Distractions, reflections

In honour of Jane Jacobs, Toronto was one of the cities offering a weekend of “free, community-based series of urban walking tours, led by volunteer guides”. Of the 68 tours available in Toronto, I chose the Jane’s Walk on “Creating an Urban Estuary at the Mouth of the Don” led by Ken Greenberg. It was an easy bike ride to the starting point, the Keating Channel Pub in the Port Lands.

Ken Greenberg had described the walk as follows:

Major world cities such as Toronto are in transition, needing to re-integrate strategically important post-industrial landscapes while reframing their interactions with the natural environment. Through a major initiative of WATERFRONToronto the long neglected area where the Don River enters Toronto Harbour is being transformed into a naturalized river mouth in a generous park setting as the centerpiece of vibrant new mixed-use riverfront and lakefront neighborhood that unifies the goals of ecological restoration and urban regeneration. A team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates of which I am part was selected through an international competition to guide this effort. The tour will explore the past, present and future of this remarkable site.

Looking northwest from the pub, downstream on the Keating Channel, the Cherry Street bridge south of Lakeshore Boulevard East is in the foreground, and downtown Toronto is beyond.

Looking east, upstream on the Keating Channel, the elevated Gardiner Expressway turns north to enter the Don Valley Parkway. The Don River would naturally have gone south through the area now the Port Lands, but was redirected at the beginning of the 20th century to flush sewage more rapidly into the harbour as an alternative to the natural path through the marsh. Greenberg foreshadowed the announcement by Mayor David Miller that the elevated roadway would be brought down to grade, and routed further north so that promenades can be constructed along both the north and south banks. Read the rest of this entry →

Living in South Riverdale in Toronto, there’s not much of the city south of us. Between our home and Lake Ontario, there’s the Port Lands — an industrial area gradually being taken over by movie production. Since I hadn’t been around Toronto for much of the summer, I hopped on my bike just to see what’s new. The first big change was the opening, on Cherry Street, of a T&T Supermarket: a branch of the upscale, full-service chain originally in Vancouver area, with some branches up in the northern suburbs of Richmond Hill and Markham.

I used to shop in this location when the store was a Knob Hill Farms. That was a downscale warehouse experience, with lots of European imports and low prices. The T&T store was a complete renovation of the building, and it’s well lit, with extensive services of take-out food (dim sum and sushi), a bakery, and tanks of live fish. Read the rest of this entry →