Rapp Optical Ltd

Rated this place:

788 College St, Toronto, ON, M6G1C6

Optician: I add my vote to suggest Rapp Optical as the place for glasses. Mel Rapp is a constant innovator of coolness. His designs and selection are great. He’s a tough independent in a field dominated by big cutthroat companies, and he was an early supporter of the Journal of Wild Culture when we started out in the late 80s. His shop is sometimes a gallery too – I had a photo exhibit there some years ago. Mel rocks!

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• optician

Courage My Love

Rated this place:

14 Kensington Ave, Toronto, ON, M5T2J7

Clothing and curiosity shop: Among all the funky shops on Kensington Avenue, this is my favorite. A place to find hand-picked treasures from around the world, vintage and exotic clothes, jewellery. If you are lucky enough to talk to the owners, they have the dust of adventure on their shoulders, the sparkle of strange sights in their eyes, and deep knowledge about everything in the store. We got a full set of Mexican Day of the Dead sculptures and candle holders there, as fine as any you'd find in the Sat. market in Oaxaca.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• clothing and curiosity shop

Textile Museum of Canada

Rated this place:

55 Centre Ave, Toronto, ON, M5G2H5

Museum: I love the Textile Museum. It always has exquisite exhibits, it is small and easy to get through in less than an hour so you never get museum fatigue, and the gallery shop there is the best kept secret gift shop in the city, with unbelievably reasonable prices for carefully curated fine textile items from all over the hand-made world.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• Museum

Don Valley Park

Rated this place:

Toronto, M4G3A1

Public art: The Bring Back the Don mural of the fish going from skeleton to life on the fence down in the Don Valley is a simple uplifting mysterious graphic, and I love the words on the arch of the bridge where Queen crosses the Don, about never stepping in the same river twice.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• public art

foot of Bathurst Street

Rated this place:

Foot of Bathurst Street, Toronto

Public art: I like to visit the only outdoor Totem Pole in T.O., at the bottom of Bathurst street in the park next to the Island airport ferry terminal. There is a cool kid park there too.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• public art

Kensington Market

Rated this place:

S. of College St., W. of Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON, M5L1G4

Neighbourhood: I had a house just next to Kensington Market on Wales Avenue for 18 years, the one covered in ivey, with the big Gingko tree in front. There are so many great spots in the market, and interesting characters in every shop. This is a neighborhood to visit and hang out in, especially on car-free Kensington Sundays in the summertime.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• Neighbourhood

Allan Gardens Conservatory

Rated this place:

19 Horticultural Ave, Toronto, ON, M5A2P2

Place to wander: Visit Leda and the Swan, the orchids, and the cactus garden, and just breathe the pungent green.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• place to wander

Don Valley Brick Works

Rated this place:

550 Bayview Ave., Toronto, ON, M4W1X8

Dogwalking spot: It’s our dogwalking heaven. This park gets more beautiful and wild with each new season. If you have never walked through the abandoned brickworks buildings at magic hour (4 pm to 7 pm) when the sunlight is warm and the colours most saturated, you are in for a bit of an epiphany. It’s a photographer’s destination, there are lots of images of it on the internet.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• dogwalking spot

High Park

Rated this place:

1873 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON, M5H 2N2

Hiking spot, Ice skating rink: High Park has a really fine cluster of woodland trails in the northeast part. The Black oak savannah habitat is particularly interesting and lovely, an example of native grasslands that existed here before the Euros came over and cleared the big old hardwood forests. Great picnic spots, and this walk takes you past the beloved community gardens and the outdoor theatre space that has free Shakespeare in the summer.

Skating in December - just after the ice freezes to a skateable 2”+ thickness, and before any heavy snow – is a great winter passtime. The pond freezes over with black ice - smooth as glass and transparent, so you can see the bottom as you skate over the shallows

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• hiking spot
• ice skating rink

Sunnyside-Gus Ryder Pool

Rated this place:

Lakeshore Boulevard at Parkside , Toronto, ON, M4W 1A7

Lakeside spot: It has the best view of the lake, is a great cycling destination, and there is a café right on the sand by the water - a very rare and wonderful thing in this city.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• lakeside spot

TD Centre

Rated this place:

66 Wellington St W, Toronto, ON, M5K 1A1

Public art: My favorite piece of public art in Toronto is Joe’s cows, the small herd of seven life-sized black bronze Jerseys that are hunkered down in the grass under the black office towers just west of the TD Centre on Wellington near Bay St., waiting for a thunderstorm, forever about-to-burst above them.

• favourite thing(s) at this place:
• public art