The Beaches

This guide to The Beaches in Toronto starts with a September morning in nineteen oh nine, when the first public airplane flight in Canada lifted off this shoreline in front of a crowd that had really come for something else. It follows Harry and Mabel Dorsey, the couple who poured a fortune into building Scarboro Beach Park here in nineteen oh seven, with its Shoot the Chutes water ride, a Tunnel of Love, and a wooden scenic railway meant to rival Coney Island in New York. For nearly two decades this stretch of sand was where the city came to scream, laugh, and fall in love.