Here at Met Radio, we’re closing out 2025 with a new round of year-end favourites! To cap off the year, our volunteers and staff are sharing their personal top-ten lists, highlighting the music, media, and gems that defined the past twelve months. New lists to explore and enjoy will be dropping on the Met Radio website every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this December!
Hey everyone! It’s Calan, your volunteer coordinator. One of the best parts of living in Toronto is the spectacular parks that we have access to. Toronto is known as ‘the city within a park’.The city is bursting with green spaces, even in the densest parts of our downtown and the wide reaches of our urban sprawl. This list will go over my top ten parks that I actually visited in the city this year. Some parks that I adore are not on the list because I haven’t had the time to visit them this year. I’ve tried to stick to parks that are fairly contained, so no trails or rivers. I’ve also excluded non-green spaces like beaches, gardens and squares. I love that Toronto has all of these, but keeping this to a top 10 list was already difficult. Of course, this list is far from definitive and presented in no particular order.
Grange Park
This is by far the most downtown of the parks on this list. Located right between the AGO and OCAD, this park is perfect for hanging out with your artsy friends. It’s also one of the few places in Toronto with public washrooms, and they’re generally fairly clean. But what really elevates Grange Park is the play structures. Have you ever looked back at your younger self and bitterly thought that you had no idea how lucky you were? This is the perfect place for you. The slides and climbing structures are big enough to have fun on, no matter how old you are. So go, gather your friends and play hide and seek or tag. The only thing holding you back is yourself.
Directions: Take the 505 Dundas streetcar west from St. George Station until Beverly Street and then walk south.
Tommy Thompson Park
Have you ever wondered where all the soil the city dug up to build the subway went? It became Tommy Thompson Park! What started as a small natural sandbar grew and grew as the city dumped dirt, bricks, and concrete waste created by Toronto’s rapid growth. You can actually still see evidence of this in some parts of the park. Over time, vegetation and wildlife began to grow, and one day, Toronto realized it had built an impromptu nature reserve. After a fight to keep undeveloped, Tommy Thompson Park has become a key part of the city’s biodiversity. Tommy Thompson is one of Toronto’s most impressive parks. This summer, I took my bike right to the very tip of the park and got a truly spectacular view of the city. If you’re looking to do some bird watching, take some photographs of Toronto’s skyline, or just to escape into nature for a while without having to leave the city, I can’t recommend it enough.
Directions: Take the 83 bus from Donlands Station to Commissioners Street and then walk south along Leslie Street.
Biidaasige Park
Toronto’s newest major park has been nothing short of miraculous. When I went on the opening weekend, the park was filled with people, strangers, talking to each other. We were all there sharing this collective experience, and we all just had to speak up about it. It felt like everyone there could breathe just a little bit easier, because in a time when it feels like everything in the city is stalled, delayed, and/or compromised, Biidaasige Park reminded Torontonians that Toronto can actually build things. The name is an Anishinaabemowin word, meaning “sunlight shining toward us”. Located at the mouth of the Don River, much of the park is a gorgeous wetland that serves the practical role of flood protection. It also has top-of-the-line play structures, including two ziplines and a visually striking owl climbing structure. It’s still a young park, so it’s lacking in washrooms and shade, but the park is still growing. The area will eventually be home to a multi-use neighbourhood, a new streetcar line connecting it to the new East Harbour transit hub, and a community centre. Transit-oriented, sustainability-minded, and striving for Indigenous reconciliation, Biidaasige Park is a vision of what Toronto can be.
Directions: Take the 114 bus from Union Station to Munition Street.
Trinity Bellwoods
What is there to say about Trinity Bellwoods that hasn’t been said before? A staple of Toronto twentysomethings’ summers. It’s a go-to spot for quirky young people to host events and gatherings, such as the multiple performative lesbian contests and group scream therapy that took place this summer. It’s ideal for strolling through as you drink expensive coffee from an independent cafe or walking your small-enough-to-fit-in-your-apartment dog. The gate at the southern entrance to the park does a very good job of adding grandeur to the park without actually impacting accessibility at all. There are also tennis courts there, but truthfully, I don’t know a single person who’s ever played tennis there.
Directions: Take the 63 bus from Ossington Station to Shaw Street, and then walk East along Queen Street.
Riverdale
Riverdale Park is, technically, two parks. Riverdale Park East and Riverdale Park West. They’re divided down the center by the Don River and the DVP. Unlike most urban rivers around the world, the Don River is at the bottom of a deep ravine. The banks of the ravine make up the Riverdale Park. The great thing about Riverdale is that there is no bad time to go. Any time of day, and time of year. In the winter, the deep ravine makes for some of the best tobogganing in the city. One damp spring day this year, I was there early enough that the entire valley was blanketed in a thick fog. It was surreal. The western half of the park also features the Riverdale Farm, a fully functional, city-run historic farm. It’s the best park in the city for just sitting around and letting time pass you by.
Directions: Take the 504 King streetcar from Broadview Station to Withrow Avenue.
Christie Pits
Christie Pits is like Trinity Bellwoods’ punk sibling. It’s home to a beloved, dubiously-legal, community-made skatepark. It was the site of one of Toronto’s biggest anti-fascist riots. Even its name is rebellious. It was technically called Willowvale Park until the 80s, when the city had to change its name because no one ever used its government name. It’s also the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs! Not the hockey ones, though, the baseball ones. You can actually go and see them play for free during the season. I caught their last game of the season there this summer, and personally, I would put that game and that park over the Rogers Centre any day.
Directions: Walk West from Christie Station.
Corktown Common
Corktown Common was built in 2013 in conjunction with the Canary District, a mixed-use area that served as the Athlete’s Village for the 2015 Pan-Am games. This makes it a part of the legacy of the Pan-Am games, and if you were living in Toronto at the time, you can tell. Pan-Am games projects have a distinct aesthetic to them. Rounded, naturalistic shapes and bright but earthy colours. If you aren’t from the city, you’re still probably familiar with some of these. The ‘TORONTO’ sign in Nathan Philips Square and the UP Express were also built or completed for the Pan-Am games. There was also a spirit of optimism in the city that lasted through to Canada 150 in 2017. Corktown Common is a perfect blend of play structures, open green space, and restored wetland and pollinator habitat. For all you rail fans, you can also spot trains going in and out of Union Station from the park. I actually managed to catch my brother on a Via Rail train by complete accident one day.
Directions: Take the 504 King streetcar from Broadview Station to River Street. Transfer to the 121 bus on River Street. Ride the 121 to Front Street East.
High Park
High Park is a behemoth of a park in the city. It’s almost certainly the most well-known and popular park in the city. High Park is Toronto’s prestigious park, putting it in the same conversation as Central Park in New York or the similarly named Hyde Park in London. The summer cherry blossoms draw truly spectacular crowds, but it’s worth checking out in all seasons. If you’re a cyclist, it’s a good place to ride on a relatively closed course. There’s a zoo, there’s a theatre, there’s a fishing pond that might have a bunch of drowned English soldiers at the bottom! The size of the park invites us to forget our surroundings and throw ourselves into a forest like that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I spent a summer in high school volunteering for Canadian Stage as an usher for Shakespeare in High Park. One of the shows that summer was a 90s-themed production of Much Ado About Nothing, and they had a playlist of 90s songs that they played before each performance. I must have heard That Don’t Impress Me Much by Shania Twain more than a hundred times.
Directions: Walk South from either Keele or High Park Station.
Evergreen Brick Works
The brick works used to be a massive, mostly abandoned, quarry. The high-quality clay that was dug from it built much of Toronto, but it left a scar on the land. In the last 20 years, the land has been restored, and it’s become a testament to conservation in the city. It now hosts kids’ camps, a restaurant, a museum, and a weekly farmers’ market. I spent I don’t know how many days in my younger years playing in the chimney court or exploring the paths that wind up and around the walls of the quarry. This autumn, however, I saw it in a new way. I got the chance to explore the park at night. I attended a ghost tour of the brick works, and beyond the spooky stories, it was amazing how calm and beautiful it was. A brilliant full moon shone down on us, and our guide encouraged us to take a moment to just listen to the sounds of the revitalized wetland. If you’re looking to escape the noise of the city, it’s a brilliant spot.
Directions: A free shuttle bus goes directly to the brick works from Broadview Station. Alternatively, take the 28 bus from Davisville Station.
Cedarvale Park
I don’t know how Cedervale Park eluded me for so long, but this fall was the first time I ever visited. Built mostly on a ravine, it’s a very linear park. This makes it a great shortcut for those looking to cycle in the city. If you start at the south end of the park, you’ll travel along a multi-use trail with some really excellent foliage cover, before it opens up into a multi-use area, with a dog park, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, and lots of wide open green space. However, what really drew me to Cedarvale this fall was actually what’s below it. Moving, unseen, beneath the park, is the longest stretch of uninterrupted subway in Toronto. The ravine served as the guide for the TTC to build tunnels from St. Clair West to Eglinton West. You can actually spot emergency exits from the tunnel throughout the park.
Directions: Walk north from St. Claire West Station.