University Avenue - Toronto's Grand Avenue?

[TonyV]

University Avenue is unfortunate. It is dull and sterile and is made worse by frequent visitation of unbelievably noisy air ambulances to the major hospitals just south of the legislature buildings.

The good parts: plantings along the boulevards are delightful in summer, the May blossoms are gorgeous, and it's terrific when the fountain is running at University and Queen. I liked the drastic idea of expanding the boulevards and going a bit more exotic with lighting in the median. That plan will go nowhere given the fact the city can't even get the fountain going.

Strictly an aside: a (yawn) win-lose compromise put the opera at Queen/University and I do wish it had been built at Bay/Wellesley as originally planned (and what a fabulous site plan that was!!!). Bay/Wellesley would have been a more welcoming and diverse location, in the vicinity of little restaurants cheek-by-jowl on Wellesley and perhaps interesting eateries might have sprung up on Yonge (heavens!), but good ol' Bob Rae outright killed the whole plan instead of calling in a new architect -- somehow I won't forget that. So even an opera hasn't been enough to spice up old University .....

I regard Toronto as overall very exciting now (I didn't always) --- and University Ave does not reflect that new Toronto. It is the old Toronto mindset on display, complete with the Gumby Goes To Heaven statue.

It is an important boundary street. The best part of Toronto stretches from Spadina to University, from Bloor down to Front -- that is the patch where Toronto is really defining itself. University should be spiced up with restaurants, cafes, and some tlc. But those helicopters ... that's a challenge and that ain't Paris!

 

[Tewder]

To dream of a grand urban boulevard for Toronto seems a bit silly. It's not going to happen. We can't even manage to maintain NPS! I just don't view this as in our culture.

... when you think about it University is just about the best we can do, it already *is* a Toronto version of a grand thoroughfare, uninviting and underwhelming though it may be in comparison to standards elsewhere.

 

[Whoaccio]

I don't really see what is so unbearable about University. Don't get me wrong, it could always be improved, but most of the complaints seem less routed in wanting to improve University than wanting University to look like Baldwin Street. Not every street requires street level cafes to be a success. The North end of the street are hospitals for the love of god, who the hell would want to sit on a patio paying 5$ for a lattee next to the terminal cancer patients?

The reality of University is that it is an institutional street, not a neighborhood retail strip. Thats not a bad thing, as long as people expect that cafes (or lack thereof) aren't what is wrong with the street. There should be a long term, say 50+ years, goal to replace as much of the banal architecture as possible. College & University has got to be one of the most wasted intersections in the City. The undergroun maze in front of the Hydro building kills that corner to the public, the new Foster building seems strangely suburban (might be the large amount of grass), the NW corner is perennially empty and the SW corner is a construction site (hopefully MaRS will spruce things up eventually). Removing a lane or two and putting in astro turf wont change that. I also wouldn't try under the current circumstances to bother with the median as a 'linear park.'

As an aside, if people really wanted to go 'all out' along University, we would try to bury the road a few meters down, while turning the top side into some kind of Las Ramblas esque public space. Not just bloody astroturf, actual trees and decent pavement. Thats a pretty unrealistic vision, though. I'm not sure on the feasibility, but it would also be nice to try to get University to connect directly with Queen's Quay so as to connect the City's main boulevard with the Waterfront's.

 

[Archivist]

And actually, my earlier posts were intended to say that in fact, University Avenue is fairly typical of many broad avenues with lots of rows of traffic and institutional buildings. I am always amazed by the extent to which people make implicit comparisons "to standards elsewhere", without specifying what they are and who they are. Yes, University Avenue is no Champs Elysees, but neither are the other hundreds of streets just like it in cities around the world. Most cities lack even something as good as University - not to bash Montreal, but the closest thing they have to University is Avenue McGill College which runs gracefully from the university and is swallowed in a few blocks into a parking garage.

Erewhon, though, has fabulous boulevards, lively and lined with spectacular buildings, leading to its great waterfront. Hope to go there some day.

 

[ShonTron]

De la Reforma, Mexico City's grand boulevard is also very much the same. It's lined with wonderful monuments, like the famous Angel, and is the main route from the Old City/Zocalo and their grand park, but is rather devoid of retail as well. It's very common.

Park Avenue in New York is also really boring, I find.

 

[junctionist]

University's fountains should be upgraded to work throughout the year. But I think that Spadina has the potential for faster and more impressive change. Its width makes it grand and it's already vibrant. Now's the time to make it more beautiful.

 

[JasonParis]

In other words, if University is ever prettified, it will have to be on the city's dime, as it's not a likely candidate ever for a BIA.

Which is sort of why I'd propose the province take it over and turn it into a "capital street" along with (the city's) Queen's Park.

 

[Urban Shocker]

As a pedestrian, I find medians pretty useless bits of design - not only the irritating civic grandiosity of the one on University Avenue, which we'll either have to put up with or correct one day, but our smaller, residential ones too: I'll take the pleasant, extra wide tree lined mini-boulevards on both side of Fenwick south of the Danny over the strip of no man's land in the middle Shaw between Queen and Dundas any day.

 

[Archivist]

Darkstar, that would be great. It would be nice to see some Ontario-focussed elements in the redevelopment as well, perhaps emphasizing the different geographies in different parts of the province. Perfect idea!

 

[Urban Shocker]

One of my photos of an empty University Avenue closed due to Tamil protests got photoshopped into this...

http://fixedxorbroken.blogspot.com/2009/05/better-university-avenue.html

Yes, that roughly photoshopped concept is quite interesting. It reminds me of the planned changes to, and the greening of, Queens Quay. It eliminates the useless median. It shifts the emphasis from car culture by making the street four lanes - pedestrians won't have to cross University in either a two-stage process or in one mad dash. The median dead space is transferred to an expanded, existing sidewalk - either along one side of the avenue, or on both sides - which could be chock' full o' nicely integrated fountains, and sculptures, and pretty plantings. Bicycle lanes might even go there. Yet it doesn't negate the grand and institutional nature of University either.

 

[thecharioteer]

University Avenue's problems go back to its origins.

As can be seen on historical maps, it was born as "College Avenue", in essence a gated linear park/promenade that began at Queen Street and ended in the University of Toronto/Parliament Buildings quadrant collectivelly known as "Queen's Park". Parallel to College Avenue on the east was University Street, blocks of modest homes bordering the "Ward" (Mary Pickford's house was on the block presently occupied by Sick Kid's).

As a promenade, it followed the European tradition which began in 17th Century Paris with the Cours La Reine, near the Seine, considered the first "Boulevard" with its double rows of trees which allowed people to see and be seen either on foot, in sedan chairs or on horseback. It was not primarily intended to just get from Point A to Point B.

College Avenue was a private street and no doubtedly controlled the types of vehicles allowed (in the same way that 19thC Jarvis never permitted public transportation, a tradition which remains today).

We know how the story ends in the 1930's: the widening of the pavement, the cutting down of the trees, the extension of University south of Queen (without unfortunately the Vimy Circle plan at Richmond), and the transformation of Queen's Park into a roundabout. In some ways, its an archtypal Toronto story, one of bad decisions and compromised ideals.

1894:

1868:

1900's:

1920's:

1930's (extension south of Queen has begun)

1957:

1960's:

1970's:

 

[Edward Skira]

Fantastic first post! Welcome to UT.

 

[Towered]

In the very last photo of charioteer's post, what was the 7 storey building where the opera house now stands? It looks a lot like the building on the south west corner of University and Queen. I clearly remember it being there but never knew what it was.

 

[Edward Skira]

It held a provincial court house.

 

[adma]

Yeah, provincial government building. Back in the days when limestone-faced retardataire stripped Georgian/Classical was standard institutional mode...