William Lyon Mackenzie
The township of York, which until 1793 had been known as "Toronto", incorporated as a city (meaning it received local self-government) on March 6, 1834, taking the name of "the City of Toronto" to distinguish it from New York City and the dozen other settlements named 'York' in Upper Canada. The Tories and the Reformers fielded candidates for Toronto's first municipal election, held on March 27, 1834, with the Reformers winning a majority on the Toronto City Council. Mackenzie was elected as an alderman. The City Council then met to decide who should become mayor. Mackenzie, after being nominated by Franklin Jackes, defeated John Rolph in the vote and thereby became the first Mayor of Toronto.
North York City Centre
The post-World War II period saw the rapid growth of the suburbs of Toronto. To accommodate the growth, the area was amalgamated into Borough of North York and Metropolitan Toronto in the 1950s. The large expansion of Ontario Highway 401, known as the Toronto Bypass, just to the south connected the district further by highway. The area was filled in by the 1960s with residential single-family subdivisions. By the 1960s, some high rise development was occurring, such as a Canadian Government Building at Yonge and Elmhurst Street and the twin-tower Sheppard Centre commercial and office complex at Yonge and Sheppard. The 1970s saw the extension of the Yonge–University line to Finch, connecting the area to downtown Toronto.