Urban Review on Vacation in Toronto
You may have been wondering why I have not been posting as regular as usual. Well, I’ve been traveling to two different places; back to Oklahoma City to see family over the holiday weekend and then Toronto. This was my first trip to Toronto. I arrived in Toronto very early Wednesday morning (July 5th) and I return to St. Louis today.
In the time I’ve been here I’ve ridden nearly every streetcar line, both subway lines as well as their light rail line. The other form of mass transit was the ferry to the Toronto Islands. Otherwise, my experience here has been on foot. In these few days I’ve taken over 1,800 photos!
Many issues where raised for me in Toronto which I will go into detail in future posts. In short, Toronto and St. Louis have many similarities as well as some stark contrasts. I will be exploring these in future posts as well as making many of my images available on Flickr.
In the meantime share you impressions of Toronto, either from personal experience or perceptions.
– Steve
I’ve travelled to Toronto a handful of times and I love the city — though it does get bitter cold in the winter. One time I was there I was eating lunch at a brew pub and the waiter spilled a beer on me — they comped the meal and gave us free tickets to the micro-brew festival held that weekend. Let me tell you, those Canadians can make some awesome beer! I loved all the ethnic neighborhoods, the great food and the fun people. The Toronto Islands were great — and the lake, in the summer is totally swimable — infact they even had a nude beach (bring extra special sun block for those parts that may not have been exposed to the sun very often — trust me on this one!). I had probably one of the best meals out at a place called “Zoom” The meal started off with rasberry martini’s topped off with champagne floating on the vodka. Yummy. And it only got better. I also loved the gay life there — very open and accepting. The gayborhood is vibrant with lots of stores, restaurants and bars. Very easy to feel comfortable there. There’s also great theatre — I saw several shows and they were all outstanding. It really is a vibrant, fun place. I’ll be looking forward to seeing your photos and reading your thoughts on the city.
I’ve only been to Toronto once and my impression was that it’s the cleanest big city I’ve ever visited. I hear they filmed the series “Due South” in Toronto and tried to pass it off as Chicago, so they had to actually paint graffiti and throw around trash to replicate run down areas of town, because Toronto just doesn’t have that much trash in the streets.
Beautiful view!
Steve the commenter – it must have been a long time since you visited Toronto. It does not feel very clean any more. There’s lots of graffiti and trash about 🙂 Tanya (from Toronto)
Toronto is where place-erasing city planners infected with the New Urbanist virus are pretty close to tearing down wonderful old Riverdale Hospital.
Read more here.
Riverdale may very well be the most graceful and humane modernist hospital built. Most are boxy and even if wonderful works of architecture are terrible places for people. Riverdale somehow is a pleasant space by all accounts — I have never seen it in person, since I have not been to Toronto — and a stunning work of design.
[REPLY – I rode by this area a couple of times on the streetcar although I didn’t notice the half-round hospital. I did, however, notice the park and the stunning views it affords.
Here are my initial thoughts on this. The tall high-rise proposed on the edge of this park is really a bad precident to start on the east of the Don River Parkway (river & highway). However, the hospital seems to be one of many modern buildings in Toronto that are completely lacking in any relationship with the street, park, neighbors, etc.
I think you are being a bit unfair Michael. I personally don’t get a sense of any notion of New Urbanism in Toronto nor do I get any sense this hospital actually creates a tolerable “place.” Noted design (Victorian or Modern) does not by default create a great place. I will be doing an entire post on one such modern masterpiece in Toronto that needs to come down ASAP as it sucks the very life out of the adjacent areas. – SLP]
I don’t want to comment on the architecture of the building specifically, because it’s not my profession. I am also not speaking of the surroundings.
However, I will say this of the building and the photos of the various entraceways and so forth on the site provided. Every time I found myself face to face with a place that gave off the “vibe” this hospital does, I wanted out, instantly. It brings to mind inhumane housing projects, dysfunctional government buildings, and failed “architecture for the sake of architecture” that much of the moderm movement represented.