HTO Park

when youre here, it doesn’t feel like toronto, a wonderful park to help you escape the rush rush of the city… without leaving the city. one of the best urban parks to be built in the last decade. lots of umbrellas and chairs to help you hide away from the sun or other elements, and the wonderful sand at youre feet.
bring a camera as there is alot of stuff to photograph in the surrounding area

I Love reading here while soaking up the sun! I enjoy the boats and sinking my feet in the sand. Very relaxing lake view! The only thing I’d change is more cleaning of the dirty cigarette butts or banning smoking all together here.

HTO Park is great!
I particularly like the urban beach – what I come from. It’s right near the lake, across from the Rogers Centre/​Skydome. It’s got these great yellow umbrellas and white Muskoka chairs so you can sit and also have shade. Bring a book and just park yourself for the day.
There’s usually skateboarders or bikers/​runners in the area, and people walking along the water, so it’s great for people watching. If the beach/​sand area is packed, you can hang out on the grassy little hills.
Tip: Come before 12, before it gets busy, to grab chairs (which are chained to the umbrellas). Even if you can’t grab a chair, just throw down a blanket on the sand and enjoy the lake views. There’s also a water fountain nearby if you get thirsty and want to fill up.

this is a review of hto park west, but Unilocal decided to lump it into hto park when i tried to create a new business for the smaller park. very small park next to it’s bigger brother hto park. right on the water. can watch planes taking off and landing at toronto city airport. small paths and hills with a few trees. a couple large artistic lounge chairs facing the water. a good use of other probably useless space. sf could use more of this.

I love going over to the hto park! Luckily I live right across the street! Bring a good book, and relax in the muskoka chairs and slip your feet in the sand. There are big yellow umbrellas if u like the shade. A great place to relax by the water and feel like ur on vacation. Good place for the kids to bring the sand toys and play!

I’m a fan simply because it gives off a beachy vibe in the midst of urban Toronto. I forget (for a few minutes anyways) that I’m in Toronto. It’s a great way to hide from the sun while hanging out around Harbourfront. I like the yellow umbrellas. They’re quite fun. And while there are wooden chairs to sit on, I saw like, 6. But nevertheless, it was not that crowded on a Saturday afternoon and there were chairs available.

There’s never any chairs available! The last time I was here I had someone hovering beside me as soon as it looked like I was packing up my bag, eager to swoop in and yoink my seat. Guess it’s a testament to how popular this place is, though! It’s easier to get to than Sugar Beach, and the boardwalk to the south means you’re not actually that close to the water, but it’s still a nice place to chill in the city.

I always think that its pretty cool when an urban area finds a way to incorporate a beach into its design. That’s the most intriguing thing that you’ll find at the HTO park, but its still pretty cool! The rest of it is just a waterfront walkway with some green space.
I just wish it had been warmer on the occasion I had been there because I would have loved to try out one of its chairs and caught a bit of sun!

For the past two summers I take a bike ride along Toronto’s waterfront, I should probably do it more but it seems like once a year satisfies my need to see the waterfront. I also do this bike ride on one of the summer holidays as I love how empty Toronto is on the summer long weekends. On this trip I like to stop at HTO Park. I think it is really cute little park and the first time I came across it I was surprised to find such an odd little place. I don’t know the history of the area but I think it is a nice place to stop, take a look around and enjoy some sand. It is noisy, even on the morning of a long weekend, so there is no pretending you are actually at a beach, you have an airport to the right, ferry’s to the left, a busy highway behind you as well as the CN Tower looming over head. But all this surrounding you and to be sitting on a Muskoka chair with your feed in the sand is kind of fun. I can’t imagine spending the say there but as a pit stop on a yearly bike ride it seems like a little gem.

If it wasn’t for city planning politics, Toronto’s Harbourfront would be a pretty rad place to hang.
Unfortunately, with a lot of fingers in the planning pie, it takes ages for things to happen, and the portion of Queens Quay west of the Harbourfront complex remains an undeveloped and barren stretch of condos and, aside from little joys like the Music Garden, doesn’t have much else.
HTO Park is a result of years of planning, and it’s… okay. Though touting itself as a people’s park, I don’t know of many Toronto dwellers who actually know this place exists.
On paper, this park sounds great — urban beach, fixed umbrellas to provide shade, Muskoka chairs for relaxation, rolling hills for picnicking… I have seen it used for beach activities, including beachball volleyball and sunbathing, but I’ve never used it myself or have wanted to rest here on my journeys west. It feels contrived. Probably because it is.
In all seriousness, I can’t lay in this stretch of sand and really believe I’m on a beach. I’d sooner take the streetcar and go to a real one 15 minutes down the road.