University of Toronto Heritage

To ring in the new year, I completed the University of Toronto tour from Toronto Architecture: A City Guide by Patricia McHugh and Alex Bozikovic. It took place over 3 separate days, the first day cut short by the need to return to attend a virtual event, and the second day cut short by snow. (I didn't want to get the book wet.) The University of Toronto is located in Downtown Toronto, next to several museums and art galleries, the legislature of Ontario, and a hospital district. To say it's where much of the innovation, just in general, in Canada happens would be an understatement. It's a short bike ride away from where I live, and It's about a 25-minute walk, which I found out today because I wanted to drink a coffee en route.

University College

There's much I learned about the university on this tour. Their varsity basketball team arena is below ground, and features of the university that I hadn't noticed before, like Perly Rae Gate, were brought to light for me. As large a campus I imagined it to be, it was even larger, requiring at least 2 hours, like 3, to complete the walking tour outlined by McHugh and Bozikovic.

I couldn't visit any interiors due to restricted access during the COVID-19 pandemic. My access would have been limited as a non-student/non-staff member anyway. One day I hope to see some of the grandeur that McHugh and Bozikovic describe in the pages of their book.

I logged my walks with Strava. There was GPS garbage in the last one. I was prepared to fix the GPX data and re-upload it, but that would have required deleting the activity.

Part 1, on December 13th, 2020, cut short by having to go back for a Christmas event:

Part 2, on December 19th, 2020, the one cut short by weather:

Part 3, on New Year's Day 2021:

For more photos, see the full set on Flickr.