Yonge & St. Clair: From the Ground Up

About the Tour

On this tour, discover the Yonge and St. Clair neighbourhood from the ground up! From the depths of local reservoirs, now covered by park space, to the high-rise office towers, explore the intersection of rural and urban spaces in the heart of midtown Toronto. We’ll peel back the layers of this vibrant community as we discuss the weighty topic of a community in transition. We’ll reflect on what defines the foundation of a community, what has been changed at eye level and finally, as we move up to the highest penthouse, how it can still reflect the past.

About Your Tour Leader

Kate Colenbrander is an Emerging Historian with Heritage Toronto and a documentary filmmaker, photographer and researcher. Her work has been featured in publications like the CBC and Spacing Magazine along with film festivals like Open City Docs and Doc London. Her practice focuses on the spaces where we find contradictory intersections: old and new, city and nature, public and private, development and displacement. Growing up in Toronto she spent most of her childhood around the ravines and underpinnings of midtown from the Brickworks to Mt Pleasant Cemetery. Even now she spends her free time biking around the city’s trail systems and decorated allies, trying her best to keep a keen eye out for the overlooked.

Further Information

This tour runs rain or shine and lasts approximately 90 minutes. Please wear comfortable walking shoes and consider bringing sunscreen and water to make your tour as enjoyable as possible.

This tour is approximately 1.6 kilometers in distance and takes place predominantly on paved city sidewalks and streets. There are some unpaved portions of the route that take place in a city park.

If you have any questions prior to the tour, please contact us at
[email protected]. If you have any issues finding the group on the day of the tour, you can reach staff on-site at (647) 542-3450.

This tour uses individual audio headsets. All registered participants will be provided with an individual headset that will allow you to hear the live tour guide throughout the tour.

If you share our passion for accessible and inclusive heritage programming, we invite you to make a donation while on the tour to help fund one of our next walks. Staff can accept donations via cash, credit, or debit card onsite, and gifts of $20+ will receive a charitable tax receipt.