cityscape How to Locate Your Friends in Trinity Bellwoods Park

The grid system for all your picnic needs.



Hanging out in parks is great this time of year, but actually finding friends across expansive playing fields, through stands of trees, and amongst crowds of other parkgoers can be tricky.

Running out of patience for these time-wasting wanderings, problem-solver James McDonough put together this grid-based map of Trinity Bellwoods Park, a very popular warm-weather spot, and posted it to his Facebook profile. He and his buds were “sick of using lengthy, useless descriptions to find each other in the park (and then calling [the] friend and looking around like an idiot).”

So he decided to make a “Battleship-style grid” to allow them to better coordinate their hangouts. “Instead of ‘I’m near that big tree, south of the bushes. It’s kind of near the baseball diamond. No, the smaller baseball diamond. Where are you?’—you just say ‘I’m in D8. Seeya.'”

McDonough says he created and sized the map with smartphones in mind. We think its simple utility will come in handy for more Torontonians than just McDonough and his friends this summer.