There’s no swimming at Sugar Beach, but the crowds come anyway.
By Daniel Jost, ASLA
?It?s 80 degrees Fahrenheit, or, as they say here in Toronto, a balmy 27 degrees. Stephanie McCarthy leans back in a white Adirondack chair and digs her feet into the sand. On Canada?s Sugar Beach she?s just a short walk from her downtown apartment, though as she sits in the shade of a pink umbrella, it seems a little unreal. ?It feels like you?re somewhere tropical,? she says, ?like a minivacation.?
There are plenty of signs that this is Canada. The CN Tower rises just behind us, and there?s a maple-leaf-shaped fountain full of kids. But if you get a good seat, and angle yourself just right, all you see is sand, water, and sky.
On Sunday afternoons in July, Sugar Beach attracts a big crowd. Two middle-aged suburbanites share a flask of liquor. An attractive young blonde from a nearby condo studies for her GMATs in a bikini. And a group of gay guys with magazine-cover abs lie on a blanket in the sun. About half of the people here are wearing swimsuits, which surprises Suzanne Heide, who is here for the first time. ?I didn?t expect to see so many,? she says. You see, at Sugar Beach, there is no swimming. Sugar Beach is not really a beach at all. It is a giant sandbox. A dock wall topped by a low rail separates the sand from the active shipping lane below.
Toronto opened its first ?urban beach,? HtO Park, in 2007, and there were doubts that people would embrace a beach where you couldn?...