Toronto for a Week

jeeff: 21st Jul 2005 - 03:20 GMT

hi jo. here's a quickie travel guide for toronto, but i'm writing this with one condition for you: please take some photos, write some stuff, and post an article here about your trip!

first off, make sure you get a copy of eye (www.eye.net) and now ([[www.nowtoronto.com]]) magazines, both free weeklies full of information and events listings. you can find them on most major street corners. both come out on thursdays. sometimes it's hard to find a copy once the weekend has passed, but you can always use their websites.

neighbourhoods to visit:

queen street west - you can begin at yonge street, at the eaton centre (a great big mall) and head west. the building with the clock tower is the old city hall. just past that is nathan phillips square, home of toronto's spacey new city hall (from the 60's actually - you'll recognize it if you've seen the movie biohazard). continuing west, you'll pass the crazy wrought-iron fence of osgoode hall, a 160-yr-old legal landmark. the fence & the gates were built to keep out wandering cows. cross university ave and you begin to get into the retail area. this used to be a real bohemian neighbourhood, but now it's more like an open-air mall. the building with the car sticking out of the wall is the citytv headquarters, also home of muchmusic and other tv stations - very popular with the teenyboppers. on the corner they have a video booth where you can record messages for air play for $1 (it goes to charity). further along, where the sidewalk widens out (north side), you often find street artists displaying & selling things, especially on sundays. you'll also find the rivoli right here, which hosts 'alt.comedy lounge' on monday nights. it's a showcase of edgy/alternative comedy, usually pretty hilarious (and cheap - pwyc, $5 suggested). there's also a nice pool hall upstairs. you can continue along queen street a long ways. past spadina it begins to get a little less glitzy. i prefer this part. graffiti alley is just south of here. the whole area is full of street art. past bathurst a ways is the south end of trinity bellwoods park, one of the most popular parks in downtown toronto. it's a great place to people-watch. past the park you'll find a bunch of small art galleries along the north side of the street - a dozen or more stretching along about a mile. they're all free to enter and worth checking out. many galleries are closed mon-wed, and openings happen thursday nights. it's cool to walk along here on opening night to crash some openings - free drinks, free art! once you reach the gladstone hotel (home of real honkytonk karaoke on friday nights) that's the end of the gallery strip. you can continue west into parkdale if you like. this is a grittier, working class area, like the queen west of old. there are some interesting bars along here, like the 50's greaser bar 'cadillac lounge', and 'stones place' - home of a massive collection of rolling stones memorabilia (kept by the "5th stone" himself, the owner). keep in mind that queen street is a long walk. you may want to split it up into various days.

chinatown & kensington market - chinatown runs along spadina ave, north of queen to college street. it also stretches along dundas street to either side of spadina. there's all sorts of odd shopping here, especially if you're willing to investigate all the nooks & crannies. dragon mall is on the southwest corner of spadina & dundas. there's a good pet shop in the basement and all sorts of other interesting things. also at 454 dundas st west (1 block east of spadina, north side) is 'ten ren's tea shop', apparently world class & favoured by jailbird martha stewart. it's a beautiful store with really great service. and a couple blocks further east is the art gallery of ontario (currently just starting a renovation, but it might still be open...?)

if you go back to spadina and continue west along dundas you'll hit kensington ave, which is the beginning of kensington market. this is a really wacky bohemian area full of old houses converted into fruit shops and vintage clothing stores. kensington ave is devoted mostly to clothing shops ('courage my love' with the naked mannequins out front is a perennial fave), but if you continue up to baldwin street and over to augusta, you'll hit the real heart of the neighbourhood. there are all sorts of things tucked away in the corners of kensington. exploring is highly recommended. be warned though that both chinatown and kensington have a distinctive odour on hot days. just think of it as an exotic tang. ;)

boystown - centered around church and wellesley (wells-lee) in the east end of downtown, this is one of the biggest gay communities in the world. toronto's pride parade is second only to san fransisco, but unfortunately you just missed it. check out hool's pride photos if you're curious. but the area is definitely worth a visit any time of the year. 'slack alice' is a good bar that caters to both gays and straights equally, though it's especially known for the dyke crowd. you may end up with a new girlfriend.

bloor west - starting around spadina and continuing to the christie pits, a park infamous for a brawl that happened there in the 1933, there's a stretch of nice shops and pubs. one fun spot is the green room, originally an unofficial hangout for theatre types at the poor alex theatre, it's now evolved into a real nightspot. but even in the afternoon it's fun to go sit on the back patio or in the dark room, with mismatched furniture and any type of music under the sun. to find it, turn south down brunswick (a couple blocks west of spadina) and turn right down the first alley. voila. another notable night spot is lee's palace, long-time concert venue for all sorts of rock music & other acts. it's on the south side of bloor about halfway between spadina & bathurst. on weekends, the upstairs room (the dance cave) is full of 20-somethings dancing to indie, new wave, brit pop, etc.

little italy - along college street, from bathurst to about ossington. one of toronto's many ethnic neighbourhoods, and home to a seemingly endless string of chic cafes and bars. there's a record store along there called 'soundscapes' - quite good and a great spot to get local concert tickets. little italy quite a sight on weekends. also worth noting, old rock college rock venue 'sneaky dee's' sits on the south-east corner of college & bathurst. there are lots of shows in the upstairs room and good nachos in the downstairs. i especially like 'wavelength' on sunday nights upstairs, a showcase of indie and experimental music.

roncesvalles - a little ways west of downtown, but an easy subway or streetcar trip (take the bloor subway to dundas west station and walk south, or take any of the queen, dundas or college streetcars west), it's worth visiting for the quaint atmosphere and the proximity to high park, toronto's biggest central park. roncesvalles itself is a polish neighbourhood. if you like cabbage rolls that's the place to go.

and there are tons of other ethnic neighbourhoods around town. bloor west has little korea, dundas west has little portugal, danforth is greektown, broadview has little india and a 2nd chinatown. there are great jerk chicken shops scattered around town, and st clair and eglinton are both home to vibrant neighbourhoods as well.

if you want to get away from the bustle, high park (mentioned above) is a good choice. even better are the toronto islands. you take a ferry from queens quay (pronounced 'key') terminal at the base of york street (just follow university ave south), about 15 minutes to the islands. there are fountains and lawns, paths, bicycles built for two, and an enclave of island residents who live totally car-free on ward's island. there's even a nudist beach (hanlan's point). the islands are beautiful to visit for an afternoon. another city get-away is the beaches, located out in toronto's east end along the lakeshore. you can take the queen streetcar east to get out there. if the weather's nice, it's a good place to wander around, and there are lots of attractive beach volleyball players. the beaches aren't always good for swimming though - check the bacteria counts first.

finally, i didn't include any links with my answer because it's better if you discover these things yourself. any tourist map/guidebook should have enough info to get you there. but if you do a websearch for anything mentioned above you'll find lots of info on the web. and if you have specific questions, ask away.

jeeff: 21st Jul 2005 - 03:20 GMT

whoops, www.nowtoronto.com)

jo: 21st Jul 2005 - 16:15 GMT

Jeeff, thank you so much for your thorough mini-guidebook of Toronto; I'm printing it out right now so that I can take it with me :) Very visualistic-- I shouldn't have any trouble finding the places you pointed out to me.
Man, I hope the Art Gallery of Ontario is open because I really wanted to check it out. But if not, the mini art galleries of Queen St will suffice.
Aha, and from what I hear, we will def be going to Eaton Centre..but I'll probably skip that and keep heading west.

And yes, no doubt, I will post pics + article upon my return from your city :)
Thank you again!