MOON METRO TORONTO

Moon Metro Toronto
1st Edition
ISBN 156691-627-5
$16.95
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Toronto is the urban heart and mythic soul of one vast, lovely, and largely undiscovered country. While only constituting about 391 of the more than six million square miles that make up the Canadian landscape, the city takes up an inordinate amount of space in the national imagination. After all, Toronto’s identity encompasses multitudes, with an individual spirit expressed in its many faces and a fortitude emphasized by its constant motion.

Today the de facto glamour capital of the country, Toronto started out as a pathless, overgrown wilderness alive with fish and fowl, even before it was a lone British outpost on the banks of Lake Ontario. (In fact, the name Toronto means “fish trap or weir” in Mohawk.) Ever since, the city has grown in all directions, even out onto the lake, but never still. In Toronto, the rush is on—people move, and have moved, at an accelerated rate, keeping time with a relentless clock. Embodying this gestalt is the city’s seat of government, which tried out various downtown locales before settling in the current UFO-like building that too looks ready to take off.

As much as the city moves within itself, it is also a destination to move to. Toronto’s colorful neighborhoods represent an enviable and harmonious league of nations—the sounds of the city’s diverse present and manifold past echo from Little Italy to the old Irish neighborhood of Cabbagetown, Chinatown to Indian Bazaar, eastern European Bloor West to Greektown. This cosmopolitan metropolis is alive with more than 70 nationalities speaking scores of different languages. As a university town with international credentials, Toronto is also a hip center of culture, attracting talented hopefuls who arrive lugging amps and drumkits or clutching portfolios. Perhaps because of its many resident transplants, who may come unprepared for the city’s harsh winters, Toronto has done much in the way of climate control, from SkyDome’s retractable roof—the first in the world—to PATH, the underground city.

Whether above ground or below, uptown or down, Canada’s largest and most photogenic city can change its countenance with an elevator ride or a couple of stops on the subway. The ubiquitous dark suits of Bay Street high rollers and the littered floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange attest to Toronto’s status as an international capital of finance, while only a few blocks away, the fashionable hipsters treading the runway of Queen West show off the city’s trend-setting prowess. With Zelig-like finesse, these eclectic streets have performed to great acclaim in countless films, impersonating New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Big-city pomp hasn’t diminished small-town ideals, though—pampered residents and visitors alike enjoy the best of both worlds. Toronto hosts Caribana, the world’s largest cultural festival, and neighborhood parades still take to the streets in annual traditions. There are quiet areas, featuring elegant historic homes and century-old trees, beautifully coexisting with the constantly shifting skyline of this modern city.

With so much movement, at least one thing remains firm: It’s Toronknow, not Torontoe. Otherwise, Toronto defies anything more than a rough sketch of where it is, or what it has to offer, at any point in time. So catch up with this place on the go, get acquainted with one of its many personalities, and fill in your own details of this luminous Canadian city.