Sunnyside Beach
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Photo by Grant MacDonald
Opened in the roaring 1920s, Sunnyside Beach was the place Torontonians came to play for decades. This waterfront icon played host to bathers, concerts, tightrope-walkers and even an amusement park. The Palais Royale was one of Toronto’s most popular dance halls, featuring jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Count Basie. In 1954, sixteen-year old Marilyn Bell ended her historic first swim across Lake Ontario nearby. Not long after that, the Gardiner Expressway went up and the amusement park came down. Today, you can still use the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion and swim in the pool (aka, “The Tank”), have drinks and a bite to eat on a patio overlooking the beach, and of course, have a splash in Lake Ontario.
Sunnyside Beach is one of two pilot and assessment locations for the City of Toronto’s Artificial Intelligence Predictive Modeling (AIPM) of bacterial levels.
The description above was copied from or heavily based on Swim Guide, with permission.
Features
- Site is inland
- The beach is sandy
- Fresh Water
- Swimming
- Rowing
- Standup paddleboarding (SUP)
- Kayaking
- Picnic tables
- Playground
- Public pool
- Walking Trails
- Monitored Water Quality
More Information
- Swim Guide - Weather and water quality for Sunnyside Beach and 8,000 other beaches.
- Wikipedia
- Google Maps