High Park Toronto

Black oak trees

Grenadier Pond

Ducks

Grenadier Pond

Hillside garden

Black oak savannah

Black oak savannah with birch trees. Photos taken in October 2017

On Monday October 23, I took the subway to High Park at 9 AM. It was beautiful. I walked across a vast lawn filled with large trees spaced at regular intervals, some with bright, falling leaves. Below that was a large pond filled with natural vegetation & ducks. There was a natural forest on the slope above the pond in an area called the West Ravine Nature Trails. People were walking & jogging along the paths. I walked back up to the slope through the Hillside Gardens. The Japanese garden along the creek was nice enough. But overall, I was not impressed with that area.  The giant maple leaf was tacky. There was a more impressive forest of black oak savannah at the top of the hill.  

That was that all I saw. There is much more to High Park. It is a big urban park covering 400 acres (161 hectares) & a perfect respite. It also has a swimming pool, playground, sports fields, cafe & zoo. High Park opened in 1876. The central section is a large plain that is mostly developed. But a significant portion is a rare, natural black oak savannah. Oak savannah is much more common in the US & Mexico. Black oaks (Quercus velutina) grow throughout High Park & many are more than 150 years old. Forested areas are maintained in a natural condition. The lovely Grenadier Pond covers 35-acres (14.2 hectares) on the western edge of the park. On a section of the hillside east of the pond, there are the various Hillside Gardens.  The giant maple leaf-shaped flower bed is visible from the top of the hill.  It looks better from a distance.

Village of Yorkville Park Toronto

Photos taken in October 2017

On Saturday October 21, we got breakfast from McDonald’s very near our hotel. We stayed near Bloor-Yonge subway station, a convenient place for public transportation, with many shops & restaurants. We walked to the Village of Yorkville Park where we ate our food. The park was very interesting, densely landscaped & divided into sections that followed the property lines of the original houses.  They had been replaced with a parking lot, later made into the park. It was a very pleasant place to rest.  Then we proceeded to the nearby Royal Ontario Museum.

The Village of Yorkville Park was completed in 1994.  By now, the plantings are fairly mature.  Groups of trees cast shade & beds are filled with perennials. Many of the plants are native to Canada & represent plant communities such as wetland, alder & birch groves.  There are 11 garden plots, each within the property lines of the row houses demolished in the 1950s. There is also open space & quite a lot of seating.  The busy design coalesces into a green, tranquil, yet diverse space.

The Village of Yorkville Park lies between the row houses of the old Yorkville neighborhood & the modern high-rises surrounding the intersection of Bloor & Yonge, near the subway station.  The park played an important role in revitalizing this area.  It remains a neighborhood landmark, a destination for residents & tourists alike, in the midst of a high-density residential & retail environment.

Distillery District Toronto

Photos taken in October 2017

The Distillery District in Toronto is an amazing restoration & reuse of Victorian industrial buildings.  There are restaurants, and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The district covers 13 acres with 36 Victorian buildings on 10 mostly pedestrian streets.  It is the largest collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America. The district was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1988. It had been protected under the Ontario Heritage Act since 1976. Two high-rise condominium buildings were built at the edge of the district & cleverly incorporated into Victorian buildings in the late 1990s.  The Distillery District has been used as a location for over 800 film & TV productions. 

After years of decline, the distillery closed in 1990.  In 2001, the site was purchased & developed into the pedestrian-orientated area that now exists, opening in 2003. Buildings are occupied by shops, art galleries, restaurants, coffee houses, a brewery & a performing arts center. The upper floors of a number of buildings are leased to artists as studio spaces & to office tenants with a creative focus. Condominiums, office & retail space has been developed on nearby vacant land.

Riverdale Farm Toronto

Photos taken in October 2017

Riverdale Farm is at the east edge of Cabbagetown in Riverdale Park West. It's certainly worth a visit when you are touring charming Cabbagetown, particularly if you like animals. It contains heritage breeds of farm animals: cows, horses, sheep, goats & poultry.  Riverdale Farm covers 7.5 acres with several buildings & paddocks. There are also flower, vegetable & herb gardens. Riverdale Farm opened in 1978. The City of Toronto purchased the land that became Riverdale Park in 1856. Riverdale Zoo opened in 1894 on the site of Riverdale Farm & closed in 1974. The animals moved to the new Toronto Zoo. From 1974 to 1978, many of the Riverdale Zoo buildings were removed.

The larger barn (the Francey barn) was built in 1858 on a farm about 30 km away. It was donated to the City of Toronto in 1977 & rebuilt at Riverdale Farm. It has 2 levels. There is also a smaller pig & poultry barn. Both barns are located near the Simpson House at the entrance to Riverdale Farm. The Simpson House was built on site & designed to represent the 1850s Francy farmhouse where the Francey barn first existed. The Meeting House was built in 1993 by the duck pond. Activities are offered to the public inside & it includes a lost & found, first aid & restrooms. There are also 2 smaller houses built on the property in the early 20th century & used for various purposes.

Cabbagetown Toronto

There is a small business district along Parliament Street.

Photos taken in October 2017

I thought Cabbagetown was charming, with very well-preserved Victorian houses.  Each small front yard was full of shrubs & trees. Riverdale Farm is at the eastern edge of Cabbagetown in Riverdale Park.  Both are worth visiting in Toronto. Cabbagetown is the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in North America, according to the Cabbagetown Preservation Association.  I lived in San Francisco (in 2 Victorian houses) & the area filled with Victorian architecture is much larger, although perhaps not perfectly continuous.  I was disappointed with the limited extent of Cabbagetown, but it was quite charming.

The extent of Victorian architecture was once much greater.  But the neighborhood deteriorated as housing aged & it became one of Toronto's largest slums.  Much of the original Cabbagetown was razed in the late 1940s & replaced with housing projects.  I walked through an area of public housing along Parliament Street. It wasn’t decrepit or threatening, but dull & bleak, like much of the architecture of that period. The construction of large housing projects ended in the 1970s, as Cabbagetown began to gentrify.  Houses there are quite expensive now.

Cabbagetown was first established in the 1840s, as a suburb of Toronto. Its main thoroughfares were Parliament Street & Winchester Street. At the east end of Winchester Street, Playter’s Bridge linked developing areas east of the Don River to Toronto. Cabbagetown developed along those streets. One of Toronto’s oldest cemeteries (the Necropolis) opened on Winchester Street in 1850.

When Irish immigrants settled in Cabbagetown in the 1840s & 1850s, they often planting vegetables (especially cabbages) on the land around their homes. Cabbagetown was a derisive name used to mock that practice. Cabbagetown began to deteriorate in the early 20th century. Most of  Cabbagetown had been built by 1900. Significant decline came before the Depression.

Graffiti Alley Toronto

Photos taken in October 2017

I walked up Spadina Avenue from the waterfront to Graffiti Alley in the Fashion District. That was quite a sight. There was a huge amount of artistic graffiti, more than I had ever seen in one place. People were in the alley taking photos, or on photo shoots. Artists were making graffiti. It was a lively scene, which continued out onto West Queen Street.

Graffiti art was first legalized in Graffiti Alley.  Legalization was promoted by the Queen Street West Business Improvement Association. Property owners in the area didn't want to be compelled by the city to remove graffiti art. The Business Improvement Association pointed to the cultural significance of Graffiti Alley & its popularity with tourists. All of Rush Lane south of Queen Street West from John Street to Bathurst Street was designated as an area of municipal significance in the Graffiti Management Plan adopted by Toronto City Council in 2011.

Graffiti art & graffiti vandalism are different things in Toronto. Individuals &  businesses must remove graffiti vandalism on their property.  Graffiti art is planned & does not need to be removed. The City of Toronto defines graffiti vandalism as "One or more letters, symbols, figures, etching, scratches, inscriptions, stains, or other markings that disfigure or deface a structure or thing, howsoever made or otherwise affixed on the structure or thing, but, for greater certainty, does not include an art mural." Graffiti art is a "mural for a designated surface and location that has been deliberately implemented for the purpose of beautifying the specific location."

Toronto Waterfront or Harbourfront

Harbour Plaza Residences (65 and 69 story condominium towers) at center of photo

    

The CN Tower (at center right) is Toronto's most well-known landmark.

Photos taken in October 2017

To access the Toronto Waterfront, also called Harbourfront, requires passing under the monstrously ugly Gardiner Expressway, completed in 1963. We had our own eyesore, elevated highway in my hometown of Seattle, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, along the waterfront from 1953 until its demolition in 2019. They were & are still common in many US cities. Gardiner Expressway has been the subject of several proposals to demolish it as part of downtown waterfront revitalization efforts. I hope that happens.

The first thing I noticed about the Toronto Waterfront was the many residential towers as high as 70 floors. They were both impressive & overwhelming. The next thing I noticed was the string of parks along the water. Some were grassy & some had trees, while others were paved with concrete & boardwalk, or covered in sand. There were restaurants, shops, art galleries, water taxis & rental canoes. The waterfront was very interesting & dynamic. It had certainly been beautified, even if was not entirely beautiful. I enjoyed it.

More about the Waterfront
Harbourfront is the area along the Toronto waterfront extending from Bathurst Street to Yonge Street along Queens Quay. Its northern boundary is the Gardiner Expressway. Federal government lands to the south of Queen's Quay include a community center, Toronto Fire Department station, various boating uses, parkland & Harbourfront Centre. To the north of Queen's Quay, all of the industrial lands along the street have been replaced with condominium towers.

Harbourfront Centre, filled with galleries & performance spaces, is located at the foot of Lower Simcoe Street. There are 4 craft studios: ceramics, glass, metal and textiles. The studios began in 1974, providing new craft artists with subsidized work spaces at the beginning of their careers. Harbourfront hosts arts & cultural events every summer, including craft fairs, theater & dance performances, & concerts. Queen's Quay Terminal, next to Harbourfront Centre, is a former warehouse converted into a mixed-use building including stores & restaurants, commercial office space & condominiums.

Some History of the Waterfront
Toronto's harbor was used from the beginning of settlement for shipping & industry. The Town of York was founded west of the Don River, along the waterfront. At that time, the water's edge was where Front Street is now located. The shallow waters of Lake Ontario south of Front Street were covered with landfill, creating piers & room for industrial development.

The Harbourfront project was announced in 1972. It used industrial port lands from York Street west to Bathurst Street, south of Queen's Quay to create a cultural & residential district similar to the Granville Island in Vancouver. The federal government converted industrial land to an area with art galleries, performance spaces, boating areas & parks. The surrounding neighborhood was converted from industrial use to condominium towers by private developers.

There was a major reconstruction of Queen's Quay beginning in 2012. Two car lanes south of the streetcar tracks were eliminated between Spadina Avenue & York Street to extend Harbourfront parkland to the edge of the streetcar tracks. The Martin Goodman Trail (a bicycle path), two rows of trees, benches & a wider pedestrian space were installed there.

Toronto Architectural Juxtapositions

Historic Yonge Street Heritage Conservation District

Yonge Street. See this modern high-rise below at full height.

Yonge Street with heritage buildings in foreground

Yonge Street with heritage buildings in foreground

Bathurst Street at Bloor Street.  The 2 brick buildings at left (793 & 795 Bathurst) are on the Heritage Register. B-streets Condos at right (783 Bathurst) has added 195 units on 8 floors to the Bloor Annex/Koreatown area.

Church Street in the Gay Village with heritage buildings in foreground. Photos taken in October 2017.

Toronto's construction boom of the 2010s has led to some startling architectural juxtapositions.  The huge difference in heights made me wonder about zoning & city planning in Toronto.  This doesn't happen in my hometown of Seattle.  I've rarely seen it in other cities.  It has happened in Toronto due to a combination of high population growth, the protection of older buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act, & the Official Plan for land use promoting greater density from high-rise residential buildings within the historic urban core.   

Toronto has designated 4,500 buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act. (Seattle has designated only 439 buildings as landmarks subject to protection by city ordinance.)  There are a large number of buildings on the Heritage Register fronting Yonge Street, while the properties just behind them are not preserved from development. Both sides of Yonge Street from Bloor Street to Carlton Street were in the process of becoming a Heritage Conservation District in 2017 when I was there.

Population Growth & Density

No other city in North America has added so many high-rise buildings as Toronto during the 2010s. The building boom was a response to historically low levels of development after the last major wave of the 1990s. Many of the new towers were condominiums, reflecting the growing appeal of inner city living, which offers easy access to work public transit. The city hurtled skyward in this decade, with 65 new condo towers completed in 2016 alone. From 2010 to 2017, more than 250,000 condo units were built.

The Greater Toronto Area was one of the fastest growing regions in North America in the 2010s due  mainly to immigration. Statistics from the 2011 census showed that Toronto increased by 9.2 per cent from the previous census in 2006. The challenge in the housing market was supply rather than demand & many buyers found it difficult to find a home. Policy-makers & many others favored "intensification" as a more sustainable & appealing alternative to sprawl. At less than half the density of New York City, Toronto had room for increased residential density. Toronto’s official plan designated about 85% of the city as small scale residential. Downtown areas where transit, parks & services were already established, were able to accommodate intensification most readily.

Land Use Changes

The Official Plan for Toronto sought to reduce reliance on cars by fostering a denser, environmentally sustainable, & more transit-oriented urban realm. The over-arching goal was re-urbanization, a reversal of the expanding suburban sprawl throughout much of the 20th century. The Official Plan identified specific areas where new commercial & residential growth should be encouraged, stipulating that new development should facilitate transit use & pedestrian activity. The Plan also mandated new protections for architectural heritage.

The most conspicuous element of the Official Plan was the creation of high-rise development areas. Increased density throughout downtown Toronto was strongly encouraged, with developers facing fewer legal & bureaucratic roadblocks to high-rise development in the urban core. Together with the robust real estate market, a cultural shift towards urban living, low interest rates, & decreased development charges, the Official Plan helped facilitate Toronto’s downtown construction surge.

Another important element of the Official Plan was an increased emphasis on protecting architectural heritage, & ensuring that new development fit into the urban context around it, including maintaining the visibility of heritage buildings. For most of the 20th century, heritage architecture was destroyed without much regard to its socio-cultural value. Before the Official Plan was enacted, municipalities had little power to prevent the demolition of older buildings. By expanding the Heritage Register & adding new provisions to protect the urban context around these buildings, the Plan provided legal criteria for the designation & maintenance of heritage properties. These policies made the destruction of heritage properties much more difficult.

Heritage Buildings Preservation

Heritage Conservation Districts protect & manage change within historic neighborhoods to maintain their heritage value & character. They reflect the historic significance & community heritage values of an area. They are evaluated by heritage professionals, planners, urban designers & archaeologists, sometimes with the help of volunteers & community members. They contribute to quality of life & the Toronto’s competitive edge, reinforce identity, create self awareness & promote social cohesion. They have history & character that contribute to a strong sense of place. They are an important tool for creating a high-growth environment.

Every potential Heritage Conservation District is evaluated by a set of criteria to determine if it demonstrates cultural heritage value. The Criteria are: The district has design value or physical value; The district has historical value or associative value; The district has contextual value; The district has social value or community value; The district has natural value or scientific value. If an area meets any one of these criteria, it is considered significant, however most Heritage Conservation Districts meet more than one criterion.