Old Toronto, Toronto — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Old Toronto?

The CN Tower marks the skyline. Its shaft rises over the rail lands. Down at the water the John Street Roundhouse keeps its locomotive turntable beside The Power Plant gallery and Ripley's Aquarium of Canada, and the TORONTO sign draws crowds up at the civic square.

The Royal Ontario Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario and Bata Shoe Museum hold the collections. Mackenzie House recalls the first mayor. St. Paul's Basilica anchors the east end.

What is the history of Old Toronto?

The district was incorporated as a city in 1834. Before that it was the town of York. When York took its charter it left behind the county town it had been under York County, and the young city then grew for generations by annexing the adjacent land and municipalities that pushed its edges outward across the lake plain.

Fort York guarded the early harbour. Mackenzie House recalls William Lyon Mackenzie, the reforming figure who served as the city's first mayor.

Where is Old Toronto?

Old Toronto covers the part of Toronto that matched the city boundaries before the 1998 amalgamation, spreading back from the Lake Ontario shore across the downtown grid toward the Bloor Street ridge. The lake edges the district.