553 metres of concrete built to fix a television reception problem, with a glass floor and an option to walk around the outside.
The CN Tower was built between 1973 and 1976 by Canadian National Railway, and the reason was mundane: Toronto’s new downtown towers were interfering with television and radio signals, and broadcasters needed an antenna above them.
At 553.3 metres it was the tallest freestanding structure in the world for 32 years, until Burj Khalifa passed it in 2007. It remains the tallest in the western hemisphere.
It is not a building in the usual sense. It is a concrete shaft with a pod on it, and about a third of the height above the pod is antenna.
Going up
LookOut Level at 346 metres — the main observation floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Glass Floor at 342 metres, immediately below. A 256-square-foot panel of glass rated to hold fourteen hippopotamuses, which is the fact the tower has chosen to publicise. Standing on it produces a reliable physical response even when you know the engineering.
Outdoor SkyTerrace, one level down, open seasonally.
SkyPod at 447 metres, the highest public observation level, reached by a second lift and ticketed separately. It is 100 metres higher and the view is not 100 metres better; skip it unless you want the number.
360 Restaurant at 351 metres revolves once every 72 minutes. The food is fine and the ticket to LookOut is included in the bill, which makes the arithmetic less painful than it looks.
EdgeWalk
A hands-free walk around the outside of the pod at 356 metres, on a 1.5-metre ledge, harnessed to an overhead rail. It runs from roughly April to October, weather permitting, takes about 90 minutes including the briefing, and costs a substantial amount.
You cannot take anything with you; photographs and video are taken and included.
It is genuinely alarming and genuinely well run. Whether it is worth several hundred dollars is a personal question, and the LookOut view is the same view.
The view
Lake Ontario to the south with the Toronto Islands and the airport in front of it, the downtown towers immediately below, and the city running north in a grid to the horizon. On a clear day you can see Niagara Falls’ mist and, occasionally, the far shore of the lake in New York State.
Timing
Sunset is the best hour and is the busiest. Book a slot ninety minutes before sunset and you get daylight, dusk and the lit city on one ticket.
Winter afternoons are clearer than summer ones, which are frequently hazy.
Practicalities
The SkyWalk from Union Station is an enclosed, heated pedestrian bridge and part of the PATH network. Use it.
Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is at the base and is genuinely good, particularly with children — the shark tunnel is 96 metres of moving walkway.
Rogers Centre next door is where the Blue Jays play, and its retractable roof was the first of its kind.
More Landmarks
Casa Loma
A ninety-eight-room Gothic Revival folly built by a financier who lost it to unpaid taxes within a decade.
The Toronto Islands
Fifteen islands a ferry ride offshore, with no cars, a residential community that fought eviction for forty years, and the best view of the skyline.
Fort York
The garrison the town was founded around, where the Americans blew up the magazine in 1813 and started a chain of events that burned Washington.