Toronto Feature

THE CLUES ARE SCATTERED throughout Parkdale. On the west wall of the Rhino, a deteriorating mural depicts the first Miss Toronto contest. On the northwest corner of Queen and Macdonell a second mural showcases a beach vista. The large archway of the Bathing Pavilion stands regally over the Sunnyside sands. They are all clues to…

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT a nondescript high-rise on Bloor Street between Huron and St. George was once the city’s most contentious piece of real estate. But, fifty years ago, it was exactly that. This building, not even really a high-rise anymore when measured against Toronto’s ever-rising altitude, once towered over its surroundings with anarchic…

IF YOU WERE ASKED TO NAME the most famous Canadian authors, who would come to mind? Margaret Atwood, surely. Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen. Mordecai Richler, L. M. Montgomery, Robertson Davies, . . . and probably a handful of others if you were given a moment to think about it. And yet, even if you were…

When he visited Toronto to shoot an episode of The Layover, the late Anthony Bourdain, with characteristic bluntness, kicked things off by bemoaning the state of the downtown core. “It’s not a good-looking city,” he said. He went on to amplify his reservations, declaring (I’m paraphrasing here) that the city had fallen victim to the…