JasonParis
Moderator
Yet another positive article on our city, but yet another strange one. It doesn't describe the city we all know very apt at all. In fact, it could have been written 10 years ago (as it doesn't talk about anything recent in this city, including the cultural renaissance). Moreover, it's filled with many mistakes, but what the hell, I'll post it anyway...
Oh and get ready for your blood to boil upon reading the comments after the article...
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map
The city that retains its human scale
From the underground tunnels to the top of the CN Tower, Paul James can only see "The Good" in Toronto.
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 15/01/2008
We came to Toronto in 1979, intending to see North America for a few years before returning home to settle down.
And we’re still here; when asked why there are so many reasons we give.
Toronto, provincial capital of Ontario and Canada’s largest city, is pleasantly cosmopolitan combining some fine modern buildings, (like the famous CN Tower) with a number of interesting old ones and a vibrant night and cultural life.
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map
Old and new: the Flatiron building cuts a distinctive figure amid the downtown skyscrapers of Toronto’s ’sci-fi skyline’
Like all of Canada, it’s clean, safe (in 27 years of living and working in and around Toronto, we’ve never been accosted and I only know one person who has) and has plenty of trees.
Raccoons and possums are as much your neighbours here as the folks next door, sometimes even more so: your neighbours, probably won’t rifle through your garbage bins quite so often.
Of the more interesting older buildings the oldest is Fort York, the army headquarters established in 1793 by Britain after the colonies to the south had won their independence.
It’s now been renovated to its 19th-century state and is open for visitors most days of the year, often with re-enactments of a soldier’s life in a building that could be described as “Toronto’s birthplace”.
One of the more recent and unusual additions is the Flatiron building. Built in 1892 for distiller George Gooderham, it remained the offices of the Gooderham & Worts distillery until 1952 and takes its name from its wedge shape (like an old-fashioned iron), as it was designed to fit into the narrow, triangular junction where Front and Wellington streets merge.
Another equally eccentric building is Casa Loma, a “medieval” castle built for the financier Sir Henry Pellatt. Begun in 1911 it was only just completed when the First World War broke out.
Unfortunately, in the economic downturn at the end of the war, Sir Henry went broke and was forced to abandon his castle in 1923. Today, it is one of Toronto’s premier tourist attractions.
Except for the downtown core with its skyscrapers, Toronto doesn’t feel as overwhelming as many large cities.
Sci-fi skyline
Even though 2.5 million people live here, it’s human-sized for the most part. And just offshore, in Lake Ontario, the Toronto islands provide a quiet harbour for sailboats and acres of parkland, as well as a great place for viewing the city from the water. Toronto’s sci-fi skyline seen from the islands is worth the visit alone.
Restaurants capture the diversity of the city’s immigrant population, with Chinese, Italian and Greek cuisine well represented and Thai, Japanese, Indian, Caribbean, Hungarian, and German putting in solid appearances.
For lunch, I’d recommend any of the Chinese restaurants on Baldwin Street or the Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops, still going strong after 43 years and something of a Canadian institution.
If you want more variety, and like wandering around market stalls, the Richtree restaurant in BCE Place is a good choice for any meal.
BCE Place is home to some of the world’s best-known corporations and financial institutions, located in two towers rising above a glass-covered galleria of shops and restaurants six-storeys high.
It also encloses Toronto’s oldest intact street frontage, renovated and preserved from the 1850s, as well as the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
You don’t have to love ice hockey to live in Canada but (like association football in Britain) it certainly helps.
Greek street
Some areas of Toronto have become synonymous with particular communities. For example, you’ll find Greek restaurants all over the city but especially along Danforth Street, where even the street signs are posted in English and Greek.
Similarly bilingual, the Chinatown area, around Spadina and Dundas Street West, has an unbelievable concentration of authentic shops and restaurants.
Little Italy is a collection of restaurants and clothes shops (of course) on and around College Street, while Little India is centred on Gerrard Street West.
Over time, all the communities have migrated out to the suburbs but their jumping off spot in Toronto remains as a spiritual home from home.
For dinner (“supper” in Ontario) Toronto has everything from the downright snooty to a more “New-World”, easy-going attitude to food.
At the upper end of the scale, the 360º Restaurant at the top of the CN Tower is a good place to start a Toronto trip - if you can stomach heights. The view is spectacular and the restaurant makes a complete circle every 72 minutes, providing an ideal spot for fixing the city’s plan in your mind during daylight or seeing the lights laid out below you after dark.
The CN Tower is the city’s most famous landmark. It stands, at 1,815 feet (553.3 metres) high, head and shoulders above the other downtown buildings. Over 30 years old, it has only recently been surpassed as the world’s tallest building.
If you want an even better view than the one from the restaurant, a further elevator takes you to the Skypod, once the world’s highest public observation deck at 1,465 feet.
Take the stairs in the CN Tower
Every April and October there’s a Tower Stair climb (1,776 steps and 142 flights) in aid of charity. The climb costs only C$50 (£25) and it’s a lot of fun - if you’re reasonably fit.
The public climbs only happen on one Saturday in each month, so check ahead if you’re visiting and want to be part of it.
As you’d expect winter plays a big part in Toronto life, from the Santa Claus Parade in November, through the ice sculptures and outdoor skating rink at New City Hall, starting before Christmas and running through to March, to the underground city, linking all the downtown buildings.
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map.
Underground tunnels may not sound enticing but these are bright and airy and, with about 1,200 shops and services down there, the feel is more upscale mall than earthy burrow.
In its two centuries of existence Toronto has been called “Muddy York”, from the wetlands around the mouths of the Humber and Don Rivers on which the early town was built; “Hogtown” from its central role in meat processing back when agriculture drove Ontario’s economy; and “The Good” from its hold-out as a bastion of Victorian values, a reputation it kept right through to the 1950s.
None of these labels were intended to be flattering, and today it doesn’t really have a nickname. But those who have come to love it as we have would still describe it as “The Good” - for all the right reasons.
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Have your say
Oh and get ready for your blood to boil upon reading the comments after the article...
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map
The city that retains its human scale
From the underground tunnels to the top of the CN Tower, Paul James can only see "The Good" in Toronto.
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 15/01/2008
We came to Toronto in 1979, intending to see North America for a few years before returning home to settle down.
And we’re still here; when asked why there are so many reasons we give.
Toronto, provincial capital of Ontario and Canada’s largest city, is pleasantly cosmopolitan combining some fine modern buildings, (like the famous CN Tower) with a number of interesting old ones and a vibrant night and cultural life.
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map
Old and new: the Flatiron building cuts a distinctive figure amid the downtown skyscrapers of Toronto’s ’sci-fi skyline’
Like all of Canada, it’s clean, safe (in 27 years of living and working in and around Toronto, we’ve never been accosted and I only know one person who has) and has plenty of trees.
Raccoons and possums are as much your neighbours here as the folks next door, sometimes even more so: your neighbours, probably won’t rifle through your garbage bins quite so often.
Of the more interesting older buildings the oldest is Fort York, the army headquarters established in 1793 by Britain after the colonies to the south had won their independence.
It’s now been renovated to its 19th-century state and is open for visitors most days of the year, often with re-enactments of a soldier’s life in a building that could be described as “Toronto’s birthplace”.
One of the more recent and unusual additions is the Flatiron building. Built in 1892 for distiller George Gooderham, it remained the offices of the Gooderham & Worts distillery until 1952 and takes its name from its wedge shape (like an old-fashioned iron), as it was designed to fit into the narrow, triangular junction where Front and Wellington streets merge.
Another equally eccentric building is Casa Loma, a “medieval” castle built for the financier Sir Henry Pellatt. Begun in 1911 it was only just completed when the First World War broke out.
Unfortunately, in the economic downturn at the end of the war, Sir Henry went broke and was forced to abandon his castle in 1923. Today, it is one of Toronto’s premier tourist attractions.
Except for the downtown core with its skyscrapers, Toronto doesn’t feel as overwhelming as many large cities.
Sci-fi skyline
Even though 2.5 million people live here, it’s human-sized for the most part. And just offshore, in Lake Ontario, the Toronto islands provide a quiet harbour for sailboats and acres of parkland, as well as a great place for viewing the city from the water. Toronto’s sci-fi skyline seen from the islands is worth the visit alone.
Restaurants capture the diversity of the city’s immigrant population, with Chinese, Italian and Greek cuisine well represented and Thai, Japanese, Indian, Caribbean, Hungarian, and German putting in solid appearances.
For lunch, I’d recommend any of the Chinese restaurants on Baldwin Street or the Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops, still going strong after 43 years and something of a Canadian institution.
If you want more variety, and like wandering around market stalls, the Richtree restaurant in BCE Place is a good choice for any meal.
BCE Place is home to some of the world’s best-known corporations and financial institutions, located in two towers rising above a glass-covered galleria of shops and restaurants six-storeys high.
It also encloses Toronto’s oldest intact street frontage, renovated and preserved from the 1850s, as well as the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame.
You don’t have to love ice hockey to live in Canada but (like association football in Britain) it certainly helps.
Greek street
Some areas of Toronto have become synonymous with particular communities. For example, you’ll find Greek restaurants all over the city but especially along Danforth Street, where even the street signs are posted in English and Greek.
Similarly bilingual, the Chinatown area, around Spadina and Dundas Street West, has an unbelievable concentration of authentic shops and restaurants.
Little Italy is a collection of restaurants and clothes shops (of course) on and around College Street, while Little India is centred on Gerrard Street West.
Over time, all the communities have migrated out to the suburbs but their jumping off spot in Toronto remains as a spiritual home from home.
For dinner (“supper” in Ontario) Toronto has everything from the downright snooty to a more “New-World”, easy-going attitude to food.
At the upper end of the scale, the 360º Restaurant at the top of the CN Tower is a good place to start a Toronto trip - if you can stomach heights. The view is spectacular and the restaurant makes a complete circle every 72 minutes, providing an ideal spot for fixing the city’s plan in your mind during daylight or seeing the lights laid out below you after dark.
The CN Tower is the city’s most famous landmark. It stands, at 1,815 feet (553.3 metres) high, head and shoulders above the other downtown buildings. Over 30 years old, it has only recently been surpassed as the world’s tallest building.
If you want an even better view than the one from the restaurant, a further elevator takes you to the Skypod, once the world’s highest public observation deck at 1,465 feet.
Take the stairs in the CN Tower
Every April and October there’s a Tower Stair climb (1,776 steps and 142 flights) in aid of charity. The climb costs only C$50 (£25) and it’s a lot of fun - if you’re reasonably fit.
The public climbs only happen on one Saturday in each month, so check ahead if you’re visiting and want to be part of it.
As you’d expect winter plays a big part in Toronto life, from the Santa Claus Parade in November, through the ice sculptures and outdoor skating rink at New City Hall, starting before Christmas and running through to March, to the underground city, linking all the downtown buildings.
The underground city keeps Torontonians away from winter’s icy blast and, at around 27 kilometres of corridors, is so big it has to have its own street map.
Underground tunnels may not sound enticing but these are bright and airy and, with about 1,200 shops and services down there, the feel is more upscale mall than earthy burrow.
In its two centuries of existence Toronto has been called “Muddy York”, from the wetlands around the mouths of the Humber and Don Rivers on which the early town was built; “Hogtown” from its central role in meat processing back when agriculture drove Ontario’s economy; and “The Good” from its hold-out as a bastion of Victorian values, a reputation it kept right through to the 1950s.
None of these labels were intended to be flattering, and today it doesn’t really have a nickname. But those who have come to love it as we have would still describe it as “The Good” - for all the right reasons.
=================================================
Have your say
