50 Toronto Hidden Gems & Curiosities was published by spacing magazine and contained articles written by various authors. I thought I would be charmed and learn about some secret sights hidden in my own backyard, so to speak, but I was surprised that by the end of the book I hardly took any notes. Apparently I knew about many of these hidden gems already. All the on-line research I conducted using Google Maps centred on two tiny inaccessible lanes, Trenton Terrace and Melbourne Place, and the curvature of 327 Carlaw Avenue, which was built to fit around the ghost of a railroad spur.
The hidden gems that I was most familiar with are close to Mark’s place, and we have explored them, or simply walk past them, on many occasions: Wychwood Park, the Connaught Gates at Claxton Boulevard, and the tiny house at 128 Day Avenue.
There was a page on the Riverdale Farm island house yet I am old enough to remember visiting the place when it was still the Riverdale Zoo and that house back then served as a cage. I did learn about Toronto’s eruv lines, which gave this gentile some actual local context for a word I know only from Scrabble. I will have to remember to look up whenever I am in the area bound by the overhead lines. I would like to see the Cold War-era air raid sirens, still standing in three Toronto parks, so a summer outing is in the works.