area, it’s been the landing place for different waves of immigrants: Jewish, then Portuguese, Asian, and, most recently according to storefront signs, Vegan. Large brick towers along Spadina Avenue, the thoroughfare that forms the neighborhood’s eastern boundary, were once home to Toronto’s clothing industry — the sweat shops where many of those immigrants worked.

The area has often been a center of radical politics and labor movements. And, historically, its small, inexpensive houses attracted artists, musicians and writers, though Ms. Lassam, a University of Toronto archivist who has lived there for 15 years, told us that Toronto’s soaring real estate prices may be jeopardizing that.