Toronto Parks

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian
Garden Writing.

This book of 49 photographs with accompanying maps and text celebrates
27 of the more than 1000 named parks along the ravines, shorelines, and
streets of Toronto.

Photographer Andrzej Maciejewski and cartographer/graphic designer
Teresa Mrozicka emigrated from Poland in the mid-1980s and now live with
their children near High Park, where this tour begins. Like their 1996
book, Bread, Toronto Parks is self-published.

Maciejewski shot the moody, evocative images between May 1992 and
January 1997, using a camera from the 1950s, lenses made in 1910, and
slow shutter speeds that let him suggest the movement of hurrying people
and swaying plants. Printed in sepia tones, his richly detailed
photographs glow like those in a treasured picture album.

Mrozicka’s impeccable attention to detail in the design of the book
has resulted in a happy marriage of words, photographs, and her own
colorful hand-drawn maps. Not only are these maps charming, but they
include enough information to illustrate both the extent of the
municipality’s open-space system and the exact locations and special
attractions of the featured parks.

Wayne Grady contributes an excellent introduction. Sue Lebrecht, an
experienced outdoor writer, provides a text that highlights some of the
history and present uses of each park. Unfortunately, her writing seems
less carefully crafted than the other parts of the collaborative
undertaking.

Overall, however, the book is a fitting introduction to Toronto, a city
remarkably well-endowed with open spaces accessible to the public. For
residents and visitors alike, it serves as a useful and attractive guide
to some of the city’s best-loved parks.