St. Lawrence Market
Saturday morning, downstairs, before ten. The upstairs is a tourist attraction; the lower level is where people actually shop.
Downtown Toronto
Everything, all at once, within about four square kilometres. If you have just landed and do not yet know which part of this region is yours, spend your first year here: it is the only place in the GTA you can live properly without a car, and every other community on this site is a train ride from it.
Stock photograph. Not Downtown Toronto.
The middle of it
Feels like
You're standing in it
To Union Station
Arriving without a car
Go for
How to say it
Toronto has two syllables when you live here: Trawna, or T'ronno. The second T is decorative. The whole region is “the GTA”, downtown is just “downtown”, and anyone calling it “the 6ix” out loud is either joking or selling something.
Heads up
Almost all of it is condos and most of them are small. Read the building's rules before you sign: some of them decide what you may keep on your own balcony, and every one of them charges maintenance fees that rise.
Who to go and watch
The clubs, and which ones you can actually get in to see.
NHL
Toronto Maple Leafs
Tickets are famously hard and famously expensive. Watching a playoff game from a packed bar on King West is the free version, and honestly the better one.
NBA
Toronto Raptors
The 2019 championship is still the happiest thing that has ever happened to this city. Jurassic Park, the square outside, is free to stand in and worth doing once.
MLB
Toronto Blue Jays
Canada's only major league team, so half the country turns up. A weekday afternoon game with the roof open is the cheapest good day out downtown.
MLS
Toronto FC
The south end sings for ninety minutes straight. Sit in it once, even if you do not follow football.
CFL
Toronto Argonauts
Founded in 1873. Three downs, a wider field and a longer one: it is not the American game, and the rules take a match to learn.
AHL
Toronto Marlies
The Leafs' farm team, and the version of them you can actually get in to see. These are the players who will be on the big roster in two seasons.
PWHL
Toronto Sceptres
Professional women's hockey, on the same ice in the same week. The league is young enough that you can still be one of the people who turned up early.
WNBA
Toronto Tempo
The WNBA came to Canada here, which makes this the whole country's team as well as the city's. Still gettable, and that is the part which will not last.
Where to actually go
5 things worth knowing about Downtown Toronto.
Public places, parks, markets and the streets the independents are actually on. Nothing here is invented, and nothing here is a photograph of somewhere else.
Kensington Market
Four blocks of everything, and car-free on Pedestrian Sundays through the summer. Eat standing up and keep walking.
The Toronto Islands
Twelve minutes on the ferry and the best view of the skyline there is. Go on a weekday and you will nearly have it to yourself.
Queen West & Ossington
The densest run of independent coffee in the country. Start at Bathurst, walk west, and stop when the shopfronts stop making sense.
Trinity Bellwoods
On the first properly warm Saturday the whole city goes here at once. That day is an unofficial public holiday and you should treat it as one.
The year
What comes round every year.
Keyed to a month, never to a date. Dates move, and a page that prints last year's is worse than one that says “September”.
February
Winterlicious
Two weeks of set menus at restaurants you would not otherwise book. The city's answer to February, and it works.
May
Doors Open Toronto
One weekend when a few hundred buildings that are normally shut let anyone walk in, free. The single best way to learn this city.
June
Pride Toronto
One of the largest Pride celebrations anywhere, and it takes over the whole of the Village and a lot of Yonge Street with it.
August
Caribbean Carnival & the CNE
Caribana's parade on the Lakeshore is North America's biggest Caribbean festival. Two weeks later the CNE (running since 1879) closes the summer.
September
TIFF
The film festival takes over King Street for ten days. Public tickets go on sale weeks ahead and locals genuinely queue for the rush line.
October
Nuit Blanche
One night, dusk to sunrise, free art everywhere. Wear better shoes than you think you need.
HelloGTA.com
The GTA is enormous and most of it is unknown to everybody.
Including the people who have lived here twenty-five years. That is the whole brief: twenty-nine guides, and a question a week put to the region.