August 2024

EVENTS

Celebrate Toronto's oldest surviving queer space with us!

Join us for a free celebration on this upcoming Civic Holiday at Hanlan’s Point—a meeting and gathering place for Toronto’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community for more than a century.

Recently recognized as the oldest surviving queer space in Canada by the City of Toronto, Hanlan's Point is the location of the first public event to celebrate gay pride in Canada. On August 1, 1971, about 250 people participated in a picnic at Hanlan’s Point.

Offered in partnership with the Friends of Hanlan's, the Big Gay Out At Hanlan's Point event will commemorate this anniversary with a picnic celebration. Festivities will begin with a special preview of a new plaque—one of the city's largest.

Bring a picnic lunch, interact with informative displays, participate in on-site activities, and enjoy a drag performance by Pam. Known for her dazzling costumes and theatrical flair, Pam will entertain with a mix of songs from the era of the first Hanlan’s Point picnic.

Make sure to pre-register to secure your spot.

Presented by

EXPLORE

Rethinking Monuments: Black Histories and Black Futures

On Emancipation Day, we're launching a new digital story written by an emerging historian on the colonial history of Toronto's monuments and other forms of commemoration. Exploring the subject through a Black activist lens, the article examines the harmful legacy that city-building practices have had on Black communities, and Black community-led engagements with, and artistic interventions to, public forms of memory in Toronto.

This story was researched and written by Emerging Historian Jane O'Brien Davis and made possible by the generous support of our Emerging Historians Champions:

TOURS

Being Black on King

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Inglenook Community School (19 Sackville Street)

Thursday, August 1 is Emancipation Day, the date in 1834 when slavery was abolished in Canada. To mark this anniversary and learn more the struggle for human rights and the rich contributions made by Black Torontonians to city life, join us on this tour. Spots are limited!

1918 Anti-Greek Riots

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: 433 Yonge Street

Learn how a misunderstanding between a returned First World War veteran and a Greek diner owner resulted in one of Toronto’s biggest riots and its impact on Toronto's Greek community.

Presented by

Making Change at Honest Ed's

NEW for 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Honest Ed’s original location (581 Bloor Street West)

For 68 years, Honest Ed's—a discount department store—was a landmark at Bloor and Bathurst Streets and popular with newcomers to Toronto. On this tour, we'll explore its significant impact on the development of large immigrant communities in the local area.

Presented by

Monumental Interventions

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Nathan Phillips Square

Join us as we examine our city's monuments, many of which depict people whose actions negatively impacted equity-deserving communities. We'll consider different approaches to interpreting and interacting with these historical markers and new visions for placemaking.

Here, tour participants learn about the boarded-up Sir John A. Macdonald statue, located at Queen's Park, which has become a memorial for the Indigenous children who were victims of Canada's residential schools. Learn more on the tour.

Roncesvalles Roots

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden

This tour has singing, costumes, and battle re-enactments. Fitting for a neighbourhood with a strange name and curious history...Enjoy humourous skits as we charge and act our way through Roncesvalles—exploring the art, architecture, and local community efforts that make up this thriving neighbourhood.

Treasure Island

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Bike Share at Tommy Thompson Park Pavilion (3 Leslie Street)

Bike Tommy Thompson Park and discover how these industrial lands were transformed into one of the best places in Toronto to experience nature, and the evolving relationship with the animals who share the park with us.

Presented by

From Old to New City Halls

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Old City Hall (60 Queen Street West)

Explore the history of two City Halls, including the global competition that had Toronto's new municipal building featured on Star Trek, and the bulldozing of the surrounding area for the construction, originally a neighbourhood for newcomers.

Indigenous Paths and Presence

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: St. Germain Avenue and Ledbury Street

See the Bathurst and Lawrence area through an Indigenous lens as we journey through the natural environment, learn about wampum belts, and explore Toronto's first suburban shopping centre whose official opening was marked by cannon fire.

Hidden Histories at U of T

NEW FOR 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: St. George Subway Station (Bedford Road entrance)

Explore the fascinating architecture hidden within the University of Toronto campus. From the adaption of 19th-century homes to innovative modern design, discover how modern education incorporates historic houses and colleges.

Yonge Street Architecture

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: 777 Bay Street

Explore the rich architectural history of Toronto’s Main Street. We'll learn how it began as a simple dirt trail, and how its buildings and public spaces have encouraged Torontonians to gather, celebrate, and do business for over two hundred years.  

Presented by

Big Stories in Little India

NEW for 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: Northeast side of Greenwood Park (150 Greenwood Avenue)

Explore Gerrard Street East! Discover how a former industrial brickyard is now a hub for Toronto’s South Asian community. Here, tour participants explore Chandan Fashion, a family-run business that has been clothing Gerrard India Bazaar clientele for decades. Named after the founders' son Chandan, the shop shop—and family—are also the stars of the CBC reality show Bollywed. Learn more on the tour.

Presented by

Modern Scenes on St. Clair II

NEW for 2024

$9.85 FEE ($8.00 ticket + $1.85 Eventbrite transaction fee)

Start: St Clair Subway Station (Pleasant Blvd entrance)

Take the modern view of St. Clair Avenue on this interactive photo walk. As you stroll the avenue, capture the unique lines and finishes of mid-Modern architectural gems like the former home of award-winning pianist Glenn Gould as well as the Imperial Oil Building, originally designed to be Toronto’s new City Hall in the 1950s.

Creating Toronto

FREE, $10 donation suggested

Location: Northside of Market Street (Front Street and Market Street)

Meet us at our tent outside the St. Lawrence Market where we'll offer special tours exploring how today’s megacity started from 1793 plans for a ten-block townsite in the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood that included allotments for a church, jail, and courthouse.

Presented by

Tales of the Necropolis

NEW for 2024

FREE, $10 donation suggested

Start: Riverdale Park (191 Winchester Street)

Meet us at our tent! During the Cabbagetown Farmers' Market, we'll offer special tours of one of the city’s oldest cemeteries to discover the lives of former Torontonians, including that of our first mayor, an iconic zombie movie maker, and the person who first found dinosaur bones in Canada.

Image Credits

Graphic with image of Hanlan's Point Gay Day Picnic, 1972. Photograph by Jearld Moldenhauer. Courtesy of the ArQuives.

The work of Anonymous Black Geographer R, 355 College Street, 2022. Image by Jane O’Brien Davis.

Tour participants, Being Black on King, June 13, 2024. Image by Rachna Shah.

St. George's Greek Orthodox Church, May 16th, 2014. Flickr user Can Pac Swire.

Tour participants, Making Change at Honest Ed's, July 20, 2024. Image by Hammad Khalil.

Tour participants, Monumental Interventions, May 12, 2024. Image by Mike Portt.

Drawing of Colonel O'Hara's house in Roncesvalles.

Tommy Thompson Park and Entrance Pavilion, May 24, 2021.

Old City Hall, October 6, 2018. Image by Agnes Manivit.

Tour participants, Indigenous Paths and Presence, July 21, 2024. Image by Hammad Khalil.

University of Toronto Bookstore, August 31, 2019. Image by Hanifa Mamujee.

Tour participants, Yonge Street Architecture, June 27, 2024. Image by Hammad Khalil.

Tour participants at Chandan Fashion, May 19, 2024. Image by Hammad Khalil.

Entrance Hall of the Imperial Oil Building. Image by Herman Custodio.

Tour participants, Creating Toronto, June 15, 2024. Image by Rachna Shah.

Group in Toronto Necropolis Cemetery, May 30, 2019. Image by Kristen McLaughlin.