Dufferin Subway Station

Dufferin Subway Station

Dufferin Mall - Stores

The Dufferin subway station is located on the Bloor / Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It was opened to the public in February 1966.  Daily it sees about 28,000 people.  Dufferin station is currently going under a modernization and more changes will be prevalent into the new year. 

Located within minutes of the station is Dufferin Mall.  Historically it was the site of the Dufferin Racetrack, a horse track that operated from 1907-1955.  About a year a shopping plaza was built and and enclosed in the 70's into a shopping mall.  Dufferin Mall has had a complete interior facelift in the past five years.  Although this mall has all the trimmings of most retail malls, it is much less busy than the larger scaled arenas like the Eaton Centre, Fairview and the Scarborough Town Centre. 

Gift Ideas

More Gifts!

The Dufferin Mall is one of the few shopping centres that have a Wal-mart on the subway line.  This is primarily due to the fact that property on or close to the Toronto Transit line is expensive and Wal-Mart stores tend to be very big.  There is also a Zellers as well, which is the added bonus of cheap competition.

Escalator for shopping carts!

Once inside, we found lots of smaller retail stores that offered specialty items, such as LaSenza, Fairweather, Garage, EB Games, HMV, H&M, Payless Shoes, Carlton Cards and much more.

Maybe I don’t get out much but I have never seen before an escalator especially for shopping carts, and I think they thought I was a little strange being fascinated by this and taking pictures!

SANTA & HELPER?

Last but not least, around this time every mall needs to see a Santa.  This Santa didn’t look very jolly and as a matter of fact, neither did the Gift wrapper, so I figured maybe they just had a long day!

Downsview Subway Station

Modern Downsview Subway Station

Downsview Subway station is located on the Yonge-University-Spadina line of the  Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  It's a relatively new station that was opened in 1996 and serves about 30,000 passengers a day. 

Downsview Subway station is located within minutes of Downsview Park.  The 572 acres of land space was used as the location of the 2003 SARStock benefit concert which was to revive the economy of Toronto after the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak. SARs, which is a respiratory disease caused by the corona virus, caught us and the medical community off guard and unprepared.  Between November 2002 and July 2003, 8,096 known cases were reported killing 774 people.  In April of 2003, the WHO (World Health Organization) put out an advisory against all travel here in Toronto reporting that a small number of persons from Toronto had appeared to have exported the SARs virus to other parts of the world causing a near pandemic.  This claim turned out to be false as only new cases of the disease were reported to have originated here and they were only in hospitals.  But it was enough of a scare for the economy and tourism of Toronto to suffer as a result of the advisory. 

2003 SARstock

Hearing of Toronto's dilemma, the Stones being avid fans of our city dedicated themselves to helping us out.  SARstock became the largest outdoor ticketed event in Canadian history!  I was coaxed to go with friends from work and I remember I really didn't want to at first, but it was one of the most memorable events of my life!!  Live acts by the Stones, Guess Who, RUSH, AC/DC, Sass Jordan, Isley Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Blue Rodeo, Sam Roberts and others I didn't know.  The shows finale was the Rolling Stones doing a 90 minute set.  

Today Downsview Park is alive all year long with sporting events, filming (they have film studios!) camps and school programs and ongoing park projects which are changing the landscape of the way the park looks.  Downsview Subway station also has a VIVA Orange Terminal which serves the York regions as well.

St. George Subway Station

St. George Subway Station

 The St. George subway station is part of both the Yonge-University-Spadina Line and the Bloor-Danforth line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  The Yonge-University line was opened in 1963, followed by the Bloor-Danforth line in 1966 and finally by the Spadina line in 1979.  St. George has four parallel tracks, two above two.

St. George subway is extremely busy, ranking 2^nd of the 69 stations as far as pedestrian traffic goes totaling a quarter of a million people a day.  It’s situated right in the heart of the vibrant and colourful Toronto neighbourhood called “The Annex”, populated primarily with young people from the University of the Toronto campus, called St. George Campus.

University of Toronto

Sir Sandford Fleming

The University of Toronto, originally named ‘Kings College’ was founded in 1827.  At that time it was the first institution of Upper Canada that offered advanced learning. It changed its name to the University of Toronto in 1850, once the Church of England no longer had control over and today it all 12 colleges are collectively known as the ‘Toronto School’. 

The U of T Pub Crawl

Each of the 12 colleges under the U of T umbrella all have their own history and purpose.  Publicly owned and funded, the University of Toronto has long had a history of innovations in literature, communication theory (psychology, sociology and anthropology) science (insulin and stem cell research) and the first practical electron microscope was discovered at the U of T in 1938 by Eli Burton.  Two independent researchers (Louise Webster and Paul Murdin) both working at the University of Toronto announced the discovery of the first black hole using measurements from the the Doppler shift which showed a mass that was three times the mass of the sun.

The University of Toronto had employed and educated Sir Sanford Fleming who was known as the Inventor of standard time.  He did this after missing a train in 1876 in Ireland.  He realized this happened because the schedule printed was in p.m. time instead of a.m.,  hence the birth of the 24 hour clock.  He linked this proposal to suggest that standard times zones could be used all over the world and in 1929 all major countries of the world accept time zones.  Today the University of Toronto, has the Sir Sandford Fleming building on its location.

Sir Sandford Fleming Building

Off campus within close proximity there is a pumped up nightlife, excellent local shopping, and many great places to eat and shop.  It’s just after midnight and University students are just coming out of the Duke of York pub.  They do the pub crawl along Bloor Street on a Friday night into the Bar Mercurio, Regal Beagle, the Fox and Fiddle and the Pauper’s Pub and settle at the Brunswick House for some good music. The street is alive again the next day with restaurants serving organic foods to sushi and coffee houses like Starbucks and Timmy’s are everywhere. 

St. George subway, in the heart of the Annex takes you within the reach of Uptown, Downtown and Midtown, making it among the city’s most desirable place to live.

Union Station Subway

Union Station Subway (TTC)

Union Station is on the Yonge University Spadina line of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  The station opened in 1954 and today serves well over 100,000 a day.  Union station ranks 5^th out of 69 subway stations as far as traffic goes, but that is not including the entire building which is separated by a moat that brings you to the other segment of Union which saw its first passenger train departure in 1853.  I would have liked to know where that train went to.  If any anyone has better luck in researching this, feel free to drop me a line in the comment block.

Street CARS

75 years later, Edward, Prince of Wales opened Union Station in 1927 with a gold key that unlocked the doors.  He was sold the first ticket from Toronto to Alberta at a cost of $70 (today’s cost would be over $1000.00).  Shortly after that Union station was in full swing sending and receiving passengers.  A few more years ahead of that and in 1929 the Royal York hotel was built (and still stands). A tunnel was bored under the hotel linking it to Union station.  Actually the first of its kind and the new CN tracks were laid between Hamilton and Pickering. GO transit followed a couple years later with its first time to leave Oakville east bound to Toronto.

Union Station-Go Station

Today the Great Hall in Union Station sees arrivals and departures used by Via Rail, Amtrak and Ontario Northland for inter-city train passengers.  There is a concourse for GO Transit commuter train passengers, as well as access to the TTC subway and streetcar station.  The tunnel I spoke about underground linking Royal York Hotel has been extended to other buildings in the central business district. Union Station also features office space used by the TTR, GO Transit and CN and CP.

Great Hall - Union Station

“Transit City” (currently on hold) has plans to further extend Streetcar loops from Union along the Waterfront hoping to unclog congestion along the lakeshore.