Tourists in Toronto

Sometimes it's nice to visit the places you always walk by, but never actually enter or even think to see what's inside.

When my friend Andrea and her Brazilian colleague visited Toronto a couple weeks ago, we noticed that Old City Hall was a pretty interesting building from the outside, so we decided to venture in. After contouring the building a few times we finally found an unlocked door, got patted down by security, and were allowed to wander around.

I was totally impressed! The place must be at least a century old, with marble columns and large staircases. Okay, so it was pretty shabby in places. Yellowing plaster and tiles falling off reminded me a bit of old building interiors in Bucharest. I still wonder how it must have looked like when it was functioning as City Hall.

It seems to serve as some kind of court of justice now. Reading off of some signs, Andrea and Barbara asked me what it meant to "post bail". I honestly couldn't really explain it - maybe I should start watching Law & Order or whatever.

We went through one of the open doors and realized that we were on the top balcony of a courtroom being used as a movie set! A huge illuminating balloon was floating up near the ceiling with film crew struggling with harnesses to get the lighting just right.


My favourite part of the building was by far the huge stained glass windows. I just love the way the colours change with the weather.

Looking north on Bay St. 1929 (wikimedia)

Now I need to figure out how to get up the clock tower.