A Tall Tale

A SKATEBOARDER RIPS THROUGH THE PARK, getting air off a handful of multicoloured ramps. It’s 28ºC—feels like 36—but it’s breezy down here under the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto. Nearby, a water feature spurts to life in front of the Fort York Visitor Centre. Around it, a crowd is gathering; five or six people multiply to 30. There’s traffic overhead, but the sound drifts down as a surprisingly gentle hum.

“It was a space that was hiding in plain sight,” says Ken Greenberg, the urban designer who catalyzed the idea for a public park under the Gardiner in a 2011 article for Fife and Drum, Fort York’s newsletter. “That’s what was so amazing about it. The space was 14.5 metres high; it had this beautiful sinuous double-S curve as it made its way around Fort York and gave this amazing unfolding perspective. And it was just completely ignored.”

Greenberg—whose storied 40-year career includes playing a key role in conceiving the Two Kings planning policy, which opened King West for development in the 1990s—presented the project to philanthropists Judy and Wil Matthews. Their $25 million gift, paired with early sketches from urban design firm Public Work, catalyzed support from the City. As senior staff shepherded the project through consultations, the City allocated $10 million to help operate and maintain the space. Waterfront Toronto contributed its expertise in building public space on the lake’s edge.

“The Gardiner provided this great canopy of classical proportions that we could never create if we wanted it in an urban setting. Only the Romans were able to do works at that scale,” says Greenberg. “It was a space full of potency and potential. Seeing it become this thing of beauty that people are really enjoying gives me enormous satisfaction.”

The Bentway launched in January 2018, but the park, which stretches under the Gardiner between Strachan Avenue and Bathurst Street, is still transforming. This past winter, a skating trail drew 20,000 people on its first weekend (one of the year’s coldest); the trail morphed into a skate park this summer. Soil excavated to make way for a new sewer system under the park was used to create The Green, the bigger of two amphitheatres that now sit at the Strachan end of the park. The amphitheatres launched in August with a block party that also marked the official end of Phase 1 of The Bentway’s evolution. Next up: a suspension bridge, part of the project’s second phase, that will extend the park east from Strachan all the way to Bathurst.

Through it all, to the surprise of some Chicken Littles, the sky hasn’t fallen (nor has the Gardiner). And yes, if you’re still wondering, it turns out people do want to hang out under an expressway. Why? Partly because of the feeling of openness, literally and figuratively. “The things people do to have an exclusionary >> (Continued on p. 36)

“We’re really trying to flip the institutional dynamic and be a shared space that belongs to everyone.”

space...we don’t have those,” says Dave Carey, director of development of The Bentway Conservancy, the organization that was formed to develop, program and steward the project. “There’s no defensive architecture on-site. The seating is meant to be inviting. Almost all our events are free. There’s no front door, no one taking your ticket. We’re really trying to flip the institutional dynamic and be a shared space that belongs to everyone.”

“Everyone,” within a 10-minute walk of here, means more than 77,000 people, most of them residents of Liberty Village, City Place and Fort York. The Bentway is giving one of the most densely populated parts of the city not only a new multi-use path but also a new place to gather and a new perspective on their neighbourhood and its role in the city.

Reflecting on that ever-evolving role—how the past, present and future co-exist here—is one of The Bentway’s aims. This summer’s exhibit—five-metre-tall pop-art-inspired neon canoe paintings by Lakota Sioux artist Dana Claxton—referenced another lifetime, when the area was a shoreline-hugging trading route, with their bows pointed up at today’s preferred mode of transportation. The vision for The Bentway is to reimagine not only where we can build vibrant, urban public spaces but also the role they can play in public discourse.

“I think public spaces become ‘stickier’ as they become more interesting,” says Carey. “We have a real desire not to be static. We want to keep intriguing people with what’s possible under the Gardiner.” That may be the biggest contributor to The Bentway’s appeal—the sense that anything can happen here and that anyone can play a role in defining it.

BY CHRISTINA PALASSIO

PHOTOS BY CRISTIAN ORDÓÑEZ