Bickford Park
Bickford Park is an urban park running along Grace St south of Bloor St W, and on the north side of Harbord St directly opposite Art Eggleton Park. The park is on land that formed part of the ravine for the Garrison Creek. In 1909 the City of Toronto built the Harbord St Bridge across the Bickford Park ravine in order to extend Harbord St west to Ossington Ave. Here is a photo of Bickford Park from 1913 looking down Grace St showing the enormous concrete Harbord St Bridge over the ravine:
Bickford Park recently had a complete redesign with $400,000 budgeted and fully-funded from the City of Toronto. The main element addressed in the redesign is the addition of an 29,000 square foot-sized off-leash dog park fully fenced off from the rest of the park. Bickford Park has already served as a dog park and the defined off-leash area will give much more freedom for dogs to simply run and will also preserve park use for children without fear that dogs will interfere with their play. The redesign also has numerous improvements for humans too which include: an accessible walkway that will be paved along the eastern edge of the park close to Grace St, two specifically defined areas that will enable social gatherings, planting of new trees, and the installation of park furniture such as picnic tables and bench seating. For local neighbourhood sports activities a new baseball diamond will be a highlight. The sloping toboggan runs on the west side have also been preserved.
Art Eggleton Park
It’s quite an honour for a small park on the south side of Harbord St to be named after Art Eggleton. Apart from his many outstanding accomplishments in city-building, Mr. Art Eggleton is renowned for being Toronto longest-serving mayor, a span of 11 years from 1980 to 1991. The Art Eggleton Park has a children’s playground and splash pad and with the park re-design will host the new neighbourhood T-Ball Diamond. Eggleton Park was originally a deep ravine that followed the course of the Garrison Greek south of Bickford Park and the Harbord St bridge.
Christie Pits Park
In the very early days of Little Italy before the neighbourhood became a protected residential area, the site of Christie Pits Park was used as a quarry to obtain sand and gravel for use in construction. The eastern arm of the Garrison Greek ran openly above-ground through the lands of Christie Pits park. Around 1887-1888 the city undertook a large project costing $60,000 to bury Garrison Creek underground in large sewer lines so the runoff would be contained and not harm the health of residents, nor interfere with growth and development of the neighbourhood. Once the quarry ceased operation in 1906 the land became a play area for local children and was designated as park land.
photo: Children happily playing in the muddy quarry at Christie Pits Park sometime after 1906.
The original name for Christie Pits Park was Willowvale Park. Willowvale Park became a hot spot for Toronto residents. For example, the park was home to six ice hockey rinks that hosted league play from around the city. In the summers the park was a major draw of large crowds watching professional baseball.
The current name Christie Pits comes from Mr. Christie (Williams Mellis Christie who founded the Christie and Brown Cookie company in downtown Toronto in the 1860s and who became the largest manufacturer of biscuits in Canada). The park borders onto Christie St on the east and is also directly beside the Christie Subway Station.
Christie Pits Park is undergoing a concept design review in 2015. The work on the new park is expected to be completed by 2016.
Trinity-Bellwoods Park
Fred Hamilton Playground
George Ben Park