A charming pocket park in Old Town Toronto featuring a whimsical multi-tiered fountain with 27 bronze dogs and one cat. The Gooderham (Flatiron) Building behind it makes this one of the most-photographed corners in the city.
Neighbourhood: Old Town · Address: Wellington St E & Scott St, Toronto, ON · Hours: Mon–Sun 24 hours
Why Visit
The Berczy Park Dog Fountain offers a quirky slice of Toronto public art, right in the shadow of the Gooderham Building. The bronze animal sculptures and playful water jets make it a standout spot for street photography and people-watching.
What Makes It Unique
Where else in Toronto can you snap a photo of 27 bronze dogs and a perpetually unimpressed cat spraying water at a fountain? The whimsical design, especially with the Flatiron’s red brick background, sets this park apart from typical downtown greenspaces. It's easily Toronto’s most canine-forward public fountain.
Berczy Park is the most photographed corner in Old Town Toronto and one of the most beloved pocket parks in the city — a triangular slice of green space at Wellington Street East and Scott Street, redesigned in 2017 by landscape architecture firm Claude Cormier + Associes, whose work includes some of the most playful and celebrated public spaces in North America. The park's centrepiece is a multi-tiered fountain featuring 27 bronze dogs of different breeds arranged in a circle, each one spouting water toward a central plinth. At the top of that plinth sits a single bronze cat. The dogs look up at the cat. The cat looks away. The entire thing is funny and charming and technically accomplished.
The Gooderham Building — the celebrated Flatiron Building of Toronto — provides the visual backdrop to Berczy Park from most positions in the triangular space. Built in 1892, the Gooderham Building's distinctive wedge shape has been one of Toronto's most recognizable landmarks for over a century, and the relationship between the whimsical dog fountain and the serious Victorian commercial building behind it is what makes the park so reliably satisfying as a photography subject. The two elements — the grand and the playful — create a tension that is genuinely Toronto in character.
The original Berczy Park, before the 2017 redesign, was a modest green space without particular distinction. The redesign by Claude Cormier transformed it using the firm's characteristic approach: taking a concept and pushing it to its full expressive potential rather than treating public space as something that needs to be quiet and subtle. The fountain required extensive consultation with the City and neighbourhood groups before it was approved, and the controversy over whether a dog fountain was appropriate in a heritage neighbourhood produced exactly the kind of public conversation that distinguishes meaningful public space investment from routine landscaping.
The park is busy throughout the day with office workers, tourists, and neighbourhood residents, and the fountain's running season (spring through fall) is when it is most engaging. The park is also worth visiting in winter, when the fountain is off and the 27 bronze dogs stand in silence around the empty basin — the shift in atmosphere from summer playfulness to winter stillness is its own kind of experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Berczy Park in Toronto?
Berczy Park is at Wellington Street East and Scott Street in Old Town Toronto, directly south of St. James Cathedral and one block east of the Gooderham (Flatiron) Building. It is accessible from King Station on the King streetcar (501), Union Station (10-minute walk north), or the Front Street bus routes.
How many dogs are in the Berczy Park fountain?
The Berczy Park fountain features 27 bronze dogs of different breeds arranged in a circle around a central tiered plinth. At the top of the plinth sits one bronze cat. The dogs were cast by a foundry specializing in architectural bronze work, with each breed sculpted to accurate anatomical proportions, as part of the 2017 park redesign.
Who designed Berczy Park?
The 2017 redesign of Berczy Park was designed by Claude Cormier + Associes, a Montreal-based landscape architecture firm known for playful, conceptually driven public space projects including Sugar Beach park in Toronto and the Lipstick Forest in Montreal. The dog fountain concept was inspired by the history of the Berczy family and the pattern of dog ownership in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Is Berczy Park good for photos?
Yes — Berczy Park is one of the most photographed spots in Toronto. The combination of the bronze dog fountain and the Gooderham (Flatiron) Building in the background creates a consistently compelling composition. The best photography conditions are golden hour when the low-angle light catches the bronze dogs and the brick facade of the Gooderham Building equally.