From The Top (CN Tower)

Member Name: michaelhudson

Product:	CN Tower
Date:	06/12/02 (954 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good views, Central location

Disadvantages: Crowded, Expensive

'Canada's Wonder of the World' rises 533.33 metres between Toronto’s resurgent waterfront and glitzy financial district. Attracting almost two million visitors per year, the CN Tower, built between 1973 and 1976 by Canadian National in order to showcase the continued strength of domestic industry, cost $57 million, has a wind tolerance level of 260 mph, and is struck by lightning 75 times every year. Slender, perhaps even sleek, though by no stretch of the imagination beautiful, the y-shaped 130,000 tonne structure veers up from the ground in an ever narrowing concrete and steel point, passing through a seven storey doughnut before tapering off with a blinking light way up in the clouds.

DETAILS

The nearest subway station is at Union Station, less than a ten-minute walk along Front Street. Car parking spaces are available at the adjacent Skydome.

Other than braving the queues at the foot of the tower itself, tickets are also available one-line at www.cntower.ca or at the nearby Info T.O. office, located a short distance from Planet Hollywood in the Convention Centre on Front Street West.

Prices start at $15.99 plus 15 % tax for the basic Look Out and Glass Floor package.
The Total Experience, featuring the above plus the higher Skypod observation level, two aeroplane simulator rides and a 15-minute documentary on the construction process, is the most expensive at £29.99 plus tax.

The tower is open 364 days a year. Hours are subject to seasonal adjustments so it's worth checking the official website for current information.

The CN Tower is classified as the largest structure, rather than largest building, in the world as it was primarily built to house a TV antenna and does not have floors throughout the entire structure.

THE TOWER

There were minimal queues when I visited the tower in late November but waiting times can be two hours and more during the peak summer m
onths before you even reach the top. After buying the tickets a corridor runs around and above the gift shop level to the express lifts, stopping at a single file security checkpoint that looks like a standard airport metal detector but instead blows air out of six side ducts in order to reveal any hidden objects in your clothing. A bored looking security guard glanced over my billowing jacket before gesturing in the direction of the lift.

Upon entering one of the six glass-fronted express lifts you are whizzed up the tower at a rate of 15 miles per hour. Operators provide commentary and answer questions -"Has anybody ever vomited in here?"- for the duration of the 58-second journey as skyscrapers slide into the lower distance and the ground disappears from view. When the doors open you are 344 metres up and relieved.

There are four look out levels in the CN Tower. The lowest, the Glass Floor and Outdoor Observation Deck, is two metres lower than the Horizons Café and Indoor Observation Deck (where the first lift exits), down a flight of stairs. The 360 restaurant, which rotates once every 72-minutes, is directly above the Indoor Observation Deck, while the 447-metre high Skypod level is reached by taking a second lift – and joining another queue- from the Indoor Observation Deck. The basic ticket package includes the lower two floors only.

THE INDOOR OBSERVATION DECK

Peering through the glass the city of 4.7 million extends north and east to the horizon and beyond. Northeast, the elegant Campbell House stands to the side of University Avenue, merely accentuating the neoclassical grandeur of Osgoode Hall, which looks a bit like a Greek Temple, is vaguely reminiscent of an English country mansion and is fronted by the defiantly North American Hilton Hotel. The open semi-circular curves of City Hall loom out of the shadows behind the Sheraton Centre, all but obscuring the Old City Hall just to the east. In the fore
ground, the glass-domed Roy Thomson Hall dominates a rare open space next to the Bank of America building. In the distance, far, far behind the occasional puff of factory smoke and the flat, hazy suburbs, Ottawa and Montreal provide equally beautiful cityscapes.

North, the striking straight lines of Toronto's major arteries, Spadina, University and Yonge, intersect the seemingly random dots and clusters of high rise buildings, dividing the city into long rectangles that constantly rise up and then drop sharply back down. Between City Hall and Chinatown, the Art Gallery of Ontario spreads out behind a decrepit tower block. Several blocks back, the Royal Ontario Museum is just visible behind the green space Queen's Park, fronting Yorkville and the low-rise playground of the rich. Chinatown pushes out in all directions from the Art Gallery to the squat, whitewashed building that marks the edge of Kensington Market – a chaotic open-air maze of stalls selling clothing and fresh food. Behind Yorkville haze and grey skies obscure the sprawling satellite townships, save for a few otherwise nondescript areas spotlighted by breaks in the cloud cover.

Northwest starts with the bizarre Metro Hall, an oval green façade encased in columns of grey concrete and topped with a glass pyramid. Past the theatre district at the foot of the tower, and beyond the small golf course, the flat-roofed Exhibition Park once housed the Toronto Blue Jays, though the Molson Brewery is a more recognisable contemporary landmark. Back to the golf course, and focusing on the muddy scrubland between the car park, the railway tracks and the encircling expressways, the log and stone buildings of the refurbished Fort York seem totally incongruous, dwarfed by the surrounding dullness. Blown up by the retreating British troops during the War of 1812, the stone ramparts and some of the more interesting buildings have been restored, though the Gardiner Expressway is far busier n
owadays. Further out, Little Italy and Little Portugal are both somewhere in the squashed two-storey jumble behind the Fashion District.

Detroit is invisible 209 miles away to the west. Far closer, in fact just on the other side of the Western Gap, Toronto City Centre Airport is at present no more than a runway from water to water and a few tiny buildings near a sandy beach. Controversial expansion plans notwithstanding Toronto's second airport is dulled by comparison to the pretty marina across the channel. Humber Bay starts here, eventually wrapping itself gently around unremarkable residential districts. Closer, Cinesphere IMAX and Ontario Place are the only real areas of note.

Southwest, the retractable roof of the Skydome, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, is visible directly below. Toronto's Inner Harbour stands between the city and the airport, while the Quay West Marina marks the location of an excellent antiques market.

The walkway inside the tower narrows from here round to the northeast point as it passes between the tables and counters of the Horizons Café. Open from 11am until 5.30pm, customers are able to sit directly in front of windows overlooking the harbour and Lake Ontario as compensation for overpriced food. Sandwiches start at $12 while cocktails are mostly $9. Non-customers, those who’ve only paid the $18 for the views, are free to peer over seated heads and squeeze into the few gaps between the small tables.

South, through one of those small gaps, the Air Canada Centre houses both the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The distinctive white roof is adorned with two Maple Leafs that form perhaps the only landmark of note between the car parks, warehouses and the slips and marinas on the edge of the harbourfront.

Southeast, a tangle of empty railway lines run below the dirty white roof of Union Station, its imposing front hidden, its silent tracks speaking of the decline of the u
nderused, overpriced Canadian railways. The old railway hotel opposite, the Royal York, adapted far more successfully to modernity, even hosting the Queen inside its elaborate front of rising shapes and beaux-arts splendour. On the other side of the elevated, bustling Gardiner Expressway a cluster of high rise buildings dominates the approach to Lake Ontario. Of these, the World Trade Centre is significantly less interesting than the enormous Harbour Castle Hotel, behind which ferries regularly depart for Toronto Islands and even better views of the waterfront and the famous skyline.

East, the signature view of jutting skyscrapers positioned at varying angles, and all of different heights and designs. The TD Bank Tower, the reflective-black of the Toronto Dominion Centre, First Canadian Place and the twin towers of the Royal Bank Plaza stand out, confidently strutting upwards and outwards in a show of financial muscle filmed by thousands of camcorders each day. Just behind, the world's longest street, Yonge, appears intermittently in the gaps between buildings, passing the arched roof of the Eaton Centre and its three-storeys of shops and restaurants spread over 3,000,000 sq.ft. of shopping space at the start of its 1,190-mile journey through Ontario.

THE GLASS FLOOR AND OUTDOOR OBSERVATION DECK

Down a flight of metal stairs lifts lead back to the ground. To the left, a curving glass floor looks 342-metres straight down to the grass and concrete below. A few people jump on the 256 sq.ft. of solid glass, which can apparently withstand the weight of fourteen large hippos, while others gently skirt around the very edges, tiptoeing through their fear. A couple of Japanese girls drag themselves slowly over the sheer drop, arms stretched for balance and eyes half-closed out of a nagging sense of terror. I settle for one foot on the corner and a slight lean forward from the hips.

Outside, the blustery outdoor deck encircles the tower
behind the small squares of a safety mesh. Cold aside, the views are no different to those upstairs other than the replacement of dirty glass with wire netting that makes it impossible to take any pictures.

Two minutes of shivering later I head back down in the lift, which 'helpfully' drops you off at the 12,500 sq.ft. Gift Shop. There are some good examples of Innuit Art and Canadian Crafts in the midst of the usual array of plastic models, key rings and T-shirts. Escape while you can.

OTHER INFORMATION

The Skypod is 33 floors up from the Indoor Observation Deck. On a clear day you can reputedly see as far as Niagara Falls and Buffalo.

The CN Tower is twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Other than bragging rights, the main reason for its construction was the skyscrapers in the Financial District, which disrupted the signals from the old, lower-level transmission towers. The bouncing signals resulted in poor quality television (a bit like ITV1 but with ‘ghosts’ on the screen as opposed to has-beens).

It’s best to turn the flash on your camera off on the Indoor Observation Deck as the reflections off the glass tend to spoil your photos.


OVERALL

Though pleasant enough, Toronto is no Paris, nor even New York, and thus the views are a little less than spectacular. Dirty glass and safety mesh are not conducive to good photographs either. Worth doing once but don’t expect too much.

For a better view take a ferry from the Toronto Island Ferry Terminal behind the Harbour Castle Hotel. Streetcar 509 and 510 run from Union Station, you can transfer to both on your subway ticket. Get off at the first stop, cross the main road, and walk the short distance to the terminal. Returns cost $5 for the ten-minute crossing. The views of the skyline and the CN Tower are well worth the time and money.

Summary: