Hello from Toronto – Exploring Riverdale and Queens Park by bike

I have no doubt that riding a bike is one of the best, if not the best, ways to explore a city. It covers more than walking, you can easily stop anywhere, and you can get to the hidden places you couldn’t get to by car or public transportation. I’ve decided that this summer I’m going to spend a lot of time exploring Toronto, sitting on the padded seat of my bike.

So after last week’s official Toronto bike tour with Sights on Bikes, I hit the road today just to see the city. On a beautiful Saturday morning, I left the eastern edge of Toronto and cycled into the Taylor Park Creek system, which is a beautiful, serene valley surrounding a creek, completely devoid of vehicular traffic. I returned to Stan Wadlow Park near Woodbine Avenue, biked west on one of Toronto’s designated bike lanes on Cosburn Avenue, turned south on Logan Avenue, and made my first stop at Withrow Park, where several merchants they sold a wide variety of homegrown produce and organic food products. The action on the playground was in full swing (literally) and local residents from East York and Riverdale had come to enjoy themselves and sample the bounty on offer.

Pedaling west on Hogarth Avenue, I decided to do an experiment: ride my bike while the camera rolled to give my viewers a real idea of ​​what this neighborhood is like. The Riverdale area, located south of Danforth Avenue, the main thoroughfare in eastern Toronto, is a quaint residential area with Victorian houses and tall, leafy trees. In recent years, many homes in the Riverdale area have been upgraded and renovated, and the resulting gentrification and central location have made it a very popular neighborhood.

I came to Broadview Avenue, a north-south connection between Danforth and Eastern avenues. Broadview Avenue overlooks the Don River Valley and offers several excellent vantage points of the downtown skyline. I stopped for the incredible panoramic view of the downtown Toronto skyscrapers and watched the hustle and bustle on Don Valley Parkway as soccer players exercised on the fields below the embankment.

Just a few minutes south of here, I stopped at the intersection of East Toronto’s Chinatown at Broadway and Gerrard streets. The city of Toronto boasts the second largest Chinese population in Canada after Vancouver and has three Chinatowns within the city limits. Chinese and Vietnamese stores on Broadview and Gerrard stretch from Broadview to Carlaw Avenue along Gerrard Street and sell low-cost produce, meats, seafood, and other general merchandise.

Nearby is a historic landmark: Don’s Jail was built between 1862 and 1865 and is one of Toronto’s most significant intact Victorian-era structures. The jail was expanded in the 1950s to increase capacity. The facilities in the old section of the prison are very outdated and one judge in particular credited one person with three days for every day they spent serving in the prison, just to account for the harsh circumstances. The Don Gaol was also the site of Canada’s last hangings: two convicted murderers were hanged here in 1962.

I then crossed the bridge over Don Valley and cycled north on Sumach Road heading into the Cabbagetown neighborhood for a quick visit to Riverdale Park, a public portion of sports fields anchored around Riverdale Farm, a publicly accessible farm. which is operated by the city. Starting in 1888, Riverdale Farm was actually the Toronto Zoo, but after the opening of the much larger Toronto Zoo on Scarborough’s east end in 1974, this site became a farm to which can be accessed for free from April to October.

Riverdale Farm is extremely popular with young families as it has farm animals such as horses, donkeys, cows, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry. Groups of young children gathered around the horse pen and checked out the various stables with different animals. I had to laugh when I saw one of the city workers walking two goats and several kids on a leash; he had never seen a goat on a leash before. Riverdale Farm has a central farmhouse, a tea room selling snacks and refreshments, as well as toilets. The grounds around the cottage are beautifully manicured and landscaped with a wide variety of flowers that are in full bloom.

Riverdale Farm’s north entrance is directly across from another Toronto historical landmark: the Necropolis Cemetery is Toronto’s oldest cemetery with many graves dating back to the early 1800s. Many of Toronto’s early celebrities are buried here, including George Brown, the founder of the newspaper that became the Globe and Mail, as well as William Lyon Mackenzie, Toronto’s first mayor. Beautiful tombstones tell stories of times gone by and of the cemetery’s 50,000 residents, each of whom left a mark on this city.

The area surrounding Riverdale Farm and Necropolis Cemetery is called Cabbagetown, a residential area started in the 1840s by Irish immigrants. The neighborhood’s name originated because the relatively poor residents resorted to growing cabbage in their front yards. Cabbagetown has undergone substantial gentrification since the 1970s and today is one of the city’s most desirable and picturesque residential neighborhoods. Many successful urban professionals, teachers, artists, and politicians call this Heritage Preservation District home.

From Cabbagetown I biked west on Wellesley Avenue, a major east-west connection in downtown Toronto. I crossed the intersection of Church and Wellesley, the heart of Toronto’s gay community. The Church Wellesley Village is one of Canada’s most vibrant communities and home to several special events such as Pride Week and the Church Street Fetish Fair. Dozens of shops, restaurants, bars, and outdoor patios make this a popular entertainment district.

Continuing past Yonge Street, Toronto’s main north-south artery previously listed as the world’s longest street in the Guinness Book of Records, I continued towards Queen’s Park, home of the Ontario Legislature. The park surrounding the Ontario Legislature was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales in 1860 and is named after Queen Victoria.

One of the architectural jewels in Toronto’s crown, the Ontario Legislative Building was designed by Buffalo-based architect Richard A. Waite and completed in a Richardsonian Romanesque style in 1893. The northwest corner also features the apartment of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, the Queen’s representative in this province, since 1937. Several statues of famous politicians adorn the grounds and the area on the south side of the building facing University Avenue is often used for ceremonial occasions.

Today, the park area on the north side of the Legislature was full of merchants, preparing for Afrofest. Several Caribbean and African businessmen were enlisting to sell all kinds of food, clothing, music, jewelry, and other ethnic products. I would have loved to try some of the treats, but when I got there around noon, the food stalls were still setting up and none of the food was ready yet.

Heading west from Queens Park, I entered the campus of the University of Toronto, with some 60,000 students, Canada’s largest university, which was founded as King’s College in 1827. According to a 2006 Newsweek international ranking, the U of T is the first ranked university in Canada, coming in as number 18 globally and number 5 outside the United States. Researchers at the University of Toronto have been responsible for discoveries and achievements such as insulin extraction, the first practical electron microscope, and the world’s first electronic cardiac pacemaker.

The central part of the U of T downtown campus features some impressive architectural heritage buildings in Romanesque and Gothic Revival styles, particularly on King’s College Circle. Hart House, a multi-purpose student center was funded by donations from the Massey Foundation and is named for Hart Massey (1823-1896), the Canadian industrialist who founded a successful farm equipment empire.

My appetite had already worked up and I was ready for a hearty lunch, so I cycled south on McCaul Street to Baldwin Street, which features two blocks of eclectic and diverse restaurants, most of which have outdoor patios. free on the street side. Indian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian and Thai restaurants are represented on this quaint neighborhood street, offering a wide range of eclectic tastes. I dropped into Kuni Sushi Ya restaurant and satiated my hunger with a satisfying miso soup and vegetable tempura while contemplating the rest of my route. The good thing is that Baldwin Street is a pretty laid-back bohemian street, so even with my biker outfit and messy hair I didn’t attract any awkward attention.

After strengthening myself, I continued my journey south on Beverley to the Rogers Centre, the former Skydome, Toronto’s multi-purpose stadium with the unique retractable roof and home to the Toronto Blue Jays (Major League Baseball) and Toronto Argonauts ( Canadian Football). I was particularly fascinated by the outdoor sculptures on the northwest side of the stadium: “The Audience” portrays a variety of sports fans celebrating the accomplishments of their favorite team.

A couple of minutes west on Blue Jays Way, I stopped at a monument to the Chinese railway workers, who helped build Canada’s railways in the second half of the 19th century. Many of these Chinese workers made up the main labor force in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. 5,000 railway workers were recruited from China and an additional 7,000 Chinese workers were brought in from California. Many of these workers became ill during construction or were killed while setting up explosives or perished in various construction-related accidents. Living conditions were precarious and the workers generally lived in tents. The Chinese Railway Workers Monument pays moving tribute to the contribution and fate of Chinese railway workers.

Curving around the south façade of Rogers Center I came to Roundhouse Park, a large public space immediately south of the CN Tower, named for the John Street Roundhouse, a locomotive inspection, service and repair facility built in 1929. The The facility, today a designated National Historic Site, was closed long ago and today is home to Toronto’s Steam Whistle Brewery Company, which produces a popular premium pilsner beer.

I continued biking under the Gardiner Expressway, an elevated highway connecting downtown Toronto to the western suburbs, eventually reaching the Toronto waterfront in an area called the Harbourfront. Surrounded by a multitude of high-rise condominiums, Harbourfront is one of Toronto’s premier entertainment districts, featuring restaurants, a high-end retail mall, galleries, and a theater. An international market offers goods and food from all over the world. A multitude of tour boats of all kinds dock at the foot of the Harbourfront and free concerts delight the crowds.

From here I took the bike path at Queens Quay to continue on to Toronto’s East End, finally arriving home after a full four to five hours of biking and discovering some of Toronto’s exciting neighborhoods.