From blogTO:
Picking Coke Lane at the end of Cornwall Street in Cabbagetown is named for the rather bleak practice of “collecting fragments of coke from ash piles … in order to transport them to private homes as fuel to heat a house,” according to the city.
Coke is a high-carbon fuel made by extracting gas from coal. It was often discarded in giant ash piles by the Kemp Manufacturing Plant, a steel mill once on the site of three high-rise apartment buildings at Gerrard and River streets that was within walking distance of many Cabbagetown residents.