Aga Khan Museum
A world-class museum of Islamic art in a building worth the trip on its own, with a garden most people never find. Free on Wednesday evenings.
North York
A downtown of its own stacked along Yonge Street, wrapped in post-war bungalows and ravines. It has the best Persian and Korean food on the continent, a subway line down the middle, and a civic square that programmes something free most of the summer.
Stock photograph. Not North York.
A second downtown
Feels like
30 min on Line 1
To Union Station
Subway access with space
Go for
How to say it
North York is a place, not a direction: it was its own city until 1998 and people who grew up here still say it that way. “Uptown” means Yonge and Sheppard or Yonge and Eglinton depending on who is talking, and both are wrong to somebody.
Heads up
The Yonge corridor is dense, walkable and expensive. Two hundred metres either side of it you are on a quiet street where you will want a car, and the price difference reflects exactly that.
Who to go and watch
The clubs, and which ones you can actually get in to see.
Canadian Premier League
York United FC
Top-flight Canadian football at York University for the price of a cinema ticket. Small ground, loud supporters' end, no bad seats.
OJHL junior hockey
North York Rangers
Junior A on a Friday night. This is how most of this region actually watches hockey, and it costs about fifteen dollars.
Where to actually go
5 things worth knowing about North York.
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.
Yonge north of Finch
Persian bakeries, kebab houses and Korean barbecue for a solid two kilometres. Go hungry and go late: a lot of it is open past midnight.
Edwards Gardens & the Botanical Garden
The start of a ravine walk that will take you to the Brick Works if you keep going. Free, formal at the top, wild by the bottom.
Mel Lastman Square
The civic square outside North York Centre station: free concerts all summer, a rink all winter, and a farmers' market in between.
Bayview Village & Sheppard
The independents sit around Bayview and along Sheppard East. Quieter than downtown, and you will always get a table.
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”.
March
Nowruz
Persian New Year, and North York does it properly: the Yonge corridor and the Aga Khan Museum both fill up for the week around the spring equinox.
July
Cultura Festival
Free Friday nights at Mel Lastman Square all month: food, film, music, art. The easiest possible first outing if you have just arrived.
December
Skating at Mel Lastman Square
Free outdoor rink under the lights, right on top of a subway station. Skate rental on site, no booking.
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.