Renowned for its pubs, parks, restaurants, and its historical European view, the road also hosts the annual Unionville Festival, which draws several thousand visitors to the neighbourhood.

The street was also used as a stand-in for fictional Connecticut town Stars Hollow during the first season of The WB's Gilmore Girls television show.

The 1994 John Carpenter film, In the Mouth of Madness prominently features the northernmost part of the street as a stand-in for a fictional New England town, especially the exterior of the Unionville Arms Pub.

The development of the subdivision immediately to the west of the small town in the late 1960s, brought attention to the run down nature of the buildings in the business area.

A great furor arose, culminating the Unionville Annual Festival, whose original purpose was to bring attention to the situation and to raise funds to fight the widening.