Showing 1-15 of 15 results
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Canada Life Building
Push through the huge doors of the megalithic stone Canada Life building and front up to the lobby desk where you can collect a weather card that explains the mysteries of the 1950s beacon on top of the building. If it's flashing white, get ready for a big dump of snow.
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Enoch Turner Schoolhouse
Dating from 1848, this restored one-room classroom is where local kids are shown what the good ol' days were like. Wealthy brewer Enoch Turner opened it as Toronto's first free school so poor children could learn the three Rs. Gothic church-style windows emphasize the seriousness of it all. Visitors are only allowed inside when school tours aren't scheduled.
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Fort York
Established by the British in 1793 to protect the town of York, as Toronto was then known, Fort York was almost entirely destroyed during the War of 1812, when a small band of Ojibwa warriors and British and local troops couldn't halt the US incursion. The Americans went on to raze and loot the city but left of their own accord after just six days. The fort was rebuilt between 1813 and 1815.
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Gibson House
Scottish immigrant David Gibson, a successful surveyor and politician, built this refined Georgian-style house in 1851 after his return from an 11-year exile in the USA, the unfortunate result of his role in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Costumed workers run house tours between and , as well as occasional weekend hearth cooking demonstrations.
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Guild Inn
A 15-minute drive east of the Scarborough Bluffs is the quirky Guild Inn, an Arts & Crafts-style mansion dating from 1914 set amongst quiet lakefront parklands. An artists' colony formed here during The Depression; the garden contains a collection of sculptures, Ionic columns and gargoyles rescued from condemned city buildings during the '50s.
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Harbourfront Centre
Throughout the summer, especially during the weekends, the Harbourfront Centre puts on a kaleidoscopic variety of performing arts events at the York Quay Centre; many are aimed at kids, some are free. Performances sometimes take place on the covered outdoor Concert Stage beside the lake. Also outside are a lakeside ice-skating rink where you can learn to slice up the winter ice, and a ramshackle series of Artists' Gardens - seasonally-rotating raised planter beds constructed by local artists in a spirit of 'guerilla gardening.' The idea here is to inspire people to reclaim abandoned corners of the city with native species and heritage food plants. Sculptural elements include everything from smashed crockery to broken hockey sticks and caved-in televisions.
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Mackenzie House
Built in 1858, this brown brick rowhouse was owned by William Lyon Mackenzie, the city's first mayor and the leader of the failed Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Inside is a museum, a recreated printshop and gallery featuring changing exhibitions. Check out the brass door knocker, presented to Mackenzie in 1859 after his return from exile in America.
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Montgomery's Inn
Built in 1832 by an Irish military captain of the same name, the gracious stone symmetry of Montgomery's Inn is a fine example of Loyalist architecture, faithfully restored to its late-1840s heyday. It functioned as a hotel for 25 years then a farm until the 1940s. Staff in period dress answer questions and serve afternoon tea. Contemporary and traditional art exhibits, cooking classes and wine-and-cheese tastings are often hosted here.
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Mt Pleasant Cemetery
'Rest assured, we have space' is the slogan here, and indeed, it's hard to imagine a more pleasantly assuring place for the ultimate rest. Since the 19th-century, many of Toronto's brilliant and best (or at least richest) citizens have concurred, including classical musician Glenn Gould, Mackenzie, Eaton's founder Timothy Eaton, and Foster Hewitt, Canada's 'Voice of Hockey,' who coined the phrase, 'He shoots, he scores!'
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Osgoode Hall
Built in phases through the Victorian era, this august classic (named after Ontario's first Chief Justice) became a showcase for elite colonials, many of whom were lawyers. Inside a grand staircase rises from a gorgeous tiled atrium to the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Great Library, with miles of books, twisting stairways and 12m-high vaulted ceilings.
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Provincial Legislature
The seat of Ontario's Provincial Legislature resides in a fabulously ornate 1893 sandstone building in Queen's Park. Hospital employees lunch on the lawns as a few stray demonstrators write up sandwich boards and picket the front steps. Formidable oils of early colonials like Simcoe, Brock and Wolfe hang in the lobby, alongside Ontario's first parliamentary mace. For some homegrown entertainment, head for the visitors' gallery when the adversarial legislative assembly is in session. Viewing is free, but security regulations are in full force. You can't write, read or applaud as the honorable members heatedly debate such pressing issues as ski-doo safety. Free tours depart from the information desk - call or check the website for exact times, which are subject to change.
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Spadina Museum
More low-key than neighboring Casa Loma, this gracious mansion was built in 1866 as a country estate for financier James Austin and his family. Cream-painted brickwork is complimented by gloriously ornate wrought-iron portico and blue timber shutters. Lit by Victorian gaslights, the interior contains three generations of furnishings, art and fabrics.
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St James Cemetery
Many of Toronto's founding families are pushing up daisies at this historic cemetery, which belongs to St James Cathedral . Ancient gravestones slowly succumb to gravity and disappear beneath the lawn. Its beautifully proportioned little Gothic Revival Chapel of St James-the-Less (1860) - a national historic site - has justifiably been called one of the prettiest buildings in Canada.
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Toronto Heliconian Club
Nudged between art galleries and salons on Hazelton Ave, the former Olivet Congregational Church (1875) is constructed in 'Carpenter Gothic' style - boards, battens and intricate trim with a carved rose window and wooden spire. The hall was taken over by the Heliconian Club in 1923, an association for women in the arts and letters that hosts exhibitions, book launches and arts functions.
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Toronto Necropolis
The remains of 984 of Toronto's colonists, including the city's first mayor William Lyon Mackenzie, were transferred to this wickedly named cemetery in the 1850s when the old Potter's Field burial ground near Todmorden Mills started to contaminate the town. A road leads off Winchester St through the gates of the Necropolis, passing a Victorian Gothic chapel with a multicolored slate roof.
Showing 1-15 of 15 results
