yyzer
Senior Member
Cute article by an Ohio travel writer on TO's attractions, as posted in the news-herald.com.....didn't know the acoustics were so good up in North York..
Opinion
Toronto hit right note for Jersey
Sunday, October 19, 2008 12:59 AM EDT
By Jim Collins
JCollins@News-Herald.com
“Outstanding!â€
“Terrific!â€
“Best musical I’ve ever seen!â€
I always listen to comments from the crowd as it pushes its way out when I leave a theater after a stunning performance, and those were the rave reviews we were hearing the other evening as we left the fabulous musical show “Jersey Boys.â€
Too bad the show was over, we thought. We could have taken a lot more. It was simply a power-packed evening that lit up the entire audience and put a smile on every face in the sold-out house.
The house, in this instance, was the Toronto Centre for the Arts, which has the best acoustics I have ever experienced anywhere – Cleveland, New York City or you name it.
I know what you’re thinking – why would anyone drive 5 1/2 hours to see a musical in Toronto when you could have driven 25 minutes to see “Jersey Boys†in Cleveland?
Because, silly, the difference between Toronto and Cleveland is, well, trust me, there’s a difference.
The show, winner of the 2006 Best Musical Tony Award and the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album, is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, one of the all time great musical groups and one of only two (the other was the Beach Boys) that survived the invasion from England of the Beatles.
The cast that portrayed Frankie Valli, Nick Massi, Tommy DeVito and Bob Gaudio (do you detect a commonality of ethnic background here?) was exceptional. By the way, Valli’s birth name was Francis Castelluccio, and he’s still going strong after all these years.
The boys from Jersey sang the group’s greatest hits, including “Sherry,†“Can’t Take My Eyes off of You,†“My Eyes Adored You†and “Working My Way Back to You.â€
The only personal favorite left out was “Swearin’ to God,†but what the heck – if they included all of the group’s hits we would have been there all night. The program even listed 19 huge hits they didn’t have room for.
I never saw a more enthusiastic audience. I mean, the well-mannered crowd was elevated to new levels of craziness in roaring its approval of the performance.
The producers, dancap Productions, has extended the show through Nov. 9, and if you’d really like to go – and you don’t mind a short drive – I would recommend it highly. You can Google “Jersey Boys†and find out all you need to know about ordering tickets.
I got to thinking afterward where I would rank “Jersey Boys†among my all-time favorite musicals for sheer entertainment and pure fun.
Well, let’s see. There’s “My Fair Lady,†and “Most Happy Fella†and “Bells Are Ringing.â€
And “West Side Story.â€
But “Jersey Boys†is right up there with the best of them. And don’t tell anyone, but I liked it better than “Phantom of the Opera.†Just a personal preference.
Now, nobody drives that far just to see a show. You do other things – like shop, dine and check out the tourist attractions.
And you don’t drive home at 11 o’clock at night after a show. So you stay over for a night or two – or three.
Toronto has no shortage of word-class accommodations. We chose the Delta Chelsea simply because it is elegant and guests are treated like royalty.
Its many restaurants are so fine that you don’t really have to leave the building if you don’t care to. But when you’re in Toronto you rise early, have an almond croissant with your juice and coffee, and you start walking.
You can stay fit by walking in Toronto.
The Delta Chelsea is in the very heart of the action – on Gerrard Street between Yonge and Bay. I could find it blindfolded.
There is also a back entrance on Elm Street. You can duck out that way, walk straight across the street to Barberians Steak House, and have the most elegant meal you have ever experienced. But please, make reservations. We were there on a Friday night and it was packed.
We spent most of Friday walking a few blocks south to Dundas Square, where there are always musicians playing oddball instruments and guys making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.
They attract huge throngs of onlookers.
The rate of money exchange is pretty good right now – about $1.04 Canadian for every American dollar. (The rate changes daily.) So we armed ourselves with a few bucks and slipped off Yonge Street into the Eaton Centre.
It’s hard to describe. It is a shopping arcade several stories high and deep – into the underground.
We shopped virtually until we dropped. Actually, we didn’t drop, but we dropped some cash as part of the Good Neighbor Policy with Canada, not to mention picking up some fabulous bargains.
It is easy to spend an entire day inside Eaton Centre. We barely made it back to the hotel in time to freshen up for our one-minute stroll to Barberains.
The next day we wanted to see Yorkville, which is north of the Delta Chelsea. We could easily have walked, but decided to take the subway because subways are fun – perhaps not in New York City, but definitely in Toronto.
I have to remember to keep my directions straight in Toronto, because at home the lake (Erie) is to the north, and in Toronto the lake (Ontario) is to the south.
We took the subway north to the Bloor station. There is only one station (Wellesley) between College, where we got on, and Bloor.
When we got off the train we checked out hundreds of shops underground, and after the brief spelunking session came above ground and walked a block to Cumberland, where you encounter the storied Yorkville District.
It is a great place to people watch. You will see fashionably dressed ladies wearing styles that may not arrive in Cleveland for five years – if then. But remember, Toronto is a fashion center a la New York and Paris.
A quick walk through the Holt Renfew department store on Bloor will convince you that if you want to open a charge account you had better check in first with your banker.
It is the most expensive store I have ever seen in my life. They had some flimsy little jackets for ladies – mere filigrees of nothingness, really – that sold for $2,850. We didn’t buy any.
I didn’t buy any shirts at Harry Rosen’s, either. I try to keep shirt purchases under $300 each – well under.
We didn’t have time for Chinatown, but I’ve been there before. It’s well worth a trolley car ride down Dundas if you haven’t visited there.
I don’t know of any city that is as cosmopolitan as Toronto. We didn’t see many Americans on the streets. (That’s a joke, son). But you do see all sorts of people in all shades and hues of the spectrum, and they take pride in their bearing and appearance.
Most of the clerks at the hotel seemed to be young, attractive ladies of Asian background, and were they ever knowledgeable about their duties!
The drive home from Toronto was a snap. The next day (last Monday) was Thanksgiving in Canada, and not a lot of people seemed to be streaming into town on the highway.
You have to be alert driving on the Queen Elizabeth Way and the Gardiner Expressway because I don’t think the drivers there understand the signs alongside the road. They say the speed limit is 100 per hour, but that is kilometers, not miles. The translation is 60 mph. But most of the drivers seem to drive 100 MILES per hour.
All I know is that when I’m tooling along at 60 mph, other drivers are whizzing past as if I’m in reverse.
You’ll find plenty of hockey on the TV in your hotel room in Toronto, but I managed to locate a baseball playoff game between Boston and Tampa Bay that featured seven home runs and an hour-long fifth inning.
The best part of television watching was the total absence of political ads for Obama and McCain. I can do without those forever. But I did get a taste of the ads for the Conservative and Liberal parties in Ontario.
It would make more sense if we called our major parties by those same names. But that will never happen in our lifetimes, because it is just too logical.
Opinion
Toronto hit right note for Jersey
Sunday, October 19, 2008 12:59 AM EDT
By Jim Collins
JCollins@News-Herald.com
“Outstanding!â€
“Terrific!â€
“Best musical I’ve ever seen!â€
I always listen to comments from the crowd as it pushes its way out when I leave a theater after a stunning performance, and those were the rave reviews we were hearing the other evening as we left the fabulous musical show “Jersey Boys.â€
Too bad the show was over, we thought. We could have taken a lot more. It was simply a power-packed evening that lit up the entire audience and put a smile on every face in the sold-out house.
The house, in this instance, was the Toronto Centre for the Arts, which has the best acoustics I have ever experienced anywhere – Cleveland, New York City or you name it.
I know what you’re thinking – why would anyone drive 5 1/2 hours to see a musical in Toronto when you could have driven 25 minutes to see “Jersey Boys†in Cleveland?
Because, silly, the difference between Toronto and Cleveland is, well, trust me, there’s a difference.
The show, winner of the 2006 Best Musical Tony Award and the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album, is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, one of the all time great musical groups and one of only two (the other was the Beach Boys) that survived the invasion from England of the Beatles.
The cast that portrayed Frankie Valli, Nick Massi, Tommy DeVito and Bob Gaudio (do you detect a commonality of ethnic background here?) was exceptional. By the way, Valli’s birth name was Francis Castelluccio, and he’s still going strong after all these years.
The boys from Jersey sang the group’s greatest hits, including “Sherry,†“Can’t Take My Eyes off of You,†“My Eyes Adored You†and “Working My Way Back to You.â€
The only personal favorite left out was “Swearin’ to God,†but what the heck – if they included all of the group’s hits we would have been there all night. The program even listed 19 huge hits they didn’t have room for.
I never saw a more enthusiastic audience. I mean, the well-mannered crowd was elevated to new levels of craziness in roaring its approval of the performance.
The producers, dancap Productions, has extended the show through Nov. 9, and if you’d really like to go – and you don’t mind a short drive – I would recommend it highly. You can Google “Jersey Boys†and find out all you need to know about ordering tickets.
I got to thinking afterward where I would rank “Jersey Boys†among my all-time favorite musicals for sheer entertainment and pure fun.
Well, let’s see. There’s “My Fair Lady,†and “Most Happy Fella†and “Bells Are Ringing.â€
And “West Side Story.â€
But “Jersey Boys†is right up there with the best of them. And don’t tell anyone, but I liked it better than “Phantom of the Opera.†Just a personal preference.
Now, nobody drives that far just to see a show. You do other things – like shop, dine and check out the tourist attractions.
And you don’t drive home at 11 o’clock at night after a show. So you stay over for a night or two – or three.
Toronto has no shortage of word-class accommodations. We chose the Delta Chelsea simply because it is elegant and guests are treated like royalty.
Its many restaurants are so fine that you don’t really have to leave the building if you don’t care to. But when you’re in Toronto you rise early, have an almond croissant with your juice and coffee, and you start walking.
You can stay fit by walking in Toronto.
The Delta Chelsea is in the very heart of the action – on Gerrard Street between Yonge and Bay. I could find it blindfolded.
There is also a back entrance on Elm Street. You can duck out that way, walk straight across the street to Barberians Steak House, and have the most elegant meal you have ever experienced. But please, make reservations. We were there on a Friday night and it was packed.
We spent most of Friday walking a few blocks south to Dundas Square, where there are always musicians playing oddball instruments and guys making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.
They attract huge throngs of onlookers.
The rate of money exchange is pretty good right now – about $1.04 Canadian for every American dollar. (The rate changes daily.) So we armed ourselves with a few bucks and slipped off Yonge Street into the Eaton Centre.
It’s hard to describe. It is a shopping arcade several stories high and deep – into the underground.
We shopped virtually until we dropped. Actually, we didn’t drop, but we dropped some cash as part of the Good Neighbor Policy with Canada, not to mention picking up some fabulous bargains.
It is easy to spend an entire day inside Eaton Centre. We barely made it back to the hotel in time to freshen up for our one-minute stroll to Barberains.
The next day we wanted to see Yorkville, which is north of the Delta Chelsea. We could easily have walked, but decided to take the subway because subways are fun – perhaps not in New York City, but definitely in Toronto.
I have to remember to keep my directions straight in Toronto, because at home the lake (Erie) is to the north, and in Toronto the lake (Ontario) is to the south.
We took the subway north to the Bloor station. There is only one station (Wellesley) between College, where we got on, and Bloor.
When we got off the train we checked out hundreds of shops underground, and after the brief spelunking session came above ground and walked a block to Cumberland, where you encounter the storied Yorkville District.
It is a great place to people watch. You will see fashionably dressed ladies wearing styles that may not arrive in Cleveland for five years – if then. But remember, Toronto is a fashion center a la New York and Paris.
A quick walk through the Holt Renfew department store on Bloor will convince you that if you want to open a charge account you had better check in first with your banker.
It is the most expensive store I have ever seen in my life. They had some flimsy little jackets for ladies – mere filigrees of nothingness, really – that sold for $2,850. We didn’t buy any.
I didn’t buy any shirts at Harry Rosen’s, either. I try to keep shirt purchases under $300 each – well under.
We didn’t have time for Chinatown, but I’ve been there before. It’s well worth a trolley car ride down Dundas if you haven’t visited there.
I don’t know of any city that is as cosmopolitan as Toronto. We didn’t see many Americans on the streets. (That’s a joke, son). But you do see all sorts of people in all shades and hues of the spectrum, and they take pride in their bearing and appearance.
Most of the clerks at the hotel seemed to be young, attractive ladies of Asian background, and were they ever knowledgeable about their duties!
The drive home from Toronto was a snap. The next day (last Monday) was Thanksgiving in Canada, and not a lot of people seemed to be streaming into town on the highway.
You have to be alert driving on the Queen Elizabeth Way and the Gardiner Expressway because I don’t think the drivers there understand the signs alongside the road. They say the speed limit is 100 per hour, but that is kilometers, not miles. The translation is 60 mph. But most of the drivers seem to drive 100 MILES per hour.
All I know is that when I’m tooling along at 60 mph, other drivers are whizzing past as if I’m in reverse.
You’ll find plenty of hockey on the TV in your hotel room in Toronto, but I managed to locate a baseball playoff game between Boston and Tampa Bay that featured seven home runs and an hour-long fifth inning.
The best part of television watching was the total absence of political ads for Obama and McCain. I can do without those forever. But I did get a taste of the ads for the Conservative and Liberal parties in Ontario.
It would make more sense if we called our major parties by those same names. But that will never happen in our lifetimes, because it is just too logical.
