An old lighthouse brightens a neighbourhood transformed

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I’ve been thinking about place-making quite a bit recently; how an area once devoid of residents and flowerboxes and coffee shops can, over a period of just a few years, become, well, just that. And that Toronto, North America’s fourth-largest city, is lucky enough to continue to reclaim all sorts of underused land.

Entirely new neighbourhoods such as Liberty Village – in 2014 I wrote that while many critics had panned it, I rather like it – East Bayfront and the Canary District are filled with people. And speaking of the Canary, the old restaurant at Cherry and Front Streets, I mean, it’s always a plus when a storied landmark already exists to help with branding, or even as a convenient locating beacon (why the developer didn’t restore or recreate and reinstall the Canary’s iconic neon sign is beyond me).

So, with that in mind, I decided to explore a reclaimed part of the city I haven’t walked in some time. I parked beside the 1929 Tip Top Tailors building (registered as a condominium in 2006) and decided to begin my Architour at what I consider to be that neighbourhood’s beacon, which, in its day, was an actual beacon for sailing ships: the Queen’s Wharf Lighthouse.

Designed by Kivas Tully and erected in 1861, I almost walked right past it, as it’s currently enshrouded by plywood and green netting (Clifford Restoration Ltd. is restoring it); it’s also been so dwarfed by the condominium towers across the street, it would be nice if some sort of eye-catching landscaping will be part of the project to help it stand out to tourists.

And as I ponder why no business or condo tower nearby took the name “the Lighthouse,” I walked west along Fleet Street until I found the heritage plaque, which tells the tale of landfill and the lighthouse’s move here in 1929. Because my eye is always attracted to public art or sculpture, I was drawn north to the forecourt of WaterParkCity and Vito Acconci’s Fence-on-the-Loose; billowing black ribbons of steel (sad to see safety tape on some of them). As I walked north on Angelique Street to Fort York Boulevard (more of Mr. Acconci’s ribbons here), I realized I haven’t walked the Bentway since it opened in 2018.

The Bentway is truly magnificent. As Stefan Novakovic wrote in Canadian Architect magazine, it “knits together the urban fabric beneath Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, creating a vital and flexible space from the leftovers of the mid-century automobile infrastructure above.” A sort of reverse of New York’s High Line, it also gives a sense of place to new condo-dwellers, and instills a sense of play. For the hour I wandered about I spotted dog walkers, moms and dads with baby strollers, and art lovers checking out the many installations. My favourite is Balete Bulate Bituka by Leeroy New, which is described as an “otherworldly creature” made of “discarded plastics from Toronto and intertwined with living plants.” Gaggles of giggly teenagers had just rented roller skates ($18 an hour, I was told).

Since the Bentway was closed from Garrison Road to Strachan Avenue for an event, I walked past the Fort York Visitor’s Centre a second time (but the Kearns Mancini/Patkau design is so wonderful I could walk past it every day) and slow-walked as far east as I could until the whole beautiful thing fizzles out at the No. 89 mark (each of the huge concrete structures that hold the expressway aloft are numbered). While plans are for the Bentway to eventually stretch to Spadina Avenue, my hope is that it, someday, will travel the full length of the elevated highway.

Crossing Fort York Boulevard, I walked south on Grand Magazine Street and turned east onto Bruyeres Mews. And while I can’t say I love the architectural design of the new residential buildings along here, I do think the pedestrian realm was considered: There are little front stoops, bits of iron fencing and even some rather tall trees along the south side of the street. It all creates a lovely view corridor to my next destination, the recently restored 1928 Loblaws Groceteria Ltd. warehouse, which now houses an actual grocery store inside of it, along with an office building on its roof and condo towers behind.

While I’m sure the store is lovely, I made a beeline for the northwest corner of the development to see how the complex handles the intersection with the (still raised) Gardiner Expressway. And it’s stunning. At the corner of Housey and Bathurst Streets, a stair takes one up to a new LCBO and Starbucks. But a massive cutaway of the roof between the two stores transforms the riveted, slightly rusted, green-painted metal structure of the roadway into the ceiling over one’s head. Further exploration of the site reveals a lower portion with a fountain and the entrance to underground parking. Unfortunately, there aren’t any restaurants and I’m hungry, so I walked east on Housey Street to Dan Leckie Way. Here, I turned south to see if anything catches my eye along Queens Quay West, noting as I walked that construction of more Bentway seems to be in progress here.

As I sat down to eat – surprisingly there weren’t that many options – I thought about a few things: Since the “high streets” in this new neighbourhood are wide thoroughfares built when this wasn’t a pedestrian-friendly place, there were too many points where I had to sprint across four to six lanes of traffic. Would a Las Vegas-style set of raised pedestrian walkways solve this? The stretch of Lake Shore Boulevard West between Lower Spadina and Dan Leckie Way is absolutely horrible: The vent-grilled and service-doored backsides of condo buildings populate one side, and the grubby, non-transformed area under the Gardiner are on the other. If it’s not in the works to transform this section in the next few years, why not lease the space to a dozen food trucks?

I did also think of this: With the transformation of the Canada Malting Silos site under way as part of the Bathurst Quay Neighbourhood development, the Bentway stretching ever further and the already established neighbourhood of CityPlace, this is an area that Architourists need to add to their walk list.