Thanks, I'm onto them!
I actually planned on capturing the Sculpture Gardens when I did St. James Park a few weeks ago but I made an incorrect note (I jotted down S/W corner, Church/King on a piece of paper) so I couldn't find it. But now I know...
In my quest to document parks this spring and summer I've come across two or three mediocre parks so far, parks that are simply unremarkable aside that they have a few benches, some green space available and little else. The rest of what I have discovered and documented have in some cases been surprising and yet others, inspiring. All our parks from mediocre to rockin' are clean and well maintained.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and take a look at the quality of park areas available to us in Toronto
One part of the parks system which surprised me was the Don recreation trails. Near Riverdale moving towards the lake, any man-made surface seems to be covered in old and new graffiti, rags can be found under bridges right beside the trail, and the surface itself is buckled in many places.
Then there's the issue of using the trails in the first place, particularly if you're not familiar with the area. A trail seems to go to the Brickworks, and then stops. Signage on how to travel to the lake was not evident. At Riverdale Park, there's just a staircase to the cycling trail. All in all, the trail system there seems poor and neglected.
thanks for this discussion of urban parks. In my opinion, the major problem of a lot of Toronto's small urban parks is that they have a poor relationship with the street and sidewalks with high pedestrian flows. A lot of them are tucked away and largely abandoned most of the time (e.g. the park behind College park). People want to go to parks to watch other people -- walking by, playing, sitting reading. They also like to watch the hustle and bustle of the street from a park. Check out the film "The social life of small urban spaces" -- I think it is available online.
Early this morning around 8am I grabbed a Starbucks & sat with my dog at the south end of James Canning Park (at Dundonald Street) on the bench closest to the camera on the right. I watched five City of Toronto Parks Workers clipping plants, pulling the smallest pieces of garbage out of the gardens with their hands (cigarette butts, beer caps etc.), meticulously pick dead parts off the perennials (one fellow worked the centre area the whole hour & a half that I was there) and sweep the entire area including under the benches. I talked to the fellow for about 10 minutes and complimented them on such a great job that they were doing then asked if they take such care at all parks. He seemed very enthusiastic to talk about it and simply said it's a labour of love.
It shows.
I took this photo of the area discussed above in early June.
I have mentioned the Ismaili Centre and Aga Khan Museum project earlier, noting the extensive gardens planned for the project. The gardens are actually the roof of a very large underground parkade (image what we could do with all those mall parkades). Anyway, here are some renderings of some of the gardens (I think there will actually be over 20 separate gardens, hence the diversity in the pictures). This is like nothing that Toronto currently has, IMHO.
I think the concept is beyond the two structures located within the park - it is actually somewhat of a meeting place for the greater area. The public transport planning will also be important here.
