Entering Toronto, you’ll find yourself surrounded by inordinate construction, either towering above you as half-finished condominiums or lurking all around you in various public works convolutions. A decade-long building boom shows no signs of slowing— testament to the city’s will to keep up to its own growth and breathe life into its downtown core. Many designs seek to restore as they renew— architectural innovation meets heritage preservation, making for an exciting future. Nevertheless, it can all be just a bit overwhelming, so if you’re looking to bring things down to street-level (and human scale), here are some reference points for the labyrinth. On your walk, you’ll get a good sense of some of the Old Town’s most historic buildings, neighborhoods, parks, and landmarks.

​The Vault – One King West Hotel & Residence
Savings Department Safety Deposit Vaults
From the street, you may question your decision to stay at this historic hotel, but the gorgeous lobby and classy rooms will quickly win you over. It’s got a friendly little reception bar for a nightcap, and a beautifully restored hall at the top of a winding staircase for major events. The underground vault, built into bedrock in 1913, features a four-foot-thick steel door that weighs 40 tons, but can be moved with your little finger. Best of all, it’s as central as central gets.

Just up the road, you can get breakfast at a place that's been serving simple, classic and delicious fare for over 90 years: 

Shopping
​Located in the core of the trendy Queen Street West shopping district, Fashionably Yours specializes in buying and selling pre-owned, authentic designer clothing, bags, shoes, sunglasses, and other accessories by names like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermes, and Gucci. Priding itself on its exceptional customer service, the store has been the recipient of numerous well-deserved accolades. A lifetime 100% authenticity guarantee is provided for all purchases.

Self-described as “your source for curated vintage,” Black Market, an alternative clothing store at Queen and John offers all its wares for $10 or less. T-shirts feature unique designs, and there is a fantastic selection of seasonal articles, like their famous holiday sweaters. The store also offers sweet vinyl finds from Shortstack Records and a professional silk-screening service with very reasonable rates.

​Speaking of vinyl, Toronto’s oldest Indie record store, Kops Records, has been around since 1976 and boasts the city’s largest stock of near-mint used records and value bins. 

​Toronto’s Old Town is one of the most concentrated areas of 19th century buildings in Ontario, including the site of the first Parliament in Upper Canada. The St. Lawrence neighborhood grew up around the still-standing market of the same name. 

Part of a restored historic corner of commercial buildings (est. 1840) at Front and Jarvis Streets, the Corner Place Restaurant and Lounge is a friendly neighborhood hangout right across from the St. Lawrence Market. Delicious burgers or eight-hour, slow-cooked brisket are perfectly paired with local beer and wine. Soak up some sun on their great people-watching patio; once you're fed and watered, you’ll be ready to continue your walk. ​
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​Newcomers to Tampa Bay may be unaware 'tis a pirate's haven, but what could be more beguiling to kids than a town that revolves around these legendary time travellers? From January through May, the city is invaded by buccaneers during the Pirate Fest Stage Street Festival, the Gasparilla Parade (tons of elaborate floats and marching bands), the Outbound Voyage with Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, and Searle’s Sack of St. Augustine, a thrilling reenactment of Robert Searle’s deadly raid in 1668 (complete with an authentic battle). Join the assault, and snatch up some sparkling beads and doubloons while yer at it!     

Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe is a whimsical eatery that offers eclectic cuisine, supports local artists, and features live entertainment on Friday and Soul Food Sunday nights. The creative menu reflects the personality of its chef, and is best washed down with one (or more) of the cafe’s beers, ciders, wines or specialty drinks. The quirky art collection will amuse and charm even young children. Not to mention the ‘world famous two-headed alligator of Seminole Heights’ (or a reasonable facsimile), captured by local trappers, and on display here.       

​Want to get right out of town to the ocean and fresh air? Drive for 25 minutes down the coast to see manatees in their natural habitat near the Big Bend Power Station at Apollo Beach. The station's discharge canal sends clean, warm saltwater back to the Bay where these gentle mammals seek sanctuary when the surrounding ocean reaches less than 68 degrees.

​The site also features educational tours of the power plant, solar energy, a boardwalk, a wildlife observation tower, and an award-winning butterfly garden.     

​In Tampa, when it rains, it floods. And lightning strikes. It's no accident that's the name of their hockey team. So you'll want to have great accommodations, especially if travelling with little ones. For a taste of southern hospitality in a quiet location, you can't go wrong with a two-room suite priced at $149 offered by Palmer House Bed and Breakfast. You’ll be treated like royalty in this remarkable blend of the comforts of home and style of an upscale resort. The hosts could not be kinder, nor could there be greater attention to detail in the services. And it’s conveniently located just out of the city and close to parks and activities, such as canoeing, horseback riding and biking.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, especially for kids in the Northern Hemisphere. If they're really, really lucky, they may get the chance (and you, too!) to escape winter's last gasps by running away to a sunnier place. And how better to celebrate than with a Tampa Extravaganza! Here, we lay out a few of the lesser-known best times in this city on Florida's Gulf Coast - a blast for both the young and the young at heart.

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​Ybor City is a historic neighborhood near downtown Tampa, founded in the 1880s by cigar manufacturers and populated mostly by tabaqueros from Italy, Spain, and Cuba. Known as the “Cigar Capital of the World,” the factories rolled millions of cigars annually for 50 years – about 700 million at the industry's peak. Ybor City was unique in the American South as a successful town nearly completely owned and operated by immigrants - not a bad place to start a good discussion with your kids, if you're up for it.

​The delightful Ceviche tapas restaurant is intimate and romantic. Sparkling fresh sangria and spicy tapas make a great combination, either hot or cold: ceviche de la casa (chilled and marinated lime shrimp, seabass, and squid); tabla fixta (Spanish cheeses and sausages); calientes (stuffed artichokes in sherry sauce), gazpacho, paella… on and on into gourmet heaven. An authentic slice of Tampa that will make a great first impression.    
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Located right next to the SkyWheel, classic competition can be had between friends, family or colleagues at Strike Rock N'Bowl, a 14-lane, 10-pin bowling facility. Features include high-definition audio-visual systems, LED lighting, touch screens, and adjustable bumper rails to set game levels for kids and novices. You can also play pool, pinball and other arcade games, and even ride a racing simulator.

If wax museums are your thing (and let’s face it, they aren’t everyone’s…), Niagara Falls is your place. Since 1983, the Ramunno family has been running a rock music souvenir store, while patriarch Pasquale perfected his sculpting technique. The resulting Rock Legends are not to be missed. You’ll discover a one-of-a-kind collection showcasing over 70 excessively famous and lesser-known rock stars, from Buddy Holly through Ozzy Osborne to Slipknot.

So too, on the outskirts of what is less a town than a motley collection of mismatched streets, you cannot help but be struck by the number of abandoned homes and businesses (700+ in fact), often standing alone in vacant lots against a backdrop of monster hotels. The cause is a 50% population drop since the 1960s, and the lack of a realistic recovery plan. You may wonder where the residents of the remaining shacks have gone. You won’t see them, and the people left over seem somewhat tired and worn, as if dependent on the next wave of seasonal visitors to wind them up again.

Niagara is an enigma, a place of paradox. She has dual citizenship, and on either side of the Canadian-American border the chasm between tourists and locals is about as deep as the gorge itself.

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At any given moment you can find all kinds of weird exhibits and activities to pass the time on Clifton Hill, from the famous Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum to the Moving Theater to limited engagements such as Wigan's Micro-miniatures, a display you can only see through a 400x microscope. How long each attraction holds your kids’ attention is subjective, so you may want to consider discounted flex combo packages. Wizards’ Golf is a climate-controlled, wheelchair-accessible miniature golf course – one of the largest in North America and one of the newest attractions in Niagara Falls. It’s also one of the best. A mystical, intriguing, glow-in-the-dark world of fantasy will enchant you, and no two holes are alike. If you enjoy a great challenge among good company (wizards, trolls, fairies, and dragons), you’ll get your money’s worth here.

In warm weather, both the Canadian and American towns are over-run with sightseers and impossibly crowded. On the off-season, the streets are somewhat bleak, and despite the bright lights and gaudy painted frontage of popular attractions, there is a kind of faded grey emptiness to the in-between spaces. You get the impression that everyone who works at this great pantomime is either unnaturally young or significantly old: the absence of lifeblood in the middle range is striking.

Nevertheless, whatever the weather, there’s always action within the walls of the town’s two casinos. Casino Niagara is slotted into the Crowne Plaza-Sheraton hotel complex, while Fallsview sprawls the length of the downtown mall. With 150 tables and 4,500 slot machines between them, these vast adult arcades excite the senses, day and night. Clearly, cash runs through this town like water, but there is no reservoir. Rather, it rushes over the city like the cataract, and away again, down the river.

POLAROID TRANSFER PRINTS  

Polaroid image transfers are created by migrating the dyes in the emulsion of a peel apart print to a receptor surface such as watercolour paper. The resulting one-of-a-kind image looks like a combination of photography and painting.

Capturing the moment is the photographer’s interest, but mainstream photography has usually focussed on the subject and its treatment. Film isn’t the most tactile or flexible medium. Processing requires planning and the results depend largely on a rather distant manipulation of the elements, literally fumbling around in the dark with tongs and hypersensitive chemicals.
   With the emergence of digital photography, the potential for image altering and editing becomes infinite. In some ways, this plethora of options could be interpreted as freedom from the limitations imposed by more archaic methods, but it also adds such complexity that a single vision becomes difficult to achieve. Push against this medium and it doesn’t push back – it adapts and expands. Only the artist can decide which moment out of a million is worth preserving.

CYANOTYPE PRINTS

In her work, photographer Jane Linders revisits the relationship between subject, medium, and process. The cyanotype of the Brooklyn Bridge below is printed on a page torn from a 1939 Sheet Metal Handbook. Cyanotype prints are a crude photographic process during which an absorbent surface is soaked in a solution of water, potassium ferricyanide, and ferric ammonium citrate to render it photosensitive. Objects or negatives are placed on this surface and exposed to light (traditionally sunlight) and then the material is rinsed with water. The result is a white print on a blue background. The process was widely used for copying architectural plans, the origin of the term blue print, and adds an additional layer of interest to Linders' series of architecturally themed images.

For the renewal of the New York High Line, an international design competition was launched in 2003, leading to an exhibition of 720 proposals at Grand Central Terminal. The services of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro were retained for the construction, along with specialists in engineering, horticulture, security, maintenance, and public art. Groundbreaking took place in April 2006 with the lifting of the first rail. Over the next 8 years, work was pursued on the various sections of the park:

        1. Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street
        2. West 20th Street to West 30th Street
        3. Rail Yards

The variety of native plant species integrated into the park’s landscape was inspired by the range that grew up naturally in the urban wilderness created by 25 years of abandonment. Hardy and sustainable, these trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses produce texture and colour variation, as well as diversity in bloom times over a long season (late January to mid-November).

From its humble beginnings as a wood planing mill in 1861, the Western Electric site evolved into an elaborate complex that housed the research laboratories of Bell Telephone for over 75 years. A world centre for sound communication innovation, the labs produced new types of switchboards, telephone cables, transistors, and the first electronic amplifiers. Harold D. Arnold's invention, the high vacuum tube, solved a major technological problem in 1914 by making transcontinental telephone service possible.

The early 20th century West Side Improvement Project involved incredible vision and collaboration and left an indelible mark on the New York cityscape (if only as evidenced by the many dramatic films featuring the overhead track as a backdrop). However, the longevity of the ‘lifeline’ was far from assured. Full operation began in 1934 on the heels of the Great Depression, which saw rail freight shipments drop by 50 per cent. It had taken 40 years to conclude the agreement that led to the construction of the High Line; its popularity and usefulness lasted about as long. Once truck shipping muscled its way back into the economy, rail traffic dwindled to about two carloads per week.
     The final blow came in the form of a one-year interruption in service in 1980 due to the construction of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. In the decades that followed, bids for renewal battled demolition schemes with little hope of resolution. It seemed that the elegant but rusting structure’s death would be as drawn out and agonizing as its birth.
     Finally, in 1999, two West Side residents formed an organization called Friends of the High Line that began seriously advocating for preservation and restoration in the form of a public park. Architect Casey Jones was granted a fellowship to conduct a research and planning study, followed by the first sign of City Council support in 2002. The idea became more viable when it was projected that tax revenues created by the reuse of the space could realistically cover the cost of construction.

The complex was converted (1967-1970) under the direction of architect Richard Meier into a housing, studio, and theatre centre. This was the first subsidized housing complex for artists in the United States and one of the first major adaptations of an industrial building for reuse.

NEW YORK, USA

In the province of Québec, l’Île-des-Moulins is the second most important restoration after Place Royale in Québec City, but its destiny was far from guaranteed. By the 1960s, an artificial lake had been dug out of the centre of the island, and its ancient buildings housed nightclubs and artists’ studios. Around the time of Expo ’67, the site also harboured a campground and trailer park. Finally, after much pressure from the citizens of Terrebonne, the Québec Ministry of Cultural Affairs recognized the historical significance of l’Île-des-Moulins in 1973. Five buildings were restored:

By the 19th century, l’Île-des-Moulins had become a pre-industrial complex managed by McKenzie, Oldham, and Co., and equipped with a forge, a bakery, and various types of mills. The mills produced goods for sale but were also used by the citizens of Terrebonne to grind their flour and cut their wood. In exchange, the people paid the seigneur a fraction of their produce, about one fourteenth.
     In 1802, Terrebonne came into the possession of Simon McTavish, a Scot and principal partner of the North West Company, which competed with the Hudson's Bay Company. McTavish transformed l’Île-des-Moulins into a supply post for fur traders known as voyageurs, who navigated trade routes in canoes between 1690 and 1850.
     The reign of the seigneurs came to an end in 1854 with Geneviève-Sophie Raymond-Masson. Her husband, Joseph Masson, was the first French-Canadian millionaire, not surprisingly, since he was an importer, judge, commissioner, and president of the board of the Bank of Montreal. Masson was responsible for bringing turbine technology to l’Île-des-Moulins from the United States. Whereas previous mill wheels froze in the ice, turbines allowed them to work year-round, quadrupling production.
     At the height of his success, however, Joseph Masson fell ill after descending beneath a mill in the cold to fix a break. When he died a short time later, his wife took over the affairs of the island in order to continue to support their 8 children. With the assistance of Germain Raby, who her husband had previously appointed as seigneurial officer, she built an administration building and a new manor that came to be known as the “Château Masson.” She also established one of the most important textile manufacturing businesses of Lower Canada and managed a steamboat that transported merchandise, livestock, and passengers to and from Montreal. Even after the seigneurial regime was abolished, Raymond-Masson continued to invest in the territory of Terrebonne, while Raby became the village’s first mayor.

QUÉBEC, CANADA