Toronto’s highly-anticipated Doors Open event saw people lining up in front of the city's architectural marvels, including the Ontario Legislative Assembly.
Each May, Doors Open Toronto invites the public to explore the city’s more than 160 most-loved buildings and sites, free of charge.
This year, with the theme ‘Hidden Gems,’ Doors Open Toronto took place on May 25 and May 26 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with final admissions at 4 p.m. for most sites.
Ever since its inception, Doors Open Toronto has attracted more than two million visits to nearly 700 unique locations and remains the largest event of its kind in Canada, the city of Toronto said.
In the humid weather on Sunday, Sarthak Shandilya was grateful for the opportunity to understand Toronto better with its history, even though it meant long hours of waiting.
“Every country, every city has its charms," said Shandilya. "As I came to Toronto some months ago, I’m feeling grateful for the chance to see the Ontario Legislative Assembly from the inside. It’s not something usual. I’m happy to be here and the line is moving at a fair pace.”
At the Ontario Legislative Assembly, the public was offered guided tours and the opportunity to understand the workings of the Parliament. The public was allowed inside the House of Commons chambers, including offices of all city dignitaries such as Mayor Olivia Chow's office
Additionally, there were 163 sites open at various times on Saturday and Sunday. Remarkably, out of the total sites, 50 were new in 2024 compared to 2023.
With that many options, Burak Suzgun, who is a tattoo artist and originally from Turkey, said it was “very difficult” for him to decide what he wanted to see at first. However, considering the limited time and waiting lines, he decided to go see the city’s most iconic music venues, El Mocambo and Bay Lower Subway Station which matched his interest the best.
“I love El Mocambo’s significance mainly because I’m a huge fan of music and the Rolling Stones," Suzgun said. "The fact that they played here is awesome to me."
“Being a huge gamer and a Resident Evil fan, I had to see the Bay Lower Subway Station,” he said.
Michael Douglas, Bruce Willis, Will Smith, Mark Wahlberg, The Weeknd, Drake and many others have come to work at TTC’s Bay Lower Station. For Doors Open, the public got the chance to see the hidden section of the Bay Station along with a self-guided tour.
Another popular destination for the event remained the Bata Shoe Museum, the only museum in North America dedicated to exploring the history and cultural significance of footwear. The people were on a self-guided tour through 4,500 years of shoes, including exhibitions like Exhibit A: Investigating Crime and Footwear, Dressed to Impress: Footwear and Consumerism in the 1980s and In Bloom: Flowers and Footwear.
What City of Toronto called a fan-favourite, was the City of Toronto Archives which is an 11,000-square-foot records centre at Davenport and Spadina roads. For history buffs, the place holds 130,000 boxes of records secured in a climate-controlled facility known as the Spadina Records Centre.
In addition to the historic site, Doors Open Toronto also offered the public a dozen neighbourhood tours for people to explore the local history and understand the city’s beauty.
Doors Open is “dedicated to celebrating built heritage, architecture, and design and is produced by the City in partnership with the broader community,” the City of Toronto said.
