Landmark sights in Toronto
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University of Toronto – St George Campus
Life at the University of Toronto rotates around the grassy/muddy expanse of King's College Circle, where students study on blankets, kick soccer balls around and dream of graduation day in domed Convocation Hall.
Dating from 1919, sociable Hart House is an all-purpose art gallery, music performance space, theater, student lounge and cafe. Soldiers' Tower next door is a memorial to students who lost their lives during WWI and WWII. A nearby mid-19th-century Romanesque Revival building houses the U of T Art Centre, a contemporary art |gallery for Canadian and world cultures.
If you're architecturally bent or have an inclination for urban planning, check out the Eric Arthur…
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B
Maple Leaf Gardens
This hallowed hockey arena was built in an astounding five months during the Great Depression, and was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs for over 50 years. The Leafs lost their first game (and the last at the Gardens in 2009) to the Chicago Blackhawks in 1931, but went on to win 13 Stanley Cups before relocating to the Air Canada Centre in 1999. Over the years, Elvis, Sinatra and the Beatles have all belted out tunes here.
The Gardens were bought by grocery chain Loblaws in 2004, but have sat unchanged since. When we visited, renovations were under way (with a $60 million price tag) that will include sports facilities, a Loblaws store and a memorabilia museum. Renovations…
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C
Exhibition Place
Every August, historic Exhibition Place is revived for its original purpose, the Canadian National Exhibition. During 'The Ex', millions of visitors flood the midway for carnival rides, lumberjack competitions and more good, honest, homegrown fun than a Sunday-school picnic in June. The beaux arts Victory statue over Princes' Gate has stood proud since 1927, when Canada celebrated its 60th birthday.
Other events held at Exhibition Place throughout the year include the Grand Prix of Toronto in July and a slew of spectator sports and indie design shows. At other times the grounds are often spookily bereft of visitors. Parking costs $12 (after 6pm it will set you back back…
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D
Distillery District
The slick, 5-hectare Distillery District emerges phoenixlike from the 1832 Gooderham and Worts distillery – once the British Empire's largest distillery. Victorian industrial warehouses have been converted into soaring galleries, artists studios, pricey design shops, coffeehouses, restaurants, the Young Centre for Performing Arts and the Mill Street Brewery. Wedding parties shoot photos against a backdrop of redbrick and cobblestone; clean-cut couples shop for leather lounge suites beneath charmingly decrepit gables and gantries. In summer expect live jazz, exhibitions and food-focused events.
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Harbourfront Centre
The 4-hectare Harbourfront Centre puts on a kaleidoscopic variety of performing arts events at the York Quay Centre; many are kid-focused, some are free. Performances sometimes take place on the covered outdoor concert stage by the lake. Also outside are a lakeside ice-skating rink where you can slice up the winter ice, and the ramshackle Artists' Gardens – seasonally rotating raised planter beds constructed by local artists in the spirit of 'guerilla gardening.' Parking costs $12 to $15.
Don't miss the free galleries, including the Photo Passage and the functioning Craft Studio.
Power Plant Gallery is a big-reputation gallery celebrating contemporary Canadian art.
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RC Harris Filtration Plant
Commanding heavenly views of the lakefront on a priceless slab of real estate, the elegantly proportioned RC Harris Filtration Plant is a modern art-deco masterpiece that has appeared in countless movies and TV shows, as well as in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. Originally residents disparagingly dubbed it the 'Palace of Purification,' due to hefty construction costs during the Great Depression. The operational filtration plant is currently closed to the public, but hard-core Ondaatje fans should call to see if tours are back on the agenda.
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