City
So what is Toronto's ugliest street?
Okay, it's time to get ugly. Yesterday I suggested that the industrial aesthetic on Geary Avenue might make it a candidate for Toronto's ugliest street, but that was a general observation and not indicative of how I'd personally rank the strip. It sure isn't pretty, but its many layers and details are just too redeeming aesthetically to saddle it with such a title.
A number of commenters expressed the same sentiments, some in defense of Geary and others by way of nominating other streets. Some of the candidates included Lappin Avenue, "Scarborough" (in general), Dundas between Church and Parliament, Coxwell between Danforth and Queen, and Toronto's strip of waterfront condos. I can't say I agree with any of these, but I understand why most of them were nominated.
So what would make my list? Although I'm not often struck by the thought "hey, that's ugly" when I'm travelling around Toronto (I'm just such a positive guy, you know), I do recall that when I commuted to York University I would take a shortcut off Allen Road north of Sheppard to avoid waiting in line to make a left at Finch. Aside from a few trees, the streets in this area — Rimrock, Whitehorse, Steeprock and, to a lesser extent, Chesswood — were so use-oriented and aesthetically void that by the time I reached York, I would often get the sense that I had arrived at an architectural marvel.
Having worked on Bermondsey Road years ago, I also recall how depressing that street could be at times, though I suspect closer inspection would reveal similar rewards to those found on Geary. In other words, for me it's tough to choose an ugliest street in Toronto — for any strip that was worthy of being set aside in such a way would have to be interesting in some capacity. On the other hand, it's those anonymous commercial/industrial strips with few defining characteristics outside of utility that really get me down.
What would you nominate as Toronto's ugliest street? If there's any consistency, I'll add a poll and we can all vote on this most uplifting of topics!
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It's horrific. It's soulless. It doesn't look like any Toronto I would want to live in. I'd hold it up as an example of the worst of Toronto's condo development excesses.
i d say it looks nice lots of grass and tress wtf
ugliest street is dufferin top to bottom a dump, with lots of shitty peeps dirty duff what!!
PS I love the light industrial areas of Toronto, particularly the Geary area you show. That is a HOT SPOT for rocker at the Rehearsal factory, one of the most redeeming area of the city!!!
Bay and York-vile. Too many white collar criminals around there for my liking.
PS I love the light industrial areas of Toronto, particularly the Geary area you show. That is a HOT SPOT for rocker at the Rehearsal factory, one of the most redeeming area of the city!!!
http://bit.ly/eKQCGE
http://tinyurl.com/4bw8tu2
It inter-crosses through Regent Park.
Pigeons wont even shit there.
The road is so bad through there I snapped my tie rod in December...
http://bit.ly/hFLaNL
Anyway. Toronto just has too many ugly streets to pick just one.
Huge areas of Etobicoke and Scarborough and a lot of north Toronto, especially the north part of Dufferin, are uniformly terrible.
It's nowhere near the worst. It's a modest newer-old strip developed in the '30s and '40s, and has recently been home to a couple of excellent midrise condo projects (952 Kingston and 601 Kingston). With a little more cleaning up, it could look like Bayview between Eglinton and Merton, which is a nice little strip.
At least you _have_ sidewalks. As an ex-pat Canuck now in Birmingham, AL, I just about wept for joy (and then danced) when some were built in our hamlet-er-suburban neighbourhood as part of U.S. gov't stimulus spending last year.
You don't know what you've got until you don't have it anymore.
</end Monty Python>
http://bit.ly/fh8feM
PS - many thanks to Google Maps for finally putting Toronto on streetview, which makes these kinds of debates way more entertaining.
Thanks for starting this thread - the only way Toronto may become somewhat less of a design disaster is through awareness.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&;tab=wl
2nd pl - shaft rd (you have to walk it to really get the full effect)
I wish Colonel Gaddafi would send his air force to bomb the entire thing, hook, line and sinker.
Personally, I think that this article is for the birds, and that downtown Toronto streets have a lot of character, whether or not they're industrial or residential-also, I don't think that they're ugly. I also think that Toronto people complain <i>way</i> too much for their own good.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=toro+rd+toronto&;oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Toro+Rd,+Toronto,+ON&gl=ca&ei=h7N3Ta30OoiKrQGAkM3uCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ8gEwAA
I work on this street, and many the used car shops routinely park their junk heap cars on the sidewalk. The manufacturing companies spray industrial fragrances to cover up smells from their plants. Add to that all the construction on Keele St. from St. Regis north to York University, and this street full of speeding traffic by-passers, smoggy and just all around BRUTAL.
Chesswood is nearby and also pretty terrible. Downsview = Toronto's ugliest area.
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