Toronto/Harbourfront



The Harbourfront neighbourhood in Toronto encompasses the area from the lakeshore corridor railway line in the north down to Lake Ontario in the south and from Exhibition Place in the west to Parliament Street in the east. Nearly the entire neighbourhood is built on land reclaimed from Lake Ontario in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Understand
Toronto has always been a waterfront city, but the harbour was strictly industrial for most of the city's history. The original shoreline was further north than where it is today (close to Front St); parts of the harbour were filled from the 1800s onward, as the lakebed was dredged to accommodate larger ships, and new space was needed for shipping activities, factories, and warehouses. As the railways began to shape the region's economy, they also shaped the land along the waterfront, building a large yard between the harbour and the city's downtown as well as a network of tracks to serve industry.

After peaking in the mid-1900s, changes in transportation and manufacturing made Toronto's harbour less valuable to industry. Governments began planning for a waterfront with a mix of uses, eventually replacing many of the industrial and shipping facilities that separated the growing city from Lake Ontario. In the early 1970s, Ontario Place and the Harbourfront Centre opened to attract families and visitors to the lake on the west side of Yonge St, inspired by Expo 67 in Montreal and the plans for Granville Island and False Creek in Vancouver.

The east side retained its industrial character for a few more decades- the Redpath Sugar Refinery and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario warehouse only opened around 1950. By the 1980s, a warehouse block at Queens Quay and Jarvis St was a large nightclub complex that was an important part of Toronto's music scene until it was demolished in 2015, when it was known as The Guvernment. At that time, the east half of the Harbourfront was mostly empty lots and sprawling parking lots. Today, many of those lots have been redeveloped with typical Toronto residential towers, new parks, and a George Brown College, surrounding the sugar refinery.

Queen's Quay acts as the main street for the neighbourhood, with an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Most of the shopping is in Queen's Quay Terminal, a large shopping and condo development which acts as something of a central point for the neighbourhood. The south side of Queen's Quay, along the lake's edge, is a series of slips separating large piers with a mixture of condo towers, repurposed warehouses and small parks.

In the summer, the neighbourhood is a buzz of activity with small concerts, festivals and markets in the park and plaza around Harbourfront Centre, cyclists and skaters crossing the downtown on the Martin Goodman Trail, and daytrippers catching ferries to the Toronto Islands across the harbour.

By streetcar
From Union Station, the Harbourfront and  Spadina streetcars run underneath Bay Street to an underground station at Queen's Quay West. Both routes then run above ground along Queens Quay. The 509 continues west until Exhibition and the 510 turns north at Spadina Ave, to the subway at Spadina Station. Some southbound streetcars from Spadina Station turn back at Queens Quay and Spadina Ave instead of continuing east to Union Station.

At Exhibition Loop/Exhibition GO, the streetcar connects to the  Bathurst streetcar, which runs between Exhibition and the Bathurst subway station. GO Transit's Lakeshore West line serves the adjacent rail station.

Dufferin Gate Loop, at the far north-west end of Exhibition Place, is served by about half of the streetcars on route King, in addition to buses on Dufferin Ave.

By bus
While Queens Quay West (west of Yonge Street) is well served by streetcar, only bus routes serve Queens Quay East. Bus routes 114 and 202 (seasonal) run from the east side of Union Station on Bay Street to George Brown College (between Sherbourne Common and Sugar Beach Park) beyond which there is little of visitor interest.

By subway and train
The nearest subway station is Union Station on Line. From there you can either take the 509 or 510 streetcars to Queen's Quay or you can walk south along Bay Street from Front Street, passing underneath the Gardiner Expressway. For more information on the subway and streetcar lines, visit the Toronto Transit Commission website.

Union Station is also the main terminus for GO Transit trains and buses, and intercity trains operated by VIA Rail. Most trains also stop at Exhibition GO, which is a short walk to destinations in the western half of the Harbourfront, such as Exhibition Place and Trillium Park.

By car
The Gardiner expressway runs the length of the harbourfront one block north of Queen's Quay and there are exits at Spadina, York, Bay, and Jarvis. There is a large parking garage underneath the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and several commercial surface lots, including ones at Queen's Quay and York Street, Queen's Quay and Rees Street, on Bay Street across from the Air Canada Centre and on Queen's Quay next to the Redpath sugar refinery.

See
The Waterfront is massive redevelopment of the city's 46-kilometre waterfront in the city. The redevelopment of Queens Quay West was completed in 2015 providing a bicycle path and a wider pedestrian area. Toronto's waterfront is already quite spectacular, with galleries, walking trails and art, film and theatre complexes. Redevelopment of Queens Quay East is still underway, but there are a few sites to see east of Yonge Street.

Sites are listed from east to west.

Eat


Also check the Drink section for pubs serving meals.

Go next

 * Downtown East — follow Parliament St north under the Gardiner Expressway, at the east edge of the Harbourfront to explore the Distillery District.
 * Entertainment and Financial Districts — some of Toronto's most famous landmarks are found here, such as the CN Tower.
 * Kensington and Chinatown — Queen Street West is home to a range of independent and mainstream shops and restaurants. Further north, Kensington Market is a cluster of unique shops, bars and restaurants between Dundas and College Streets.
 * Toronto Islands — without the large buildings and traffic of downtown, biking, disc golf, swimming, or just having a picnic are popular activities. Centreville Amusement Park is a collection of rides and attractions, mostly for children.