Jane's Walks are free neighbourhood strolls that emphasize the importance of walkable and diverse cities and neighbourhoods. Led by locals who know from experience what's important and interesting about the areas so they focus on personal observations.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
4:00pm, 2 hours
Dawlish Avenue was first laid out in W. S. Dinnick's plan for the Lawrence Park Estates in the early 1900s. Bordered by a park, it curved south eastward away from Yonge but was still close to transit and shopping. After World War II, the eastern end was developed quickly and with a focus toward car owners. Come along and see a this interesting street with a gal who grew up there.
Tour guide: Janet Langdon
Meeting Place: Parking lot at the south west corner of Bayview Avenue and Dawlish Avenue.
TTC Directions: From Lawrence Station, take the Sunnybrook 124 bus to the Dawlish Avenue stop.
End Location: St Edmunds Drive and Yonge Street. Not a circular route.
Difficulty: Gentle hills along the walk. Rough pavement with no sidewalks for the first 40% of the walk.
Parking: Some street parking. Note, this is a non-circular walk and the walk back to your car may take 20-25 minutes.
There’s never been a better opportunity to get out and meet your neighbours, and, as urbanist and author Jane Jacob said - “You’ve got to get out and walk”.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Picking a name
It's tricky picking a name for my business.
I want it
I originally went to my friends and got 18 suggestions. Some already existed. Here's what we whittled it down to.
The top four were Touronto, Histourical Toronto, Toronto on your toes, and Toronto in a Nutshell.
I'm partial to "Toronto in a Nutshell", but I think I'd have to contact the person who originally used the name for a course I took as a kid. A kids'guide written by us kids came out of the course, and I need to make sure it's OK to use as a business name.
What do you think?
I want it
- to be catchy and professional;
- to be unique - at least for Toronto;
- not to bring to mind an existing entity that has an image I don't want for my own business;
- not to be preachy or dictatorial.
I originally went to my friends and got 18 suggestions. Some already existed. Here's what we whittled it down to.
- Touronto
- Histourical Toronto
- Merrily we stroll along in Toronto
- Toronto on your toes
- Toronto in a Nutshell
- When in Toronto, Roam
The top four were Touronto, Histourical Toronto, Toronto on your toes, and Toronto in a Nutshell.
I'm partial to "Toronto in a Nutshell", but I think I'd have to contact the person who originally used the name for a course I took as a kid. A kids'guide written by us kids came out of the course, and I need to make sure it's OK to use as a business name.
What do you think?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Upcoming free walks I'm part of in 2009
Saturday, April 25 - 1PM - 1834 Toronto: Beating the Bounds (not your average Heritage Toronto Tour). I did some of the research behind this self-guided walk that opens the Heritage Toronto walk season. Free. Starts at Market Square, between the old CaseWare office (145 King St E) and St Lawrence Hall. I will be there, but as I said, it's not really a led walk. If you do the whole route, it ends at the Distillery District. Details: http://www.heritagetoronto.org/news/story/2009/04/06/1834-toronto-beating-bounds-saturday-april-25th
Saturday, May 2 - 4PM - Dawlish Ave: Garden Suburb meets Automobile Suburb.
For the Jane Jacobs Walks weekend (janeswalk.net), I'm leading a walk of my old street and talking about it, not from a historical point of view, but following Jane Jacobs' teachings in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Cost: Free.
Meeting Place: Parking lot at the south west corner of Bayview Avenue and Dawlish Avenue.
End Location: St Edmunds Drive and Yonge Street, close to Lawrence Station. Not a circular route. (About 2 hours)
Public Transit Directions: From Lawrence Station, take the Sunnybrook 124 bus to the Dawlish Avenue stop.
Accessible Gentle hills along the walk. Rough pavement with no sidewalks for the first 40% of the walk.
Parking Available Some street parking. Note, this is a non-circular walk and the walk back to your car may take 20-25 minutes.
Saturday, July 4 - 11AM - Unique Sites of the Toronto Fringe Festival
I'll be leading this for Heritage Toronto, highlighting a dozen or so theatres and other venues that have been used by the Fringe of Toronto since it started in 1989. There will be a little history of the festival too. Great for fans of small theatre and of the Bloor-Bathurst neighbourhood.
Sunday, August 2 - 2PM - :Lawrence Park and Burke Brook
My first ramble for the Toronto Field Naturalists. Some history, some nature. I grew up in Lawrence Park and walked through the ravines from my days as a kid.
Sunday, August 9 - 1:30PM - The Splendour that was Sherbourne Street
Again for Heritage Toronto, I'm co-leading this with Dave Parry, a professional tour guide. We're tweaking a walk that hasn't been led in a few years, talking about Sherbourne's history and the changes it's seen.
For the Jane Jacobs Walks weekend (janeswalk.net), I'm leading a walk of my old street and talking about it, not from a historical point of view, but following Jane Jacobs' teachings in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Cost: Free.
Meeting Place: Parking lot at the south west corner of Bayview Avenue and Dawlish Avenue.
End Location: St Edmunds Drive and Yonge Street, close to Lawrence Station. Not a circular route. (About 2 hours)
Public Transit Directions: From Lawrence Station, take the Sunnybrook 124 bus to the Dawlish Avenue stop.
Accessible Gentle hills along the walk. Rough pavement with no sidewalks for the first 40% of the walk.
Parking Available Some street parking. Note, this is a non-circular walk and the walk back to your car may take 20-25 minutes.
Saturday, July 4 - 11AM - Unique Sites of the Toronto Fringe Festival
I'll be leading this for Heritage Toronto, highlighting a dozen or so theatres and other venues that have been used by the Fringe of Toronto since it started in 1989. There will be a little history of the festival too. Great for fans of small theatre and of the Bloor-Bathurst neighbourhood.
Sunday, August 2 - 2PM - :Lawrence Park and Burke Brook
My first ramble for the Toronto Field Naturalists. Some history, some nature. I grew up in Lawrence Park and walked through the ravines from my days as a kid.
Sunday, August 9 - 1:30PM - The Splendour that was Sherbourne Street
Again for Heritage Toronto, I'm co-leading this with Dave Parry, a professional tour guide. We're tweaking a walk that hasn't been led in a few years, talking about Sherbourne's history and the changes it's seen.
Researching a walk
This weekend, Heritage Toronto opens their season with an event I put soem research into along with Kimberley Landoni and Lee Rickwood. It's called 1834 Toronto: Beating the Bounds and invites walkers to take a hike around the boundaries of the 1834 city.
A lot of planning, reading and searching was done by all of us. We started off by brainstorming the types of information walkers would want to know about 1834 Toronto.
* What exactly did the City of Toronto Act say?
* How did the Act change things?
* How much of Toronto was settled and what was the lay of the land?
* What was life like here?
* What else started in 1834?
We divvied up the list and set out searching in our favourite places.
Me? I love city directories and maps. I love to track how a neighbourhood came together. In this case, my big focus was on the park lots and Dundas Street. I knew that Dundas was twisting road because it was cobbled together from streets each of the park lot owners had put through his own lot at some point. Mostly this happened as the lot was being subdivided for housing.
So the first task was to track when each of the park lots (100-acre strips of land running from Queen to Bloor) was being sold and divided. The eastern boundary, Parliament St., fell between lots 2 and 3 and the western line, Bathurst, was between lots 18 and 19. Then it was a matter of tracking between the maps and the directories, when each little street -- Arthur, St Patrick, Agnes, Anderson, Crookshank and Beech was put through.
The big challenge for me was that directories and maps were not updated each year back then. And city directories only sometimes included listings by street. Nevertheless, the picture started to emerge.
The earliest segment - just west of Yonge -- was laid out by the early 1840s. Most of the rest was laid out in the 1850s with one hold-out -- the part through the Grange estate, not going through until the early 1870s.
Bathurst Street itself, remained just a country lane through George Crookshank's estate, which comprised two of the original park lots. Crookshank, a one time Receiver General in the Assembly of Upper Canada, didn't sell of his land until the 1850s, letting the lane be renamed to match the street south of Queen -- Bathurst -- and letting it run through to Bloor.
Researching takes a lot of hours because to get at the real story, tracking down publications made at the time is required and they aren't computer searchable, nor were they written ro compiled with future researchers in mind. For history buffs, that's part of the fun. And when you get a story out of it, it's magic.
More details of the research we did is to be published on the Heritage Toronto website shortly after the walk.
A lot of planning, reading and searching was done by all of us. We started off by brainstorming the types of information walkers would want to know about 1834 Toronto.
* What exactly did the City of Toronto Act say?
* How did the Act change things?
* How much of Toronto was settled and what was the lay of the land?
* What was life like here?
* What else started in 1834?
We divvied up the list and set out searching in our favourite places.
Me? I love city directories and maps. I love to track how a neighbourhood came together. In this case, my big focus was on the park lots and Dundas Street. I knew that Dundas was twisting road because it was cobbled together from streets each of the park lot owners had put through his own lot at some point. Mostly this happened as the lot was being subdivided for housing.
So the first task was to track when each of the park lots (100-acre strips of land running from Queen to Bloor) was being sold and divided. The eastern boundary, Parliament St., fell between lots 2 and 3 and the western line, Bathurst, was between lots 18 and 19. Then it was a matter of tracking between the maps and the directories, when each little street -- Arthur, St Patrick, Agnes, Anderson, Crookshank and Beech was put through.
The big challenge for me was that directories and maps were not updated each year back then. And city directories only sometimes included listings by street. Nevertheless, the picture started to emerge.
The earliest segment - just west of Yonge -- was laid out by the early 1840s. Most of the rest was laid out in the 1850s with one hold-out -- the part through the Grange estate, not going through until the early 1870s.
Bathurst Street itself, remained just a country lane through George Crookshank's estate, which comprised two of the original park lots. Crookshank, a one time Receiver General in the Assembly of Upper Canada, didn't sell of his land until the 1850s, letting the lane be renamed to match the street south of Queen -- Bathurst -- and letting it run through to Bloor.
Researching takes a lot of hours because to get at the real story, tracking down publications made at the time is required and they aren't computer searchable, nor were they written ro compiled with future researchers in mind. For history buffs, that's part of the fun. And when you get a story out of it, it's magic.
More details of the research we did is to be published on the Heritage Toronto website shortly after the walk.
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