A Port Lands beach with a reputation the city spent decades trying to shed
Cherry Beach
Once notorious for isolated police beatings that gave rise to the phrase 'Cherry Beach Express,' the Port Lands beach has since been redeveloped into a popular waterfront park and windsurfing spot.
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Cherry Beach sits at the end of Cherry Street in Toronto's Port Lands, a stretch of Lake Ontario shoreline that for decades carried an ominous local reputation. Through the 1970s and 1980s, "Cherry Beach Express" became a grim local phrase referring to allegations that Toronto police officers would drive arrested individuals to the isolated, poorly lit beach for unofficial beatings away from witnesses, a pattern of alleged misconduct that surfaced repeatedly in complaints and media reporting of the era.
A reclaimed waterfront
The city invested in redeveloping Cherry Beach in the decades since, adding facilities, trails and better lighting that helped shed its earlier reputation, and the beach is now a popular destination for windsurfing, kiteboarding and dog walking, drawing a very different kind of visitor than it did in its notorious decades. Cherry Beach's ongoing redevelopment is also tied to the broader transformation of the surrounding Port Lands, which has been undergoing a major flood-protection and naturalization project in recent years.
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