(Click on the neighborhood or location to get information about it.)
The commercial and cultural heart of Toronto centers around Yonge Street (pronounced "Young Street"), the world's longest street. Downtown Toronto nominally includes everything between Bloor and the lakeshore and from Spadina to the Don River. Yonge Street itself is a 24-hour artery of activity. Because people come out to just walk along the street, there are a lot of reasonably-priced interesting restaurants with quick service. There are also clusters of unique shops, with special-interest and second-hand bookshops near Yonge and Wellesley, then tuxedo stores south of Wellesley, then a cluster of strip clubs and pornographic video stores south of College, then discount electronic stores, then music stores down to Dundas, then the huge Eaton Centre mall on the west side and the theatres on the east side of the street. There are a lot of fast food places, not just the usual chains, to cater to the college crowd coming from Ryerson. The east side of the intersection of Yonge and Dundas is in the midst of a complete renovation to create an open square at the heart of downtown, sort of like Times Square; this should be completed by 2003. If you don't know where to go or what to do, head for Yonge Street. You'll find something.
Points of interest: The Eaton Centre, the Pantages Theatre, the Elgin Theatre, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Bakka Bookstore.
From Front Street up to Richmond between Bay and Spadina is the city's club and theatre district. A lot of buildings that look like abandoned warehouses by day have lines of expensively-dressed young people at night. The parking lots are more crowded (and more expensive) after 9 PM than during the business day. The King Street theatre area is surrounded by a lot of food places, while the clubs are mainly along Adelaide, Richmond, and little back streets in between. If you like places with loud music, dim lighting, and overpriced drinks (and some people do), there are lots of those, but there are also many excellent restaurants. The CBC Building is the headquarters of Canada's national public broadcasting network, and often has events happening during the day.
Points of interest: Royal Alexandra Theatre, Princess of Wales Theatre, Roy Thomson Hall, Metro Hall, CBC Building, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, CN Tower, Skydome, The Second City.
Bay Street is the heart of Canada's financial industry, the local equivalent of Wall Street. The streets may not be paved with gold, but the windows of the Royal Bank Plaza, adjacent to the Royal York Hotel, are in fact tinted with a thin layer of gold, giving the building its distinctive color. First Canadian Place at Bay and Adelaide is the seventh tallest office tower in the world, following only three buildings each in New York and Chicago; it is also the site of the Toronto Stock Exchange. The historic Royal York Hotel itself was once the largest hotel in the British Commonwealth, and back in the '40s and '50s it dominated the Toronto skyline. The lower level of all the bank towers have hundreds of shops all connected through underground tunnels, very convenient to convention-goers.
Points of Interest: Union Station, Royal York Hotel, Royal Bank Plaza, Toronto Dominion Centre, First Canadian Place, Air Canada Centre.
Chinatown began in the 1940s as a handful of Chinese restaurants behind the bus station at Dundas and Bay Streets. It expanded west until it met the garment district on Spadina, and Spadina and Dundas became the commercial heart of Chinatown. The Dragon City Mall opened in 1990 on the southwest corner of the intersection, and in the mid-90s the new Chinatown Centre complex was built. Although Toronto now has five identifiable Chinese neighborhoods in the city and suburbs, old Chinatown remains the heart of the community. It often stands in for Hong Kong or San Francisco on television, yet it has become a microcosm of Toronto as a whole, as Vietnamese and other Asian immigrants have come to integrate into the broader Asian-Canadian community.
Points of Interest: Dragon City, Chinatown Centre.
Kensington Market is the most diverse neighborhood in the world's most multicultural city. Dozens of languages are spoken by the 3500 people who live between Spadina, Dundas, Bathurst, and College. In the 19th century, this was a working class neighborhood of Scottish and Irish labourers, but in the '20s and '30s it became known as the "Jewish Market", the neighborhood market for people who lived and worked in the garment district. In the 1950s, Portuguese immigrants, mostly from the Azores, moved into the area. In the 1960s, people came from Jamaica and other Carribean countries. In the late '60s and early '70s, American political refugees came fleeing the Vietnam war, setting up funky second-hand clothing stores at the south end of Kensington Avenue and giving a strongly left-wing cast to neighborhood politics; they were followed by refugees from Vietnam. This created a new dynamic which welcomed newcomers from every corner of the world. Today the shopkeepers are from Ethiopia, Armenia, Jordan, Peru, Laos, Sudan, Macedonia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Somalia, and many other places; the newcomers are welcomed by more established communities like the Chinese, Jews, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Ukrainians. Last year's refugees are this year's busboys and next year's businessmen in Kensington.
Only in the 1970s did city council ban keeping livestock within the city; many houses today still have chicken coops in the backyard converted into planters or small tool sheds. Kensington had its roots as a farmer's market, and to this day the area is noted as a place to get the best quality fruits, vegetables, meat, cheese, and spices very cheap. Although the unique qualities and historic importance of Kensington Market has made the neighborhood a tourist stop, this is a living community which has resisted large commercial development. The combination of cheap fresh wholesale food, new immigrant labor, and relatively low rents allows local restauranteurs to offer excellent menus at prices not much more than fast food.
The neighborhood became a marketplace as people built vending stalls in front of their homes. These eventually became permanent extensions, crowding the sidewalks, creating a uniquely informal style of architecture which violates the city's building code. So the many pedestrians often walk on the street. The streets were laid out before the invention of automobiles. All of which makes it difficult for cars to get around, with the result that locals have driving habits and attitudes which are frustrating and incomprehensible to outsiders. People park with two wheels on the sidewalk, cars often parallel park into no-parking zones, bicyclists and skateboards go the wrong way down the middle of one-way streets (almost all streets are one-way), and everybody basically assumes that if you're in a car, you're not going to get anywhere in a hurry. Visitors are recommended to come by transit, taxi, or on foot.
Baldwin Street continues east of Spadina. It has a unique small restaurant district, only three blocks and not connected to any major street. This is one of the hidden gems of downtown, rarely seen by tourists, but a favorite night spot for downtown residents.
North of the market along College Street west of Spadina, a thriving string of discount computer stores have opened. The cluster of competitive stores makes it one of the best places in Canada to buy computer hardware.
On Spadina near College are a number of interesting music venues, including the El Mocambo Room, Grossman's Tavern, and the terribly tacky Silver Dollar Room. The Silver Dollar Room plays a role in modern native mythology, as it is said that Coyote is passed out in the back room. Further north is the original core of the Ukrainian community in Toronto, clustered around the Ukrainian Cultural Centre on College and the St. Volodimir Centre on Spadina near Harbord, though now most Ukrainians now live in the western part of the city.
The "Fashion District" is the name of a business improvement area centered around the south end of Spadina. The actual garment district stretches north into Chinatown. The area is a costumer's paradise, with wholesalers open to the public, bridal shops, unique accessories, and more. There is a cluster of outdoor outfitters around Spadina and King, and furriers around Spadina and Queen, not far from where centuries ago native trappers traded furs with English traders, long before European colonists formed a permanent settlement here. Office towers along the side streets house the designers of the Canadian fashion industry, from established design houses to experimental outfits.
The University of Toronto is Canada's leading post-secondary institution, with more than fifty thousand full-time and part-time students and nearly ten thousand researchers. It occupies more than a square kilometer of downtown, from Bay to Spadina and from Bloor to College Strets. The University is, technically, the landlord of the provincial legislature. The oddly-shaped Robarts Library at Harbord and St. George Streets is a leading research library. The university is modelled on the great English universities as a federation of independent institutions sharing facilities. Much of the architecture dates back to the 19th century, with gothic arches and ornate crennellations. The pastoral Philosopher's Walk is an island of calm at the center of the city.
Points of Interest: Hart House, Robarts Library, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Philosopher's Walk.
Twenty years ago, Queen West was a grubby low-rent commercial strip next to downtown; the theme of the area could be described as "junk stores". Over time this changed. Counter-culture and second-hand clothing stores, electronics parts wholesalers, comic shops, antique shops, and discount jewelry stores became commonplace. For many years this was the home of Bakka Books, one of the oldest SF bookstores in North America. In the late 1980s, CITY-TV moved its headquarters to the landmark building at Queen and John. This housed not only a local movie and news station (sort of like New York's WPIX), but also other channels of the Znaimer media empire, including MuchMusic, the Canadian rock music channel, and more recently Space, the Canaidan science fiction channel. The street moved upmarket, as the clothing stores got trendier, the comic shops mostly moved to cheaper premises, computer shops moved next to electronics stores, and more restaurants added to an already interesting mix. For the past several years, Queen West has been the scene of Word on the Street, a festival about books and reading of all kinds held every September. The Toronto Book Awards are inscribed in the sidewalk near Queen and Peter Streets. Queen Street's wide sidewalks attract a variety of buskers, sidewalk artists, and street vendors.
In recent years, the old experimental spirit of Queen Street has materialized further west. Antique shops, goth and student clothing stores, and other quirky places have appeared on Queen a few blocks beyond Spadina. A place called the Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar, often used as a setting in the show "Forever Knight", can be found at Queen and Bathurst.
Points of interest: CITY-TV building.
Harbourfront describes itself as "Canada's foremost centre of contemporary culture". It has two art galleries, a crafts studio, a theatre, a history museum, an antique market, boat docks, and facilties for a series of literary, music, dance, food, and community festivals. Every fall, the International Festival of Authors is the world's largest literary festival, bringing prominent writers from around the world for two weeks of readings and discussion.
Points of interest: Du Maurier Theatre, The Power Plant Gallery, York Quay Gallery, Queen's Quay Terminal.
The oldest Italian neighborhood in Toronto is Little Italy, along Bathurst from west of Bathurst to Dovercourt. The informal center of the neighborhood is CHIN Radio, Toronto's first multilingual radio station and one of the earliest and loudest voices promoting the value of multiculturalism in Canada. College Street is dotted with many smart little cafes and restaurants which are priced to be affordable in what is still a working-class neighborhood. Many places here are open late, so this is a good place to go if one has a 2 AM craving for gelato.
Portugal Village is the official name of the neighborhood stretching west along Dundas Street beyond Bathurst. Toronto's Portuguese community has grown and expanded west from its roots in Kensington Market. The small Brazilian community has blended in seamlessly into this area. Like many Toronto neighborhoods, English is rarely heard in the bakeries, clothing and furniture stores along Dundas Street West as the locals conduct business in their native tongue.
The area around Wellesley Street East from Yonge to Parliament has become the center of Toronto's gay community, with Church and Wellesley being the most important intersection. There are lively bars, fashionable clothing stores, good restaurants, and perhaps one too many austere coffee bars (all of them quite busy). This is one of Toronto's oldest residential neighborhoods and it is very integrated, with a significant heterosexual population, although "St. James Town" today usually refers only to the cluster of apartment buildings west of Sherbourne. The active Neighborhood Watch makes this one of the safest late-night neighborhoods in a safe city. The area dresses up in rainbow colors during Pride Week and Toronto's Gay Pride parade attracts three-quarters of a million people every year, but the rest of the time this is an ordinary urban neighborhood. If you see someone in an outfit on the extreme edge of fashion, odds are they have drifted north from the cluster of media companies that grew up in northwest Cabbagetown around the former CBC headquarters.
Bloor-Yorkville is a small upscale shopping district from Bloor to Cumberland between Yonge Street and Avenue Road. There are some good restaurants and some stores that are oriented towards the middle classes, but make sure you look at price tags or menus before you buy, as some of the places here are quite expensive even after the exchange rate. The one-way streets are narrow and parking is relatively expensive. But it also has some nice sidewalk cafes, a couple of high-quality bookstores, and clothing and other stores which sell quality items at ordinary prices. It's one of the most pleasant areas of downtown to just walk the street, at noon or at midnight.
Rosedale was designed in the 1890s as an exclusive residential area, with Victorian, Georgian, and Tudor-style homes widely spaced on parklike streets, all within a mile of downtown. Yonge Street from Bloor to St. Clair is the only major commercial street, with a string of fine restaurants, furniture and art stores, and other shops and services mostly aimed at the well-to-do.
West of the university is a small unique area of bookshops and restaurants. There are several second-hand bookshops with well-ordered collections of rare treasures, staffed by informed readers, and there are unique special-interest stores such as the Toronto Women's Bookstore and Parentbooks. If one could describe such a thing as gourmet fast food, this would be the place for it, with several places that have been short-listed for the city's best pizza year after year, a genuine fish-and-chips shop where fresh fish are fried and wrapped in newspaper. There are also some craft stores and other interesting places that make this an area worth visiting.
In the late 19th century, "The Annex" was laid out from farmland to be an affordable suburb, in the days when people commuted to work on horseback. Today the area is an example of what politicians talk about when they refer to a "livable city". Comfortable houses with backyards and garages or other off-street parking, with plenty of nice parks and good schools, with all the amenities one would want along Bloor, make this one of the best places to live in the city of Toronto, so it's not unusual to see unassuming four-bedroom homes sell for half a million dollars or more. Bloor Street itself is not notably upscale, perhaps because there is a lot of student and rent-controlled housing, so the stores and restaurants cater to a diverse crowd. North and south of Bloor are residential areas, so Bloor Street itself is the place people go to run errands or grab a bite before going home, whatever their schedule. This makes it a very late-night neighborhood, but a quite safe area.
Cabbagetown is a unique residential area where most of the buildings date back to the mid- to late-19th century. The neighborhood today features an assortment of French, Italian, Spanish, Sri Lankan, and Chinese restaurants, with a mix of immigrant families and people who've lived here for four or five generations. Old cemeteries keep the remains of historical figures, both famous and infamous, city founders and old Fenians who were hanged after the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion. The unique Riverdale Farm, with its reconstructed Pennsylvania Dutch barn and the quasi-Moorish Donnybrook Pavilion, is on the site of what had been the Riverdale Zoo for eighty years. A ten-minute walk from Yonge Street, the area began attracting urban professionals in the 1970s who wanted to avoid the commute and sprawl of the growing metropolis. The area has a self-conscious small-town ambience, as a distinct community which has retained its identity throughout the development of the city of Toronto.
The Canadian National Exhibition has been, for the past 120 years, a place for exhibiting the height of Canadian commerce, industry, and agriculture. Having its roots in 19th-century agricultural fairs, it still has a horse show, garden show, a historical display from the Ontario Agriculture College, as well as a country music singing competition. But the CNE fairground was electrified in 1882, hosted its first auto show in 1904, and it continues to evolve with the Better Living Centre, built in 1962 and used for displays of the latest consumer products, and the National Trade Centre built in 1997. The telephone was demonstrated here in 1882, television in 1938, and virtual reality in 1991.
But mostly the CNE, also just called "The Ex", is a lot of fun. The central midway has amusements for both kids and adults, quirky carny booths and the 180-foot "Drop of Fear". There are several concerts daily at the Bandshell and the Molson Ampitheatre. A visit to the Food Building can ensure that you won't be hungry, or bored. The International Pavilion in the National Trade Centre has displays of music, dance, and culture from around the world. The CNE runs every year from mid-August to Labour Day.
Ontario Place is a leisure and entertainment complex built on artificial islands in Lake Ontario. It is attached to the CNE fairground, and admission to Ontario Place is free during the CNE. There are concerts, restaurants, waterslides and other marine entertainments, and a lot of other things to do. The world's first IMAX theatre is here at the Cinesphere, part of the complex's Fulleresque architecture.
Parkdale is an old working-class residential district, where workers for Massey-Ferguson and other industries lived. In the 1960s and '70s a number of public housing and affordable housing projects were built or converted in Parkdale, making this one of the most downmarket areas of the city; this was exacerbated by the contraction and eventual closure of the Massey-Ferguson factories along King Street. But new industries replaced old. People in the film and television industries discovered a neighborhood twenty minutes drive from the airport and fifteen minutes streetcar ride from downtown. Alliance Atlantis, Nelvana, and several other companies have studios. Computer manufacturing firms followed, partly to supply the animation rendering farms required by the computer graphics industry. The old factories and warehouses were replaced by condominiums. The new media people tended to be young, which kept the area from moving too far upscale, but new plazas and restaurants popped up along King Street. The area now is very mixed, with Hollywood expatriates and welfare clients living side-by-side in the historic streets of Parkdale.
As the old Chinatown becomes a gentrified district run by the established ex-Hong Kong elites, more recent immigrants from inland regions of China have come to Toronto in recent years. Since the mid-90s, a new Chinatown is beginning to emerge a mile east of downtown around Broadview and Gerrard. The area is still known as Riverdale, a historic Toronto neighborhood with many long-time residents, but the main streets have more and more Chinese restaurants and shops every month.
Danforth Avenue, known as "The Danforth" to locals, was more of a transportation corridor than a commercial district as late as the 1950s, even after the construction of the Toronto subway system. But in the late '50s, a handful of Greek restaurants formed the nucleus of a new community. As more Greek immigrants came to the area, or moved here from other parts of Toronto, the neighborhood took on a distinct character which blossomed under the policy of official multiculturalism in the 1970s. Today this is a lively community with very close ties to the mother country; in the tavernas, the politics of Athens are discussed with much more passion than those of Ottawa. The neighborhood has a medley of Mediterranean culture, from Sicilian to Lebanese, but the street signs and most prominent places are mostly Greek. Oddly, several Irish pubs and shops can also be found, especially further east. Today's Greektown stretches more than a mile east from Broadview and Danforth.
Every August, the Danforth is closed to vehicular traffic for a weekend of music, food, and culture in the "Taste of the Danforth" street festival. This attracts more than half a million people annually.
The area of Gerrard Street from Greenwood to Main is the center of Toronto's Indian community, with restaurants, grocers, clothing stores, and other shops. This is a less touristy area than other ethnic communities, as Toronto's south Asian community is dispersed across the city with quality restaurants in all fashionable neighborhoods; the Indian Bazaar is more where the Indian community comes to do business with each other.
The area of Bloor from Bathurst to Christie has become the center of an active Korean community, with many new shops and restaurants clustered in this area. A number of restaurants serve both Korean and Japanese food, perhaps because Japanese is more familiar to Western palates. Back in the 1980s, the area had a much more Latin flavor, as many people from Central American and Andean countries came to live and work in the area, but rents have gone up and some of the Spanish-speaking businesses have moved west beyond Christie and south to College.
Adjacent to but not part of Koreatown is Mirvish Village at Markham Street south of Bloor. This is next to Honest Ed's, great discount store run by noted entrepreneur and theatre promoter Ed Mirvish. The Mirvishes have chosen a diverse range of shops and restaurants to attract visitors from across the city; most people can find something worth looking at on Markham Street.
Toronto's largest Italian neighborhood is the Corso Italia, extending northwest from St. Clair and Oakwood as far west as Ossington and north past Eglinton. In effect, the newer suburban Italian communities in Weston and Woodbridge are extensions of this region, which is effectively the Italian version of downtown. Like Old Chinatown but unlike most other ethnic neighborhoods, the Corso Italia has begun to move upscale, with a growing number of places providing decorator furniture, designer clothes, and a full range of services from banking to software. With a daily paper and Italian-language television on cable, this is a self-sufficient community with close and current ties to Italy.
Forest Hill was originally an expensive suburb for the English Canadian elite, a neighborhood where "old" money often meant older than Canada. It's no longer a suburb, but one can still find Canada's most established families living in multimillion-dollar mansions along Dunvegan Road. Upper Canada College is the premier boy's school in English Canada, modelled after the elite "public" schools of England.
But since the 1950s this neighborhood has become more and more Jewish, as families have moved north from the crowded streets of Kensington Market. The Jewish community starts around St. Clair and Bathurst and continues more than a dozen miles north, through Downsview and deep into the suburbs of Vaughn and Richmond Hill. Without the poverty and discrimination of eastern Europe, the violence of the Middle East, or the assimilationist pressures of America, a uniquely Jewish modern community has evolved which is unlike anywhere else in the world. North of Bathurst and Lawrence with the mix of Jewish immigrants from different corners of the world, the lingua franca of the area is more Yiddish or Hebrew than English. The neighborhood has great delis and bakeries, of course, and perhaps more florists than other areas, but the Bathurst strip also has unique bookstores, a wide range of services, and many quality restaurants that have non-deli varieties of Jewish cuisine, including Middle Eastern, European, vegetarian, and others.
Leaside is a residential community in eastern Toronto, in what used to be known as the borough of East York. Its winding streets reflect the geography imposed by the Don River.
The Toronto Islands are a group of four islands lying off the south shore of the city. Most of this is parkland, accessible by ferries from the bottom of Bay or Bathurst Streets. The largest is Centre Island, which has a small group of amusements, shops, and restaurants called Centreville. Further west is the Toronto City Centre Airport, used by small craft and a few interurban shuttles. Near the airport, there is also a very small residential community; the little houses with picket fences are sometimes seen in Highlander: the Raven and other shows. Only pedestrians may board the ferry at the Bay Street docks, though bicycles are allowed at the ferry boarding at Bathurst Quay, and there are bicycle rental places in the area.
The Beaches is a residential community stretching east along Queen Street from Greenwood to Kingston Road. The lakeshore comes close to Queen Street here, and there is a long boardwalk which is a favorite spot for both local residents and tourists. The neighborhood is a bit more touristy than many areas of Toronto, even though the bulk of visitors are from other parts of the Greater Toronto Area, and the residents of the Beaches have an air of always being on vacation.
The Metro Toronto Convention Centre is "Canada's premier meeting facility", according to its web site. With two million square feet of floor space, the Convention Centre is large enough to host two Worldcon-sized cons at the same time. Next to Union Station, it is convenient to local and regional transit, intercity trains, and airport shuttles.
Next to the Convention Centre, the CN Tower is the world's tallest free-standing structure. Though built as a broadcast tower for many of Toronto's television and radio stations, this is also one of the city's leading tourist attractions. The main level includes an open-air observation deck, a revolving restaurant where one can enjoy the view, and the Glass Floor where one can look straight down at the roof of downtown skyscrapers. Above that, the Sky Pod allows one to see dozens of miles away (weather permitting) from an altitude of 1465 feet. Street level includes several attractions, including simulator rides (Dinosaur Hunter and Comet Impact), virtual reality, a Planet Hollywood restaurant, and more.
SkyDome is Toronto's main sporting stadium, home of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team and the Toronto Argonauts Canadian football team. The SkyDome Hotel is built into the north end of the stadium. This modern facility is the first stadium to be built with a retractable roof, allowing open-air events in summer and all-weather comfort at other times.
Roy Thomson Hall is the home of the Toronto Symphony at King and Simcoe Streets. This distinctive acoustically optimized structure is used for concerts and cultural events all year round.
Toronto City Hall is the center of municipal government. Its unique half-cylinder architecture appeared in an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation. The open space in front is Nathan Phillips Square, used for many civic gatherings. Across Bay Street is Old City Hall, now used as a municipal courtroom.
The Eaton Centre is the main shopping centre downtown, with more than three hundred shops, restaurants, and services catering to all tastes and pricetags. This very conveniently-located mall attracts both tourists and downtown residents, so it offers both quality and value to patrons.
The world's most modern sports arena is the new Air Canada Centre, built in 1999. This is the home of the Toronto Raptors basketball team and Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Known locally as "the Hangar" for its high ceilings and wide spaces, the Air Canada Centre is also used for concerts, trade shows, and other events.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is Toronto's leading centre for the fine arts. It has an excellent collection of classical, contemporary, and Canadian paintings and sculpture. Several world-class travelling collections come to the AGO every year. The AGO also has a compelling gallery shop, a fine restaurant, sculpture garden, film and video presentations, and other services. It is a must-visit to all students of the visual arts.
Chinatown Centre is the largest Chinese commercial centre outside China, with over a hundred shops and restaurants catering to the Chinese-Canadian community.
The Merril Collection is Toronto's public science fiction library, with a collection of more than 50,000 items. Founded by Judith Merril in 1970, the library is now housed on the third floor of the beautiful Lilian H. Smith Library at College and Huron Streets, with its bronze gargoyles at the door and four-story circular atrium at the center of the building. The basement meeting rooms host many community functions, particularly meetings and gatherings of Toronto science fiction community organizations. The special collection includes many irreplaceable items, including books, magazines, videos, and other items. Because of the fragility of many items, the bulk of the collection is in a special climate-controlled room. The world-renowned Osborne Collection of children's literature is housed on the fourth floor, while the first two floors are a general-interest library including many Chinese books and magazines.
The neighborhood across from the University of Toronto is heavily populated by Toronto's literary and artistic community. The block of Huron Street directly south of the library has significance to the community; Judy Merril lived here during the 1970s, and Tanya Huff lived next door during the late 1980s; the street has featured in Huff's books.
Queen's Park is the home of the provincial parliament of Ontario. The legislature conducts business according to British tradition, with opposing parties facing each other across the floor of the parliament and the speaker and pages wear robes. Behind (north of) the legislature is a shaded park with statues of historical figures. The wide space in front of the legislature is often used for public demonstrations, speeches by world leaders, and other public gatherings.
The galleries of the Royal Ontario Museum explore the decorative arts, archaeology, life sciences, natural history, and Canadian, native, and world culture. It also features several special exhibitions each year. Current displays feature dinosaurs, pottery and sculpture from ancient Cyprus, Korean art, biodiversity, and the new Inco Gallery of Earth Sciences. It has a museum shop, toy shop, and reproduction shop, as well four restaurants from fine dining to fast food.
Across the street is the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the only specialized museum of pottery and ceramic arts in North America. It contains five-thousand-year-old pre-Colombian artifacts, Italian majolica, 18th-century porcelain figurines, Maya and Inca pieces, contemporary Canadian artwork, and many other items. Two blocks west at Bloor and St. George is the quirky but lavish Bata Shoe Museum, another must-see in the costumer's tour of Toronto.
Built on a hillside overlooking the city from Spadina and St. Clair, Casa Loma is a quasi-medieval castle built before World War I by an eccentric businessman. From May to October the grounds feature horticultural displays. This unusual venue has appeared in television, film, and literature, from gothic horror to science fiction. This overdone structure bankrupted its builder, Sir Henry Pellatt, with its 98 rooms, secret passages, turreted stone towers, and such quirks as porcelain feeding troughs in the stables. The site hosts tours during the day and is rented out for private events in evenings; the fairytale setting is a favorite spot for lavish weddings.
Last updated: 29 April 2003 .
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