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Best street to make over.

And that audio book joint where Corky Laing was doing autographs a few months ago...
 
Church Street between Gould and Dundonald.

Do something productive with Maple Leaf Gardens. Ease liquor licenses or zoning or whatever is preventing the area from opening new clubs and bars. Get rid of the street parking north of Carlton, and widen the sidewalk area with planters and benches and make-out spots. Big gates at Carlton and Wellesley to block the street off to cars on weekends in the summer, and to give the street some added dimension.

(Give the same treatment to College west)

There are lots of great buildings in the long zone north of Alexander to Dundonald, it's a functional, working neighbourhood. So a couple of crooked buildings look like they are near collapsing, it would great to see the structures repaired and fixed up a bit but until they do collapse unto themselves I suspect they are probably protected.

MLG is a non-issue until Loblaws either develops it, sells the property or until it falls down from negligence.
 
There are lots of great buildings in the long zone north of Alexander to Dundonald, it's a functional, working neighbourhood. So a couple of crooked buildings look like they are near collapsing, it would great to see the structures repaired and fixed up a bit but until they do collapse unto themselves I suspect they are probably protected.

Absolutely...even the crumbling buildings have a real charm that I'd miss were they to be renovated back to plumb - I'm more concerned with the parking lots (Church & Wood, Church south of Maitland, Church north of Wellesley)
 
This may surprise some...but how about Bay St, south of Queen?

Yes, the buildings are impressive, but the streetscaping and the retail really don't reflect very well that this is the heart of the MINT and some of the most expensive blocks in the country! It feels more like a traffic artery with too many people vicariously balancing a skinny sidewalk. Maybe it could also use one of them "Bull & Bear" sculptures somewhere along its route.

I'd just as much like to see Bay renovated all the way to its northern end: this should be an impressive road for its whole length. Murano, Burano, Lumiere, and the St Michael's College land condos will improve the north end. Hope fully some version of Two City Hall, and something new north of the Toronto COach Terminal will help turn the middle stretch around.

42
 
Lets all nominate the street (over a few blocks), that is most in need of a makeover.

I nominate Spadina Ave. between Queen and College.

The LRT makes it a major transit corridor, but it is under used. It is the second widest road in the city. To me it seems that the area is ripe for redevelopment and intensification. The location is great, and going back to the second point, I really feel that it has the most potential to be something truly special.

Spadina has the potential to be a masterpiece -- well, it already is in some ways. It's at the top of my list of Toronto things to be vigilant about. If this street is to get a makeover, it has to be excellent. The street must be protected from cookie-cutter development, and the overall goal should be making this part of Spadina a walker's paradise.

The street is anchored by the lake, and lordy-lord, the lake is actually still visible by some sort of miracle. Is it too much to dream that someday, when we stand at Queen or King and Spadina, that there will actually be a vista that combines good architecture with the lake as a backdrop? The City has to start thinking along those lines, and that's where the challenge is.

One of the things I've openly mused about is the creation of a bicycle trestle over the gap, at the foot of Spadina, so that cyclists could get to the airport-free island. Bicycles only, of course. That could be viewed as a separate issue, really, but in the context of Spadina, I think this idea has real promise. And for me, it's hard to keep the Spadina issue separate from the Gardiner & island airport issues.

I'd like Spadina to be the great avenue of Spadina, a "pedestrian-friendly avenue of eateries and fun, an artery which divides the city from east to west".
 
Yonge Street from College to Charles St. What a waste of space. Does New York have that problem near it's financial centre?
 
I nominate all of them. Although I wonder if there is an appreciation that our streets in the old city of Toronto neighbourhoods ARE rapidly being made over? The aesthetic outcomes may or may not agree with individual tastes but for instance looking across the street from my office an informal survey suggests that of the 21 low-rise mixed res/com buildings in the two directly visible blocks 8 or 38 percent have had there exterior facades upgraded in the last few years. In that same time graffiti has been eliminated from all but one building, dilapidated benches have been replaced, new banners have gone up, and those hideous concrete planters have been planted. After all this I would still characterize the street as kind of dumpy but sometimes it is hard to visualize progress when we quickly forget how low the base-line once was.
 

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