7. Hazelton Hotel - 118 Yorkville Avenue

The 1960s Yorkville scene is one of Toronto’s most storied periods. Before the posh boutiques and hotels opened, Yorkville was a bohemian neighbourhood with a series of coffee houses and clubs that were the hubs of the community with names like The Purple Onion and The Riverboat. Where the Hazelton Hotel is today the Penny Farthing coffee house operated, opening in 1963 in a Victorian house, hosting folk, blues and jazz performers. There was even a backyard pool.

By the early 1970s the Four Seasons hotel opened and the hippie scene started to dissipate as the area gentrified. Cultural scenes come and go but critical to cities like Toronto and Berlin are affordable venues. Nightlife is so integral to the culture of Berlin that they have created a position called a Night Mayor to oversee and advocate for the night time economy. Other cities have created similar positions. Today it would be difficult for a coffee house to inhabit a big rambling Victorian house in Toronto due to economics, so the Yorkville scene might be impossible now.