Could Downsview Park become the new High Park?

The opening of the Toronto-to-York subway extension in December makes it possible: an easy-to-access park along a major transit route. With the extension, suddenly parts of the city that either required a car or a bus ride to get to are accessible by the highest order of transit: Downsview Park even has a subway station inside of it now.

As we have known in this city for nearly a decade, subways have political power and persuasion: people understand what a subway does and how they work, even if other forms of public transit can better serve vast areas of the city that have relatively low densities.

Whether or not a subway extension to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre was good transit planning or just politics will be debated for decades to come, but subways also have the power to transform the way we think of entire parts of the city. People who live in cities that have them often use the system map as a basis for their own mental map and understanding of their city. Subway lines define its shape and limits, and stations become local and regional landmarks. If a place is off the map, it’s, well, off the map.

Subway maps are often stylized representations of actual line routes so they’re easier to read but not geographically accurate. Most famously, the London Tube map is designed like an efficient electronic circuit board, so people can see the connections between stations and the various lines, all of which meet at 90- or 45-degree angles. In reality, the lines meander and bend through London, yet the Tube map can dominate the idea of how that city is put together, making neighbourhoods seem further away or closer than they really are. When travelling underground, there are no surface references to contradict the map, either.

Toronto’s much simpler subway map has been closer to reality, though even it can still distort perceptions. When I was teaching at OCAD, I had students go on mapping walks around the Grange neighbourhood and beyond. One was surprised at how close Chinatown was to campus: she thought it was far away, rather than just a few blocks, but since she arrived at OCAD via the University subway line, and went to Chinatown via the Spadina streetcar from Bloor, the neighbourhoods were disconnected from each other. It was only when she “corrected” her perception by walking between the two places did geographic reality snap into view.

In order to make it fit on the landscape-oriented Toronto subway map that is much wider than it is tall, the York extension appears to zigzag quite a distance westward, at times parallel to Eglinton and Bloor. In actuality, the line has a much more northerly trajectory so there’s an increased chance perceptions of the city may be dislocated from reality along that line. All of this can add some fun intrigue to city perceptions, but also, since it’s right there on the map now, as High Park has been for decades, it can bring a place like Downsview Park into the imagination of more people in the GTA.

The park has been a strange and extremely slowly evolving part of the city’s landscape. Once entirely an aircraft manufacturing site and later a Canadian Forces Base, a large portion of the site is still a functioning airport, used by Bombardier Aerospace as a test facility. Walking around the south end of the site near Wilson Ave., the sound of aircraft can be startling to neighbourhood visitors, a plane in an unexpected place. In January, Bombardier announced it is considering selling its 375-acre site, so the area may change drastically. As for the “park” side, change has been slow.

To much fanfare in the late 1990s, the federal government announced a large part of the Downsview site would become an urban park and an international design competition was launched. A design called “Tree City” by famed Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and Toronto designer Bruce Mau was selected as the winner in 2000, but the plan stalled and eventually faded away. The feds, it seems, aren’t so great at creating city parks.

Over time, parts of the park have indeed become parkland, with an artificial lake, hills with great views, pathways and other landscaping. Other parts were controversially sold off to housing developers. While the city is in need of more housing, development along the south end of the park, off Keele St., includes townhouses, but also some low-density single-family homes. While they provide a transition to an existing single-family home neighbourhood, it continues Toronto’s tradition of permitting low-density uses near extremely expensive subway lines.

Before the extension opened, the park was served by either Wilson or Sheppard West (formerly Downsview) stations, but both were on the far side of the Bombardier runway. However, the new Downsview Park station is at the top of the public side of the site and provides easy access to the parkland as well as the sport facilities that have moved into some of the decommissioned airplane hangers.

Included in this hybrid site of parkland and aircraft and Canadian Forces buildings is the Merchants Market, a flea market-style collection of vendors, with many selling antiques, and a rather amazing “international” food court. All of it is housed in the former military “Supply Depot” building. Along with other buildings around the park, it’s listed on Toronto’s heritage building inventory and dates to 1954. It’s worth the visit to the park just to see the building: it’s massive and thick, with double walls and a concrete ceiling designed to withstand nuclear attack. Put it on your Toronto Cold War sightseeing tour for sure.

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Downsview is both interesting and unfinished, with great potential for more change in the near future, so not at all like High Park. Yet now it’s on the map with a subway station named after it, so perhaps it will live in our imaginations more.

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