Living On Three Continents: Huddling In Toronto In Winter
No need to huddle to stay warm in Toronto during a chilly Canadian winter. Citizens can follow The Path - an underground network of walkways and shopping malls connecting the downtown buildings.
Yet some folk still huddle in the cold. Columnist Susan Siddeley explains why.
Imagine if … on a wet Wednesday in Huddersfield, instead of stepping out of the Railway Station, ducking past Harold Wilson, and struggling across St George’s square with your mac. blowing open, you could step downstairs into a labyrinth of brightly lit passageways …. and surface in Smiths or Marks&Spencers or the Public Library!
In Toronto you can do that thanks to The Path
The Path is a very special phenomena - a fascinating network of malls and pedestrian walkways connecting the major buildings of the downtown core, underground. The Richmond Adelaide Centre, First Canadian Place, the Toronto Dominion Centre, Scotia Plaza, Commerce Court, the Royal Bank Plaza, Union railway Station, prize-winning BCE Place - with its dramatic glass roof and even the C.N. Tower, are all connected.
This subterranean system has been growing since the 1980’s and it is now possible to walk for over 25 kilometres without coming up for air. Classy boutiques, retail outlets, convenience stores, banks, medical centres, restaurants, several subway stations and cinemas can all be found on this lower level.
By riding the ‘up’ elevators and escalators, hotels like the historic Royal York, as well as the sky-scrapper towers and their thousands of offices are easily accessed. These machines rise through soaring galleries and impressive halls, which sometimes seem to contain worrying amounts of unsupported concrete. It is said that some people whose apartment complexes and work places both give onto this maze, live happily for months without venturing outside at all.
The multi-storied Eaton Center at Yonge and Dundas is the old heart of it all. Although, the famous Eaton’s Store, which opened in 1856, disappeared last year, replaced by a new Sears. From the first sub-level here, The Path reaches north into the spectacular Atrium on Bay and the Greyhound Bus Terminal.
However most of the grid’s extension has been south from the Sheraton Hotel Center. From here lake-wards, without a map, you can get lost in any direction.
To help prevent this, the Path has Logo Plaques - color-coded for direction (blue - North, yellow - East etc.), hanging in every archway and telling you which building you are under.
Sauntering along the marbled floors amidst the faux greenery is very peaceful midmorning or afternoon. But at lunchtime you need to increase pace to keep up with the throng pressing towards the lavish food courts. And you need to be out of the way by 5.00pm, so as not to be swept away when 100,000 workers stream down from the towers and storm the stations on their way home.
So why - given the current freezing temperatures of winter, do you still find people huddling outside in doorways - just like they used to years ago outside the Curzon, The Wheatsheaf and the Red Circle library? They are certainly hanging out. But, they aren’t wearing the preferred baggy clothing and bandanas of street youth, but shirts, ties and business suits. And, they are not playing music or chatting. They are clustered together, heads averted, arms hanging to the back, exhaling - palming cigarettes.
The bank towers and The Path are smoke-free.
Huddling today signals a cigarette break.
