Toronto, Ontario, Canada; August 5, 2006

These are some photos of a trip I made from Niagara Falls, New York to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. August 5, 2006.

Toronto is, by far, one of my most favorite cities. One of the stiking things I found about this city, was how clean it was. Toronto is one of the most diverse cities I have travelled to.....a true "melting pot".

Toronto

Toronto is the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America. Toronto is at the heart of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and is part of a densely populated region in south-central Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe, which is home to 8.1 million residents and has approximately 25% of Canada's population. The census metropolitan area (CMA) had a population of 5,113,149, and the Greater Toronto Area had a population of 5,555,912 in the 2006 Census.
As Canada's economic capital, Toronto is considered a global city and is one of the top financial cities in the world. Toronto's leading economic sectors include finance, business services, telecommunications, aerospace, transportation, media, arts, film, television production, publishing, software production, medical research, education, tourism and sports industries. The Toronto Stock Exchange, the world's seventh largest, is headquartered in the city, along with a majority of Canada's corporations.
Toronto's population is cosmopolitan and international, reflecting its role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. Toronto is one of the world's most diverse cities by percentage of non-native-born residents, as about 49% of the population were born outside of Canada. Because of the city's low crime rates, clean environment, high standard of living, and friendlier attitudes to diversity, Toronto is consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Mercer Quality of Living Survey. In addition, Toronto was ranked as the most expensive Canadian city in which to live in 2006. Residents of Toronto are called Torontonians.

History of Toronto

When Europeans first arrived at the site of present-day Toronto, the vicinity was inhabited by the Huron tribes, who by then had displaced the Iroquois tribes that had occupied the region for centuries before c. 1500. The name Toronto is likely derived from the Iroquois word tkaronto, meaning "place where trees stand in the water". It refers to the northern end of what is now Lake Simcoe, where the Huron had planted tree saplings to corral fish. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, led to widespread use of the name.

French traders founded Fort Rouillé on the current Exhibition grounds in 1750, but abandoned it in 1759. During the American Revolutionary War, the region saw an influx of British settlers as United Empire Loyalists fled for the unsettled lands north of Lake Ontario. In 1787, the British negotiated the Toronto Purchase with the Mississaugas of New Credit, thereby securing more than a quarter million acres (1000 km²) of land in the Toronto area.

In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the existing settlement, naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe chose the town to replace Newark as the capital of Upper Canada, believing the new site would be less vulnerable to attack by the Americans. Fort York was constructed at the entrance of the town's natural harbour, sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town's settlement formed at the eastern end of the harbour behind the peninsula, near the present-day Parliament Street and Front Street.
In 1813, as part of the War of 1812, the Battle of York ended in the town's capture and plunder by American forces. The surrender of the town was negotiated by John Strachan. American soldiers destroyed much of Fort York and set fire to the parliament buildings during their five-day occupation.
York was incorporated as the City of Toronto on March 6, 1834, reverting to its original native name. The population of only 9,000 included escaped African American slaves fleeing Black Codes in some states. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada in 1834. Reformist politician William Lyon Mackenzie became the first Mayor of Toronto, and led the unsuccessful Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 against the British colonial government. The city grew rapidly through the remainder of the 19th century, as a major destination for immigrants to Canada. The first significant population influx occurred with the Great Irish Famine between 1846 and 1849 that brought a large number of Irish to the city, some of them transient and most of them Catholic. By 1851, the Irish-born population had become the largest single ethnic group in the city. Smaller numbers of Protestant Irish immigrants were welcomed by the existing Scottish and English population, giving the Orange Order significant and long lasting influence over Toronto society.

Toronto was twice for brief periods the capital of the united Province of Canada first from 1849-1852, following unrest in Montreal, and later 1856-1858 after which Quebec became capital until 1866 (one year before Confederation); since then, the capital has been Ottawa. As it had been for Upper Canada from 1793, Toronto became the capital of the province of Ontario after its official creation in 1867 and has remained so since with the Ontario Legislature located at Queen's Park. Because of its capital status, the city was also the location of Government House, the residence of the vice-regal representative of the Crown.

In the 19th century, an extensive sewage system was built, and streets became illuminated with gas lighting as a regular service. Long-distance railway lines were constructed, including a route completed in 1854 linking Toronto with the Upper Great Lakes. The Grand Trunk Railway and the Northern Railway of Canada joined in the building of the first Union Station in downtown. The advent of the railway dramatically increased the numbers of immigrants arriving and commerce, as had the Lake Ontario steamers and schooners entering the port and enabled Toronto to become a major gateway linking the world to the interior of the North American continent. Horse-drawn streetcars gave way to electric streetcars in 1891, when the city granted the operation of the transit franchise to the Toronto Railway Company. The public transit system passed into public ownership in 1921 as the Toronto Transportation Commission, later renamed the Toronto Transit Commission. The system now has the third-highest ridership of any city public transportation system in North America.

In 1954, the City of Toronto was federated into a regional government known as Metropolitan Toronto. The postwar boom had resulted in rapid suburban development, and it was believed that a coordinated land use strategy and shared services would provide greater efficiency for the region. The metropolitan government began to manage services that crossed municipal boundaries, including highways, water and public transit. In 1967, the seven smallest municipalities of the region were merged into their larger neighbours, resulting in a six-municipality configuration that included the old City of Toronto and the surrounding municipalities of East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and York. In 1998, the metropolitan government was dissolved and the six municipalities were amalgamated into a single municipality, creating the current City of Toronto, where David Miller is the current Mayor.

The Great Toronto Fire of 1904 destroyed a large section of downtown Toronto, but the city was quickly rebuilt. The fire had cost more than $10 million in damage, led to more stringent fire safety laws, and the expansion of the city's fire department. In 1954, a half-century later, disaster struck the city again when Hurricane Hazel brought intense winds and flash flooding. In the Toronto area, 81 people were killed, nearly 1,900 families were left homeless, and the hurricane caused more than $25 million in damage.

The city received new immigrant groups beginning in the late 19th century into early 20th century, particularly Germans, Italians, and Jews from various parts of Eastern Europe. They were soon followed by Chinese, Russians, Poles and immigrants from other Eastern European nations, as the Irish before them, many of these new migrants lived in overcrowded shanty type slums, such as the "the Ward" which was centred on Bay Street, now the heart of the country's finances. Despite its fast paced growth, by the 1920s, Toronto's population and economic importance in Canada remained second to the much longer established Montreal. However, by 1934 the Toronto Stock Exchange had become the largest in the country.
Following the Second World War, refugees from war-torn Europe and Chinese job-seekers arrived. So too did construction labourers, particularly from Italy and Portugal. Following elimination of racially based immigration policies by the late 1960s, immigration began from all parts of the world. Toronto's population grew to more than one million in 1951 when large-scale suburbanization began, and doubled to two million by 1971. By the 1980s, Toronto had surpassed Montreal as Canada's most populous city and the chief economic hub. During this time, in part due to the political uncertainty raised by the resurgence of the Quebec sovereignty movement, many national and multinational corporations moved their head offices from Montreal to Toronto and other western Canadian cities.

Crossing over into Canada from Niagara Falls, New York

The view of the surrounding Toronto suburb from my hotel room.

Dowtown financial district of Toronto


The Toronto-Dominion (TD) Centre in the heart of downtown.

St. Lawrence Market

St. Lawrence Market is one of two major markets in Toronto (the other being Kensington Market). It is located west of Jarvis Street, between King Street East and the Esplanade. It was established in the early part of the city's history and was once home to Toronto's first permanent city hall and jail house from 1845 to 1899. Designed by Henry Bowyer Lane, the first floor was formerly Police Station # 1.
Since 1901, the north façade and city council chambers have served as a museum for the city's archives as well as a north entrance to the South Market. Renovations were also made in 1978 following public outcry over a proposal to demolish the entire building in 1971.

Air Canda Center

CN Tower

The CN Tower, located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a communications and observation tower standing 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) tall. It surpassed the height of the Ostankino Tower while still under construction in 1975, becoming the tallest free-standing structure on land in the world. On September 12, 2007, after holding the record for 31 years, the CN Tower was surpassed in height by the still-under-construction Burj Dubai. It remains the tallest free-standing structure in North America and the signature icon of Toronto's skyline, attracting more than two million international visitors annually.
Despite the loss of its title as the world's tallest freestanding structure, the CN Tower remains a symbol of Canada.
CN originally referred to Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower. Following the railway's decision to divest non-core freight railway assets, prior to the company's privatization in 1995 it transferred the tower to the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation responsible for real estate development. Since local residents wished to retain the name CN Tower, the abbreviation is now said to expand to Canada's National Tower rather than the original Canadian National Tower; however, neither of these are commonly used.
In 1995, the CN Tower was declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It also belongs to the world federation of towers.

Views from inside the CN Tower

A view of Lake Ontario from the CN Tower

A view of the downtown financial district of Toronto.

The theatre district of Toronto.

The theatre where I watched the "Lord of the Rings" production.

Toronto is such a diverse city; it has different districts for various ethnic populations...everything from Greek, Italian, India, to Chinese.

Chinatown

Watching the chefs prepare my lunch.

The Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum, commonly known as the ROM, is a major museum for world culture and natural history in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The ROM is the fifth largest museum in North America, containing more than six million items and over 40 galleries. It is also the largest museum in Canada. It has notable collections of dinosaurs, Near Eastern and African art, East Asian art, European history, and Canadian history. It has also hosted many travelling exhibits.

A view of the CN Tower at night.