What
Wilson subway station
Where
570 Wilson Avenue between Wilson Heights Blvd and Billy Bishop Way.
Why you should check it out
Back when it was opened in 1978 as the last most northwest stop on the Yonge-University line, Wilson Station was an anomaly – one of two stations designed by in-house architects at the TTC. The other was St. Clair West.
Compared to the grandiosity of newer stations recently opened on the line, Wilson is easy to overlook. Admittedly, parts of the station have fallen into disrepair and some of the tunnels leading to a former parking lot (which has since been overtaken by condos) recall pre-Perestroika Russia. The snack shop on the main level looks like an afterthought.
But other aspects of the station’s design remain timeless.
Canyons, the installation by sculpture artist Ted Bieler, whose other works include some for Expo 67, anchors the street-level mezzanine. But it’s the lighted, round canopy above the ticket booth that steals the eye against the aqua-blue and yellow mosaic tile work over the escalators leading to the bus platforms.
Outside, the circular kiss-and-ride for passenger drop-off and pickup looks like it landed from outer space. My fave detail: the glassed-enclosed seating areas on the subway platform.
But there is no main entrance to make a statement, only a canopied walkway and another set of glass doors under a bridge that forms part of Allen Road above.
The TTC has tried to provide a visual distraction with the addition of murals on pillars underneath the overpass leading to the main entrance, but the pigeons still dominate the underbelly of the station.
It’s a major oversight for a station that in its heyday served as the main transportation hub and connection to the northernmost parts of the city.
The TTC yard at Wilson is the largest in the city. Buses connected the furthest reaches of the city until Wilson was replaced with Downsview Station (later renamed Sheppard West) in 1996. Most of Wilson’s bus routes also moved north. The station looked destined to become just another along the Yonge-University line, a forgotten vestige of the inner-burbs after more stops were added in recent years into the 905.
But fate has seemingly intervened on the Downsview Airport lands immediately west of the station, where after decades of government inaction plans are afoot to redevelop the 250-plus-hectare site.
The runway is still used today (although less frequently during the pandemic) and the lands are still home to the de Havilland manufacturing facility that has been producing planes, including the world famous Twin Otter and Dash 8 on the site since just before the Great Depression. Other vestiges of the area’s aviation history remain. The Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research Hub, for example, in partnership with Centennial College.
The Air and Space Museum that used to be housed in one of the de Havilland hangars was closed in 2011. But plans to redevelop the site for a sports complex fell through. And it’s now unclear how long de Havilland, which was bought by BC-based Viking Air in 2019, will continue operations beyond 2023. That’s when its lease agreement expires.
Ownership of the lands by several federal departments at one point or another has led to a decades-long tug-of-war over future development in the area.
In 2000, a “Tree City” proposal for a Toronto version of Central Park was floated by Bruce Mau. That plan never got off the ground, despite the star architect’s backing. It was hoped that the establishment of a board to oversee the development of Parc Downsview Park on the lands in 2005 would guide redevelopment, but for the better part of the last two decades, the lands have served as a concert venue, flea market and urban farm for locals.
The city mapped out a secondary plan for the area in 2011. Then, earlier this year, Northcrest Developments, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Canada Lands Company enlisted architects to undertake a “visioning” exercise for the site. A website (id8downsview.ca) has been set up to invite community input. The discussion so far has revolved around developing a “sustainable” transit-oriented development for the site. It’s already happening along Wilson where condofication has spurred a mix of retail and restaurants to go with the big-box retail south of the airport lands.
More than four decades after it was built, Wilson may finally realize its place as the hub planners envisioned.
Check out a video about Wilson Station below:
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Hidden Toronto is a weekly feature exploring the city’s alternative history through contemporary landmarks. Read it online each Sunday or in print every Thursday.
