Glowing beacon of history

Blink, and you just might miss it, but a tiny new park in Toronto is offering a brief but rich lesson about the city’s history — a story that very much mirrors the world we live in today.

Officially opened this past July, Grasett Park is among the smallest public parks in Toronto, measuring just 130 square metres in area.

Grasett Park is the second collaboration between the city and Canada Ireland Foundation on a public space celebrating Toronto’s response to a wave of Irish migrants fleeing famine in the summer of 1847. Over 38,000 migrants almost tripled Toronto’s population of just 20,000 that year, many arriving sick and in desperate need of medical care.

Complementing the similar themes of Ireland Park on the waterfront, this park can be found at the corner of Adelaide Street West and Widmer Street, a site where temporary fever shacks were erected as Toronto’s first purpose-built General Hospital lacked the capacity to handle the influx of new arrivals suffering from typhus.

Read the full article on BlogTO