Who is Martin Goodman?

bridge blader
Originally uploaded by 416style.

The heatwave is on and the pools are still closed - only two ways to deal with it: sit in the comfort of an air conditioned space, or make your way to the waterfront where the air is breezy.

Toronto's trying to revitalize this waterfront but I'm still not sure how. Some new paint perhaps.

One thing they're sure to keep is our 22km lake front stretch of the Martin Goodman Trail.

I tried to find some history on the name, and the man, but came across nothing. I don't believe a sign even exists at any point along the trail. That might be a good place to start; help Torontonians identify with their city a bit more, show us it's history. I couldn't even find out when it was initially constructed.

The first time I did the trail I was 12 (1986) and had just moved to the city. I left with a friend from the west side after school on our bikes, went all the way out to eastern beaches and back, showing up about 7 hours later to our mothers' disdain. At the time it opened a whole new world to me, there was so much to see along the way.

Hopefully the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp will soon decide how to make our waterfront more lively, maybe give us some more sights along the way, maybe a few bars and patios too and encourage everyone to use the trail. Rumours have it though that they plan to spend the handout from the feds on the Front Street Extension instead, and make some history building the most expensive piece of road in the country. Then all the money will be gone, while we continue to hope that one day our waterfront will live up to that of other major cities around the globe, maybe not Sydney or Copenhagen, but there must be something we can do to make it a better space. Then maybe this heatwave wouldn't seem to bad.