The Bentway
Designed by Ken Greenberg, The Bentway is an urban park in one of Toronto’s least likely places—under the Gardiner Expressway (which, if you haven’t seen, is a controversial piece of urban planning that cuts off most of the city from its waterfront).
What used to be a space that no one ventured near is now a highly unique part of Toronto that offers a 1.75km long ice-skating trail and year-round artistic, cultural, and recreational activities and events, including public art installations, seasonal and special exhibitions, theatre and musical performances, festivals, and creative marketplaces.
The process of getting there was as unique as the result. Funding came from a public-private partnership that allowed for experimentation and public consultation brought the space to life with programming.
“[The Bentway] is a kind of a great multi-purpose civic living room...This is the opportunity for Toronto—which is emerging as a very different kind of city, this extraordinarily heterogeneous city with the most diverse population in the world—to play back to itself what it is becoming.”
Today, the Bentway reminds us that the most important role public space offers us is the chance to connect with each other.