University Avenue - Toronto's Grand Avenue?

[LordWanker]

I traveled to Montreal again with a friend, who commented that Montreal is so much prettier than Toronto. Streets, shops, buildings, parks. It even gives an impression that Montreal is a bigger and wealthier city, because downtown Montreal doesn't have many skinny little houses we see on all the downtown streets. Instead, they have grand buildings made of stone or brick.

Do you realize that Montreal is much older than Toronto?
You really need to review this thread http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/6947-Miscellany-Toronto-Photographs-Then-and-Now to realize that Toronto DID have those grand buildings.

 

[freshcutgrass]

I am surprised at the numbers, and by the fact that NYC is bankrupt. They sure do a great job of maintaining what they have, Toronto should have no excuses then for its shabby park appearances.

Well, you can't look at a few things and assume the entire city's infrastructure is the same. And the things you may seem to admire are most likely done with private money...not the result of municipal intervention.

NYC looks a hell of a lot better than it did in the 70's, when things were incredibly bleak, but NYC generally can only fund about half of its state of good repair budget, despite lots and lots of taxes. And when you have a capital debt of $73.5 billion, that's a lot of interest payments that have to be made. And keep in mind, that doesn't even include public transit...that's run by a State Authority....which has it's $40 billion debt.

Look...I love NYC, but I don't kid myself into thinking it's some kind of municipal wonderland...it's always been terrible that way.

Some of Toronto's parks may have seen less money invested than ideal, but to characterize all Toronto parks as "shabby" is a real stretch. It's preferable to raising taxes and going billions into debt. And for what? You'll just end up even in worse fiscal shape down the road, and things will get even shabbier (like it did in NYC).

I traveled to Montreal again with a friend, who commented that Montreal is so much prettier than Toronto. Streets, shops, buildings, parks. It even gives an impression that Montreal is a bigger and wealthier city, because downtown Montreal doesn't have many skinny little houses we see on all the downtown streets. Instead, they have grand buildings made of stone or brick.

I love Montreal as much as the next person, but people really have to stop with these silly comparisons. Montreal has always been the poor, welfare shabby city. It's so obvious, it's stupid to even have to point it out. There's certainly nothing "grander" about Montreal...Toronto has far more grander buildings of the last 100 years. Montreal just seems charming because it never changes...and hasn't added even a fraction of modernity that Toronto has in the last 50 years.

 

[junctionist]

One has to acknowledge that Montreal does a good job at fashioning itself as a grand and attractive city in its public realm. In Montreal, you're far less likely to encounter a cluster of wires and shabby poles along an important street--main streets have buried overhead wires, attractive street lights, sleek and unobtrusive black traffic signals mounted on the corners of streets instead of above the roadway, and elegant street furniture that compliments it all. In Toronto, even in critical places like at Queen's Park and College where there's a lot of beauty, it's obscured by a trashy public realm of redundant poles, rural-style big yellow traffic signals over the roadway, crooked signs, overhead wires, and poured concrete paving.

Montreal has for a long time invested in the design of its parks and squares, and the most recent wave of reconstructions has meant more attractive spaces like Victoria Square and Place Jean-Paul Riopelle with the La Joute sculptural installation. This investment sets a tone of sophistication and elegance that allows the built form's beauty to come through. If Toronto streets got the same treatment, our city would present its attractive built form and significance more effectively. The messy public realm on important streets like Queen in Toronto discourages admiration of the beauty in elements like the colourful and sometimes whimsical Victorian blocks and imposing stone Beaux-Arts bank buildings.

 

[freshcutgrass]

One has to acknowledge that Montreal does a good job at fashioning itself as a grand and attractive city in its public realm. In Montreal, you're far less likely to encounter a cluster of wires and shabby poles along an important street--main streets have buried overhead wires, attractive street lights, sleek and unobtrusive black traffic signals mounted on the corners of streets instead of above the roadway, and elegant street furniture that compliments it all.

You pick some interesting things to constitute the "public realm".

Every city picks and chooses what it will spend it's capital improvement budgets on, and that will be unique to each city, as each city has unique needs and priorities. The one thing they all have in common, is public realm improvements that far outweigh any one's budgets. Toronto's budget is far higher than Montreal's, and Toronto makes far more public realm improvements.

To listen to some of you people, you'd think burying some hydro poles and putting some pretty benches in some existing parks is all that needs to be done. We could do more of that here in Toronto too...but it will just be at the expense of something else. Then you'd be bitching about how not having a $600 million upgrade for Union Station...or a Sugar Beach...or whatever 100 other projects the city built is such a drag.

You can't have it all...done all at once. If you think the city should have put off something else to do something you like more...fine, but don't pretend it isn't doing anything. That's why all this myopic cherry-picking of a single item somewhere else that we aren't doing is just giving me eye cancer every time I have to read it.

In the meantime, it's not like the city is unliveable.

 

[Urban Shocker]

do people love rough "natural state" parks and gardens? if they do, they go to the suburbs and remote areas. An hour away on the freeway, it is nothing but untouched nature. They don't go to Canada's biggest city for wild nature. It is more of an excuse for cheapness and poor design than want to stay natural and wild.

Our closeness to the natural world, both within ( our extensive ravine system ) and without ( that drive into rural Ontario ), is part of what defines Toronto, so there's no contradiction in enjoying and expressing that fact in our green spaces. It hasn't prevented us, in the past, from designing small, manicured parks in the city, nor does it now. Look around, and enjoy, rather than trying to impose some sort of imported model based on the incorrect idea that the grass is assumed to be always greener somewhere else.

 

[adma]

Funny thing is that even Montreal has rough "natural style" in its midst

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Royal

 

[thecharioteer]

the problem is not the shabbiness, but rather some don't consider it an issue and claim it is some sort of intentional design.

let's be honest, Toronto's public space is mostly poorly designed. Nothing is carefully planned and exquisitely presented. There are a lot of things we can learn from cities like Chicago and NYC, despite some of the problems those cities have.

kkgg7 is absolutely correct, and the reason I posted the Central Park pics was to illustrate the design excellence it represents, not to get into statistical analyses of park use per capita. We're talking about issues that transcend individual cities, basic ones like: width of walkways, materials, tree species and planting, seating, lighting, seasonal changes, public art, food uses, flexibility, integration into the surrounding neighbourhood, children, seniors. Why not learn from the best?

Would everyone in Toronto not love to have an urban space like Bryant Park? Again, from a design point-of-view (imagine it at 11 Wellesley West), in the daytime, night time, summer, winter, Fashion Week, Luminato...

 

[car4041]

It even gives an impression that Montreal is a bigger and wealthier city, because downtown Montreal doesn't have many skinny little houses we see on all the downtown streets.

Those "skinny little houses" are a big part of what makes Toronto Toronto. If you don't like them, then you just don't like Toronto.

 

[kkgg7]

Those "skinny little houses" are a big part of what makes Toronto Toronto. If you don't like them, then you just don't like Toronto.

no, those skinny little houses are a big part of what makes most of the generic suburbs in North America, which are hardly distinguishable from each other. They don't and shouldn't define what Toronto is.

For someone like me from elsewhere, with no emotional attachment to Toronto or years of personal memories here, you are right, I don't like how Toronto looks, and it didn't give me a strong reason to. Small Victorian houses are practically present in everyone towns and villages on this continent. They are not Toronto's specialty.

I was walking past Crescent St, St Laurent st, and St Denis st in Montreal, looking at those beautiful houses, staircases, balconies, patios and kept thinking, how come there is not one single street in Toronto that is as charming as this? Montreal may have a smaller downtown and fewer and shorter buildings, but the streets beat Toronto hands-down!

Please don't say something childish like “if don't like it, why don't you leave". I am offering what Toronto may be lacking as a big city and you guys shouldn't selectively only listen to the good things and pretend everything is fantastic here.

 

[car4041]

no, those skinny little houses are a big part of what makes most of the generic suburbs in North America, which are hardly distinguishable from each other.

You clearly need to visit more of the generic suburbs of North America. The bay-and-gable is widely recognized as a distinct Toronto style.

For someone like me from elsewhere, with no emotional attachment to Toronto or years of personal memories here, you are right, I don't like how Toronto looks, and it didn't give me a strong reason to.

I'm also from elsewhere, and yet I do like how Toronto looks. You can't assume that anyone with no emotional attachment to Toronto will feel the same way as you do. Many people move here and absolutely love it. Others move here and don't. It's not necessarily related to any sentimental attachment.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Would everyone in Toronto not love to have an urban space like Bryant Park?

Oh...can we just pick anything, anywhere in the world in this game?

I'd also like a Piazza San Marco, and the Great Pyramids (but sitting out in the lake on their own islands).

You people are just giving me a headache.

no, those skinny little houses are a big part of what makes most of the generic suburbs in North America, which are hardly distinguishable from each other.

Yea right.....if Manhattan had a Cabbagetown, you'd never here the f*cking end of it. It would be immortalized in a Woody Allen film.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Oh...can we just pick anything, anywhere in the world in this game?

I'd also like a Piazza San Marco, and the Great Pyramids (but sitting out in the lake on their own islands).

You people are just giving me a headache.


Yea right.....if Manhattan had a Cabbagetown, you'd never here the f*cking end of it. It would be immortalized in a Woody Allen film.

I don't see anything wrong in using existing models, whether from antiquity or recent periods, to incorporate strong design elements in new projects.

Piazza San Marco was the basis for a major public space in New Orleans; a descendent of the Pyramids shows up in front of the Louvre in Paris.

Appreciation and incorporation of forms, materials and overall proportions does not mean direct copying.

No one would expect a design based on the example of Bryant Park to have a Beaux Arts library planted at any given end. It might mean that the space flow, basic plan and plantings are used as a template. Which would indeed be welcome anywhere, not just Toronto--Bryant Park is possibly the best-designed park of its size in North America.

 

[freshcutgrass]

I don't see anything wrong in using existing models, whether from antiquity or recent periods, to incorporate strong design elements in new projects.

But that's not what's going on here...we are straight out coveting (which is a sin ya know he he) and holding it up as a slight on Toronto for not having it, which is kinda stupid.

If Toronto were planning a similar public space, privately managed and funded, you could use Bryant Park as some kind of loosely-based influence I suppose...or not. I just don't think a similar space and function is planned in Toronto at the moment. Allen Gardens might be a good candidate for that kind of scheme, if one such existed.

 

[FAC33]

You clearly need to visit more of the generic suburbs of North America. The bay-and-gable is widely recognized as a distinct Toronto style.

I can guarantee you that few American cities consider "skinny Victorian houses" as typical suburban architecture. Victorians are generally found closer to the centres of cities, and as a result many of them suffered when downtowns depopulated. Many of these cities now have a gentrified area where some of these houses have been restored, but many have lost a significant portion of them altogether. Toronto, on the other hand, did not hollow out at the centre as so many of these cities did, so we have a much wider collection of Victorians, from the smaller cottages in Cabbagetown and elsewhere to huge Romanesque houses in the Annex. For sheer number of Victorians in livable, functional shape you'd be hard-pressed to beat Toronto. Ours aren't as colourful as some of those in San Francisco, for instance, but they sure cover a large and substantial part of the city. And car4041 is correct - the brick bay and gable is a very distinctive Toronto style. You'll see a few of them elsewhere, but they're just everywhere here.

Older generic North American suburbs tend to look more like the wartime/postwar areas of East York and Scarborough, with their small gabled bungalows. The more affluent ones are full of Tudor and Georgian revivals and lots of midcentury modern ranch style or split level houses.

 

[Dandy Horse]

Not to mention that the "skinny little houses" go back really far, and often have extremely tall ceilings. speaking from experience of living in a Toronto Bay & Gable, they are deceivingly large inside, often with windows that are larger than front doors on most post-war homes. Unless he's talking about the actually really tiny 1946/47 bungalows up near Eglinton, i have no idea what this person is trying to say. the Victorian houses are fantastic, thats why they cost so much money now.