Cherry Beach
Sandy harbour-mouth beach with wooded trails, long a refuge for Toronto's queer community and a site of hard civic history.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Cherry Beach in Toronto opens with a 1984 new wave song called Cherry Beach Express, which police tried to have banned, and traces why. It follows the park's double life as a 1930s harbourside refuge for Toronto's gay and lesbian community, and the decades-long pattern of officers using the same cover of trees to drive people out here unseen. A listening tip: notice how the wooded paths behind the sand once offered privacy few other places in the city did.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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