A few weeks ago I and a few of my school chums were wandering around the area near the future West Don Lands project and stumbled across what appeared to be a park squeezed between an overpass and a bunch of very old buildings. What we had found was Percy Park, which is not even listed as an official park by the City of Toronto (it still shows up as a playground, even though its play equipment is now gone). It was redone in 2006 by Green Force, a show on HGTV about revamping urban spaces.
Here's a before-and-after shot. The 'before' photo is taken from an online community newsletter called The Bulletin and the credit goes to Cindy Wilkey. The 'after' photo is my own.
Before!
After!
And just to give you all a sense of how close this park is to the overpass.
This is the little street that terminates in the new Percy Park.
There is some new development near the King St mouth of the street, which attempts to pay homage to the old style Victorian houses, but doesn't quite end up doing it right. There is also now a very ugly concrete mouth of a parking garage entrance at the end of the street.
Go check it out. It's a great example of what could have been a stifled, depressing public space being turned into something really cool. Its location is exactly in the centre of the map above, at the end of Percy street and abutting the Richmond Street overpass.
There are a lot of interesting rowhouse/park developments over near Lansdowne and Bloor; in the neighbourhoods north of the subway stop. Definitely worth taking a walk around.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a great Turkish breakfast place in the area. Yasi's Place. Google it; cash only.