YONGE STREET:
Yonge Street is the leading street of Toronto, going from the financial district and harbour in the south to the northernmost suburbs. The most central part, where we stayed, at Comfort Hotel Downtown, is a hip entertainment district with somewhat neglect townhouses, cheap restaurants, drug stores (cannabis etc!), fastfood chains, hotels, department stores and super luxurious residential skyscrapers (in the middle of that!). A bit further to the South you will find fancy brand stores, and to the North it is more residential in its character (actually Yonge St changes character lots of times), and passes the posh Yorkville neighbourhood. Even further south, it is an ultramodern shopping and business district with some of Toronto's tallest skyscrapers.Yonge St was the world's longest road according to Guiness Book of Records, but was a conflation; it's extension is not counted part of Yonge St, so it is actually 86km long and not 1896km, but still enough to pass through the whole Toronto including suburbs, in South-North direction.
The most central part is the Yonge-Dundas Square, at the intersection of these two streets. Dundas Square is an ultramodern square with neon lights, ads, crowded restaurants, department stores, entertainment - the closest you come to Times Square in New York, or Shibuya in Tokyo. Especially after dark, this place look impressive. Eaton Centre, Toronto's foremost shopping mall, also has an entrance at Yonge St, right at the square.
At Yonge St and Asquith Ave you find the Toronto Reference Library, built in 1977 and designed by Raymond Moriyama. It is the biggest public reference library in Canada, and might not look so special from the outside with its boxy facade, but once you get inside you will find a large light 5-storey atrium and a pond. One might think you have just entered a luxury hotel. There is also a special Arthur Conan Doyle Room, dedicated to the author of Sherlock Holmes, complete with books and a room that is furnished to look like the author's writing room. The room be a bit hard to find, situated behind glass on the upper floor. In the library, there are also music instruments that can be borrowed!
Not until the recent years there have been many skyscrapers built along Yonge Street. The most significant skyscrapers along Yonge St are Aura, a mixed-use, 78-storey, 272m tall skyscraper from 2014 with its own shopping galleria.
One Bloor, a 76-storey, 257m tall glass scraper with curved balconies, almost completed during our visit in 2016. It is situated right next to our hotel, at Yonge, Bloor and Charles streets. These two are the tallest residential towers in Toronto. In the southermost part of Yonge St, you will since 2015 find the L Tower, a curved 58-storey condo glass building designed by Daniel Liebeskind, right next to the Sony Centre for Performing Arts.
IMG_8007 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
IMG_8052 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
IMG_8066 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Aura skyscraper
IMG_8803 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Hockey Hall of Fame
IMG_8047 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Dundas Square 21 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Dundas Square 20 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
Toronto Bus Tour 118 by
Nightsky, on Flickr
http://www.worldtravelimages.net/Toronto_Yonge.html