Yonge St., the spine of Toronto, divider of east and west and connector from top to bottom. As important as our main street is, Yonge tends to remain just slightly out of the spotlight.

Yonge St. has never been deeply loved, or even liked, in recent memory. Too shabby for some, and downright immoral to others, the cool kids don’t much hang out on it and rarely is Yonge a hot spot. Yet it’s the one street in Toronto that’s a common memory for most people.

It’s quintessentially Toronto and representative of nearly every architectural style, shape, and size that make up this city, from shiny skyscraper to the one or two-storey “messy urbanism” that characterizes so many of our streets.

It’s also one of the few streets in Toronto that runs from downtown to the city limits, then deep into the 905 and beyond. It’s everybody’s street; a unifying symbol in a city artificially divided by politics.

The Toronto Public Library recently launched youryongestreet (torontopubliclibrary.ca/youryongestreet), a participatory online exhibit of people, places, and events where anyone can upload their stories, documents, maps, pictures and videos connected to Yonge St. As the library’s current writer in residence, I’ll be contributing to it too, but mostly I’ll be reading through the layers of city life people share publicly. Projects like this give us an angle into the city that usually remains hidden in private living rooms and scrapbooks.

Yonge is also the Toronto street that’s known by people from elsewhere. Before GPS took the thinking out of driving, people coming into the city heading for the centre of town would take the Yonge St. exit on the 401 and drive downtown. Tourists always know Yonge as they instinctively seek out “Main Street.”

Politics and sports know it too: protests and victory celebrations will generally, and naturally, gravitate to Yonge. Wait till the Leafs win the Cup and see what happens here. Ok, maybe don’t wait that long.

When visitors are in town, I’ll usually take them to Yonge as part of a Toronto tour. Here are three of my favourite places to show off:

Tucked in behind Rosedale subway station is Severn Creek Park. A pleasant lawn surrounded by forested ravine slopes with mansions at the top. Rosedale Valley Rd. dead-ends here, so it feels like a country laneway but for the click and clack of the nearby subway trains. A spooky Exorcist-like staircase leads up to Crescent Rd. by the subway entrance. Over the buried creek that gives it its name, this place is just one of the many hidden and exposed waterways Yonge crosses.

Further north where Yonge Blvd. meets Yonge St. is the “North Toronto Gateway,” a sculptural surveyor’s compass marking what was once just about the end of old Toronto. This spot is one of few the places where the vast scale of this city can be seen, with great views north across the Hoggs Hollow valley to the North York skyline.

Then there’s North York itself. North of Finch Ave. are a jumble of strip malls, typical of so much Toronto, filled with independent businesses and a mix of ethnic shops. South of Finch, the downtown Mel Lastman built has really come alive in the last few years. All the new people in the highrises have created a 24-hour neighbourhood with crowded sidewalks and a real big-city feeling. This is the newest incarnation of Yonge St.

Whatever the kind of walk you’re looking for, Yonge St. can still accommodate.

Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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