The 'Poor Man's Riviera,' bulldozed for a highway in 1955
Sunnyside Amusement Park
Sunnyside opened in 1922 as a free lakeside amusement park nicknamed the 'Poor Man's Riviera,' and most of it was demolished in the 1950s to build the Gardiner Expressway.
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Sunnyside Amusement Park opened in 1922 along the western waterfront near Swansea and the Junction, built by the city as a free public lakeside park, in contrast to earlier private, admission-charging resorts like Long Branch. Its rides, a large outdoor pool, boardwalk and dance pavilion made it enormously popular with working-class Torontonians who couldn't afford a proper vacation, earning it the affectionate nickname the "Poor Man's Riviera."
Demolished for a highway
Most of Sunnyside's amusement park structures were demolished in the mid-1950s to make way for the construction of the Gardiner Expressway, which cut directly through the site and permanently severed much of the waterfront from easy pedestrian access. The Sunnyside Pavilion and outdoor pool survived the demolition and remain in use today as part of a smaller waterfront park, a fragment of what was once one of the largest and most popular public amusement parks in Canada.
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