Archives /// Intersections
Whether travelling into Toronto by vehicle or transit, there is little indication that you've arrived at the border of the city besides the modest blue signs containing its name and population.
Currently, Toronto's City Planning division is contemplating the construction of three signature "gateways" near the edges and entrances of the city.
The three locations under consideration are Dixon and Airport roads in the west, Eglinton, Victoria Park, and O'Conner in the east, and at the exits of the 401 at Yonge Street in the north.
The projects are being planned by the City and two Toronto architecture firms, Sweeny Sterling Finlayson & ...
In the western corner of North York sits a peculiar intersection in one of the city's bleakest environments. In 1972, the old Metro Toronto Roads and Transportation department built an elaborate interchange where Weston Road, Walsh Avenue (which quickly becomes Wilson Avenue to the east), and Albion Road meet, allowing traffic on Weston to dive under the seamless junction of the other two roads. The area is hard to define — it isn't quite part of Weston, nor Downsview, nor Thistletown.
Each of these roads takes on a different character and direction at the interchange. Wilson, straight as an arrow, ...
Facing south on Dundas Street West just below Bloor Street, you're looking at a choice out of The Wizard of Oz. The place where Dundas West and Roncesvalles meet is more a fork in the road than an intersection. From this perspective, there doesn't seem to be a big difference between the two routes — each is lined with brick buildings — but choose the Roncesvalles path and you'll find yourself on a street that feels like a small town in the middle of a big city; choose Dundas West and you'll wind up on a largely deserted stretch ...
I went shopping for Halloween candy at the drug store on Parliament when I lived in Cabbagetown. The guy in line in front of me, I noticed, had a shopping cart completely filled with candy. This is only half of it, he told me. "I'm coming back for the rest later." I raised an eyebrow. Isn't Cabbagetown a relatively childless zone? Don't the people here have dogs instead of children? Why was this guy spending $500 on little chocolate bars? Because the kids come from all around, he said, in vast pillaging hordes. This candy will be gone in under ...
The sum of Toronto's intersections is one giant intersection. We know that the Huron people portentously called this patch of land "the meeting place," and those first meet-ups didn't stop, even after the Hurons weren't allowed to name things around here anymore. And as Toronto has grown and changed rapidly over the most recent decades, from a sleepy provincial backwater to the metropolis it is now, many more of us have found it a good place to make camp as well. Toronto has become an intersection of everything: of architecture (cute Victorian next to glass high-rise), of people (Croatian living ...
