Riverboat Coffee House Commemorative Plaque, 2009
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Resource ID
4934
Access
Open
Address
118 Yorkville Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 1C2
Credit Line
Heritage Toronto
Date of Creation
2009
Historical Themes
Program Category
Rights
Heritage Toronto
Time Period
Caption
Riverboat Coffee House Commemorative Plaque, 2009
Description
Opened in 1964 in the basement of a Victorian row house that once stood on this site the Riverboat coffee house quickly became one of North America's premier intimate venues for singer-songwriters.
On the leading edge of the surging folk and blues music scene the Riverboat featured performances on its small stage by such legends as John Lee Hooker and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee as well as by young performers like Simon and Garfunkel James Taylor and Arlo Guthrie. It also provided an early stage for musicians who would become some of the biggest names in Canadian music including Gordon Lightfoot Joni Mitchell Bruce Cockburn Murray McLauchlan and Dan Hill. Neil Young immortalized the Riverboat in his song "Ambulance Blues".
A legendary music venue of the 1960s and one of the longest running coffee houses of its era in Canada the Riverboat outlived Yorkville's hippie scene but closed its doors in 1978.
Marker lat / long: 43.670746, -79.393109 (WGS84)