Just happened upon this thread, I lived in Royal York Gardens for 3 years and was searching for a pic for my son who was born while we were there but does not remember the place.
It's glory had faded a bit, but the grounds were probably the nicest of any building in Toronto, and every apartment has huge private patios, ours was overlooking the Humber Valley and was priceless. A fantastic outdoor pool too. It definitely was built at a time when doing things cheaply was not the number one priority. A real sense of community too, lots of original residents. Lots of greenspace and direct access to the valley from the grounds, even spotted a deer on the back lawn one day.
The only drawback was the trains, too loud to hear the TV and very frequent. I wonder how they are getting past that one with the new building, which is even closer to the tracks.
Anyway, I hope the new place does not destroy the feel of the Gardens, from the pics I find it hard to believe it was the same architect, a complementary curved building would have been more appropriate in my view, but that probably costs too much.
Very interesting thread for a former Etobicoke resident to browse.