Walking Yonge Street and Staring Up at the Gardiner’s Bones

Some mornings in Toronto feel different. Not because of the weather or the crowds, but because the city shows you something you’ve passed a thousand times—yet never really looked at. That was me today, walking up Yonge Street from the lake with my old Sony NEX-3, set to shoot black and white, and my TTArtisan 35mm manual lens locked into place.

Most people hurry past these supports, eyes forward, mind on work or the next streetcar. But today, I let myself wander underneath them, stopping every few metres to take another photo. The NEX-3 might be one of the oldest mirrorless cameras on the street these days, but paired with that little manual 35mm, it turns the Gardiner into pure monochrome poetry.

The first thing you notice when you stand underneath the Gardiner is the silence. Not completely silent—cars hum overhead, the occasional bus rattles by, and someone always seems to be dragging a rolling suitcase toward the ferry docks. But there’s a different kind of quiet down there, a city quiet. It’s the sort of place only dog walkers, photographers, construction crews, and people heading to the waterfront early in the morning ever get to really see.

The pillars are a whole story on their own. Some are chipped down to the re bar. Some have repair patches in strange shapes, like scars stitched up over decades. Others carry old graffiti tags that survived the city’s clean-up cycles. When I looked at them today through my manual lens, I thought, These giant concrete bones have held this city up longer than most of the buildings around them.

Down by Yonge Street, the view straight under the Gardiner is perfect for photos. Lines, shadows, repeating pillars—exactly what black-and-white was made for. Cars shoot by, headlights bouncing off the worn concrete. A lone person stands at the corner waiting for the light, framed perfectly by the pillars. Manual focus slows you down, but it also makes you see. You don’t plan these shots. The city gives them to you.

It’s funny how many people think the Gardiner is ugly. And sure, it’s no postcard skyline shot. But if you stand there long enough, camera ready, you start to see the character in it. The roughness. The history. The layers of maintenance and neglect. It’s Toronto being honest about what keeps it moving.

Walking up Yonge, I saw a young family coming from under the Gradiner, bundled up, hands full of bags. Life going on as usual while above us, the Gardiner groaned like it always has. That’s the beauty of this city—the mix of the everyday with the extraordinary backdrop we don’t always appreciate.

I’ve walked Yonge Street hundreds of times, but today felt like I discovered a new part of Toronto. That’s why I keep doing this. That’s why I carry that old NEX-3. Because somewhere between Union Station and the lake, between the shadows and the concrete, there’s always another story waiting—if you’re willing to slow down and look up.