What happened to the SkyDome lawn?

[Dugmor]

What's wrong with that? Would you rather the city expend treated water to irrigate the parks? When it rains the grass bounces back, when it's dry it dies off - it's nature.

We could place under ground sprinklers in parks. It wouldn't be hard to maintain the grass. Our parks need workers to actually take care of them and address problems such as this. Look how immaculate the grass is at Edwards Gardens. Why don't we do the same for all parks?

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

the parks are poorly maintained in Toronto which is a really shame. Perhaps the new Mayor will provide some leadership in this area, I know of some BIA's that offered to maintain parks, but the city won't allow them. They have told me they wanted nothing in return for maintaining the park and that the Mayor likes the idea... his office just doesn't do anything.

Take some time away from showing condos and homes, step into a park and have a seat for a few minutes. Relax, and take it all in. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Do you not see the dead patches of grass everywhere?

That's what happens when many people walk on a section of grass or create paths as shortcuts. It happens in the suburbs too.

We also need to hire people to clean up litter in the parks and streets in general. I've never understood why people think Toronto is a clean city.

There are several hundred Toronto Parks Workers to cut the grass, pull weeds from gardens (by hand), do plantings (by hand) and clean up trash (by hand). If you look at the pictures you'll find this to be true on closer inspection - or just check out a few parks in the summer, you'll see.

We could place under ground sprinklers in parks. It wouldn't be hard to maintain the grass. Our parks need workers to actually take care of them and address problems such as this. Look how immaculate the grass is at Edwards Gardens. Why don't we do the same for all parks?

In this climate underground sprinklers are not worth the money, there are far more important uses for the millions of dollars that it would cost and they're more problems than they're worth. We most often get enough rain throughout spring, summer and fall to keep grass, flowers and foliage healthy & green.

The photos on the first couple of the pages in the Toronto Parks thread are not a true representation of our parks. I took some of them in April & early to mid-May before flowers began to bloom, grass recovered from the winter season and trees were with full foliage. I even revisited the parkettes on the first page to capture them as they really should have been seen, you can find them here, post #44

 

[rbcpro]

I agree there's a lack of substantial green space downtown. It's a complaint I often hear from friends and colleagues who move to the city from other places; they are surprised there aren't more parks in the centre. And there are definitely NOT a lot of trees on major downtown trees in Toronto; people saying that just haven't traveled much. The neighborhoods yes, but major streets in this City are in dire need of landscaping improvements.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I agree there's a lack of substantial green space downtown. It's a complaint I often hear from friends and colleagues who move to the city from other places; they are surprised there aren't more parks in the centre. And there are definitely NOT a lot of trees on major downtown trees in Toronto; people saying that just haven't traveled much. The neighborhoods yes, but major streets in this City are in dire need of landscaping improvements.

There are some major streets downtown which don't have big matured, canopied trees - it's a downtown urban area for goodness sake. You will however find mature trees on many major streets and avenues downtown.

You and your friends are wrong about green-spaces, try to get out more and open your eyes.

I won't interrupt here again, I'm tiring of the trolling and steering this thread off topic so often.

 

[Archivist]

It is amazing to me that even after dt_toronto_geek's outstanding work on going out and actually visiting our parks, systematically and repeatedly, that you still get this (sorry, no other word) morons who bleat on about how everything is so dirty. dt, your great work was very much appreciated by many of us, and it's better to just ignore these uninformed complainers. They need simply to get out more.

 

[maestro]

The downtown area is sparse on trees and greenspace in comparison to my neighbourhood. Perhaps, downtown doesn't lack trees and greenspace but, the surrounding neighbourhoods and suburbs simply have an overabundance of them. Y'know, on top of the grass is always greener ideal.

 

[adma]

It is amazing to me that even after dt_toronto_geek's outstanding work on going out and actually visiting our parks, systematically and repeatedly, that you still get this (sorry, no other word) morons who bleat on about how everything is so dirty. dt, your great work was very much appreciated by many of us, and it's better to just ignore these uninformed complainers. They need simply to get out more.

Though admittedly, the biggest such "moron" in this thread's been banned for his trolling.

And maybe compounding the moronicism is the taking of the thread's opening image at face value: look, as parks go, that Skydome "front lawn" is painfully banal, and why not--it's a schematic diagram, a caricature of a park. It's a McPark. By this measure, you might as well knock anything from Yorkville Park to Lake Devo to, er, Nathan Phillips Square because they aren't simple grass'n'trees for the dumb clucks out there...

 

[Archivist]

I hadn't even noticed that Dugmor was banned. And I went to the trouble of putting him on my ignore list. Well, I'll keep it that way, just in case I should happen to come across on one of his old posts by accident.

I have to say, though I agree with your comment that the SkyDome park as shown is trite (and a bad location for a park), sometimes I like just grass 'n trees. It's my Ottawa heritage, I think, where I expect abundant green next to any available waterway that is mostly unprogrammed space, and allows me to get away from the crowd a bit.

 

[unimaginative2]

everytime I visit nYC and visit central park I wish PORTER was at downsview and that the island had a pedetrian bridge to it.. Downsview would still be accessable by public transit quickly from the core. Ive never taken porter but it must take some time to board a bus and then a ferry and then check in... Subway ride to downsview 25mins...

I've arrived at the ferry terminal 25 minutes before my flight and had time to spare.

There is still an enormous amount of parkland in the SkyDome. The CN Tower is surrounded by a vast lawn, and there is another lawn above the Convention Centre south building. One certainly can't complain about lack of green space in that neighbourhood.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Don't forget Roundhouse Park on the south side of Bremner, just east of the CN tower

 

[buschic]

Hmm, parks, trees, Yes there is a lot of them downtown if your not too lazy to go look, along Bay Street just north of College, all the way to Bloor, there are little spots of Greenery and bigger parkettes too, I walk along there often with my friends in the summer, also another bright spot is Wellesley, just east of the subway station, a couple of nice spots, as well as Bleecker & Wellesley, by the new(ish) community center, lots of green grass around there, also walking up Sherbourne, from Dundas to Bloor, many greenspaces, lots of nice older trees, and this comes from a legally blind person! lol, along bloor near Castle Frank Station is nice too.
I Love Toronto for just that, lots of trees, parkettes and intresting spots.
I come from Hamilton origianlly, we have Gore Park there, really just a widend boulavard at spots, but its a nice treed spot in the heart of downtown. the mall near there even has a rooftop plaza with lots of greenspaces too and lots of trees.

 

[Rowe]

I don't know if it is just me, but I'm not one for big massive parks in downtown. Its a downtown for a reason, NYC can do it because there is 8 million people. Toronto is just 2 million.
Don't get me wrong, parks are important but I would rather have many little parks than one 840 acre park.
I live in Kitchener and we have Victoria Park, which acts as our central park. I'm not going to take a 30 minute bus ride just to go to that park. I'm going to go to the park that is a 2 minute walk from me.

A park is a park, 840 acres to 2 acres, it still has the same purpose.