Results tagged “ghosts”

Unbeknownst to many, Toronto is full of landmarks, private homes, and even university buildings that supposedly shelter real live ghosts. From the McLaughlin Planetarium at the ROM to the Queen's Park vaults, these are the places that keep ghostbusters in business. Here are a few options if you're looking for a proper scare this Halloween.

University College has long been one of Toronto's most admired buildings. Its Gothic Revival style, inspired in part by the Romantic poets, impressed such distinguished nineteenth-century visitors as Anthony Trollope, Governor General Lord Dufferin, and Oscar Wilde. In Landmarks of Toronto (1893), John Ross Robertson called the University of Toronto building "the crowning architectural glory of Toronto." Perhaps befitting its moody architecture, University College is also home to one of the city's best-known ghost stories. Versions of the story differ, but each follows the same basic plot.

Given Toronto's 175 years, it's not not a stretch to wonder about what shadows of the past remain lurking in our darkest corners. Most of us are familiar with well-known spooky spots like the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, Mackenzie House, Queen's Park, or the Don Jail. But a quick peek at our favourite local ghostly web sites reveals a much wider range of phantom beliefs: a friend of ours, for instance, once told us about a resident ghost that would gently rock her cradle while her parents watched from across the room. We don't know if there was any truth to her story, but we can still pick out the house on Inglewood Drive that she said was haunted.

Photo by pic snapper from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.