Toronto Downtown Walk

Photo: G. Edward Johnson, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

This walk follows Toronto's story from a small colonial town to Canada's largest city, one neighbourhood at a time. You start at Union Station, swing past the CN Tower and the railway roundhouse, then head east into Old Town, where the Town of York was laid out in 1793 and the St. Lawrence Market has fed residents since 1803. From there you turn north to two city halls, one Victorian and one space age, then west past the Art Gallery of Ontario to finish in Kensington Market, shaped by wave after wave of newcomers.

Toronto stands on land that has been home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat, and it is still home to many Indigenous people today.

Allow about two and a half hours for 12 stops and roughly 5 kilometres on foot. Every stop is seen from public streets, squares or concourses, and museum visits are optional. In bad weather, the underground PATH shelters part of the route. Begin outside Union Station on Front Street.

12 stops on this tour:

Union Station - A Cathedral for Trains

CN Tower - The Antenna That Became an Icon

Roundhouse Park - Where the Locomotives Slept

Brookfield Place - Calatrava's Crystal Vault

Hockey Hall of Fame - A Bank Built for the Cup

Gooderham Building - The Flatiron of Old Town

St. Lawrence Market - Hogtown's Pantry

St. James Cathedral - York's Oldest Congregation

Old City Hall - The Architect's Stone Revenge

Nathan Phillips Square - The City Hall of the Future

Art Gallery of Ontario - Gehry Comes Home

Kensington Market - The World on a Few Blocks

Stops on this tour

1. Union Station - A Cathedral for Trains
2. CN Tower - The Antenna That Became an Icon
3. Roundhouse Park - Where the Locomotives Slept
4. Brookfield Place - Calatrava's Crystal Vault
5. Hockey Hall of Fame - A Bank Built for the Cup
6. Gooderham Building - The Flatiron of Old Town
7. St. Lawrence Market - Hogtown's Pantry
8. St. James Cathedral - York's Oldest Congregation
9. Old City Hall - The Architect's Stone Revenge
10. Nathan Phillips Square - The City Hall of the Future
11. Art Gallery of Ontario - Gehry Comes Home
12. Kensington Market - The World on a Few Blocks

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• University of Pittsburgh Campus Walk (223 mi) - A self-guided loop of Pitt's Oakland campus, from the 42-story Cathedral of Learning to the lab where the polio vaccine was born.

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