Walk the history, stop by stop.

1963–1969

John and Marilyn McHugh opened the Penny Farthing coffee house here in the spring of 1963, and in early 1965 it became the first to feature Joni Mitchell’s own songs. On 17 October 1969, Canada’s federal drug inquiry, the Le Dain Commission, held a public hearing in the club. Read more: Yorkville in the 1960s

What’s there today: The Penny Farthing’s house still stands; the City’s 2025 heritage study lists it as extant. (City of Toronto, Bloor-Yorkville Historic Context Statement, 2025)

Homes and businesses line this street: view from the sidewalk and keep doorways clear.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia; Le Dain Final Report, Appendix Q; City of Toronto, Bloor-Yorkville Historic Context Statement, 2025

1964–1978

Bernie Fiedler opened the Riverboat in a basement here in October 1964. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn and Murray McLauchlan all played it, and it ran until 1978. On this street in 1967, a sit-in to close Yorkville Avenue to cars ended with about 50 arrests. Read more: Yorkville in the 1960s

Homes and businesses line this street: view from the sidewalk and keep doorways clear.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia; City of Toronto, Bloor-Yorkville Historic Context Statement, 2025; Henderson, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 2006

6 JUNE 2026 – 3 JANUARY 2027

The museum’s exhibition Psychedelics: Art. Culture. Science. runs from 6 June 2026 to 3 January 2027, with 90 objects. Among CAMH’s loans is a medicine tray from the old Queen Street Mental Health Centre, stop 6 on this walk. The museum says it “does not recommend or encourage the use of psychedelics”. Read more: our guide to the ROM exhibition

Sources: ROM; ROM exhibition page (dates)

1968–1975

In September 1968, students moved into this unfinished 18-storey tower: a free university for 840 residents, with no curriculum, exams or degrees. Unable to pay its mortgage, it was cleared after years of effort and several police raids, and the last residents were removed at the end of May 1975. Read more: Rochdale College: Toronto’s free university

What’s there today: Since 1979, the Senator David A. Croll Apartments, home to seniors and people with disabilities. (Toronto Public Library)

A residence today: look from the public sidewalk, don’t go in, and keep your voice down.

Sources: Toronto Public Library; Spacing Toronto

1966–1967

In 1967 the foundation’s LSD research team gave this address (their 1966 paper gives 24 Harbord Street). Their controlled trial for alcoholism compared LSD, an active placebo and no drug, ten patients in each group: abstinence improved in all three, with no significant difference between them. In 1998 the foundation became part of CAMH. Read more: Toronto’s Addiction Research Foundation and its LSD trial

Homes and businesses line this street: view from the sidewalk and keep doorways clear.

Sources: Smart et al., reply, 1967 (address); Smart et al., 1966; CAMH

1998

Toronto’s old Queen Street mental hospital, the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, merged in 1998 with the Addiction Research Foundation, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the Donwood Institute to form the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In 2019, CAMH became a Toronto site in an international psilocybin trial for treatment-resistant depression. Read more: Toronto’s laboratory, 1966–1999

What’s there today: CAMH’s Queen Street site, a working hospital. (OpenStreetMap: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Queen Street Site)

A working hospital: stay on the public sidewalk, don’t go in, and don’t photograph people.

Sources: CAMH; ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03775200

1967–1968

In 1967 the Diggers, political hippies from Yorkville, faced city councillors in what historian Stuart Henderson calls “farcical face-offs”; former mayor Allan Lamport said some young onlookers “haven’t been washed for weeks”. The National Film Board’s 1968 film Flowers on a One-Way Street centres on a council meeting at City Hall. Read more: Hippies versus City Hall, caught on film

What’s there today: This City Hall opened on 13 September 1965 and is still the seat of Toronto’s government. (City of Toronto)

Sources: Henderson, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 2006; National Film Board

2020–2023

Bay Street is shorthand for Toronto’s financial industry, and nothing marks this corner. On 3 March 2020, MindMed began trading on Toronto’s NEO Exchange, billed as the world’s first publicly traded psychedelic pharmaceutical company; the next day, Field Trip Health opened its first clinic, in Toronto. By March 2023, Field Trip’s clinic business had sought creditor protection. Read more: Bay Street catches the wave

Homes and businesses line this street: view from the sidewalk and keep doorways clear.

Sources: OPEN MINDS; Field Trip release; Psychedelic Alpha

16–18 OCTOBER 1969

The Le Dain Commission heard from Torontonians here over three days in October 1969, and returned to the St. Lawrence Market in October 1970. Its final report, in 1973, found psilocybin wasn’t yet on any Canadian drug schedule, and that controlled studies hadn’t shown LSD added anything to conventional psychotherapy. Read more: The Le Dain Commission in Toronto

Sources: Le Dain Final Report, Appendix Q; Le Dain Commission, Final Report, 1973