Yonge & Eglinton Murals

Neighbourhood: Midtown · Address: Yonge St & Eglinton Ave, Toronto, ON · Hours: Open 24 hours · Price Range: Free · Editorial status: Not yet verified

Why Visit

Here, massive murals turn otherwise bland construction sites into public art installations you can actually enjoy as you walk by. If you like watching a neighbourhood change, there’s always something new on the walls every few months.

What Makes It Unique

Unlike most mural routes in Toronto, these artworks are tied directly to ongoing developments, so the art rotates regularly and reflects current neighbourhood stories or social issues. It's street art that's always in flux—blink and you might miss a piece forever.

Liberty Village Laneways are one of those places that make more sense once you’re actually walking through them. From the main streets, Liberty can feel a bit polished and planned out—condo blocks, office buildings, dog walkers with expensive coffee—but behind the converted brick factories, the whole neighbourhood loosens up. The service laneways form this tight little network of back routes where loading docks, patched asphalt, garage doors, and old industrial walls have become canvases. And not in a cute, accidental way. A lot of the murals here were commissioned by the tech companies, agencies, and creative studios that moved into the old factory buildings, so what you get is this weirdly successful mix of corporate money and genuinely ambitious street art. That tension is what makes it worth seeing. Some pieces are slick and obviously branded if you look closely, but others go big in a way you don’t expect from commissioned work—huge abstract colour fields, surreal characters, graphic typography, layered paste-ups, and wall-spanning designs that play off the architecture. One mural might feel like a startup’s idea of edge, and then twenty steps later there’s something strange and genuinely memorable painted across a weathered loading bay. Even the less successful ones are interesting because they tell you something about Liberty Village itself: old manufacturing bones, new economy tenants, everyone trying to look a little cooler than they are. Go on a weekday morning if you can. That’s when the area feels best. The offices are waking up, delivery trucks are pulling into the back lanes, people are unlocking studio doors, and you get this mix of everyday work life and slow wandering that suits the place. Weekends are quieter in a different way, but they can feel a bit too empty, especially if what you want is that contrast between office routine and oversized art. In the morning light, the murals photograph well too—less harsh glare, more detail on the brick and metal surfaces. Don’t expect a formal art walk with plaques explaining everything. Part of the fun is just drifting. Start near Liberty Street and let yourself double back through the lanes behind the old industrial buildings. Keep your eyes up, but also look at the smaller stuff: stickers on utility boxes, painted roll-up doors, alleyway interventions that are easy to miss if you’re marching through like you’ve got somewhere to be. It’s free, open all the time, and easy to pair with a coffee or lunch nearby, but I wouldn’t treat it as a five-minute stop. Give it at least half an hour, more if you like taking photos or poking around. A practical note: these are working laneways, not pedestrian-only art corridors. Watch for cars, bikes, delivery vans, and the occasional guy hauling equipment through a side door. Wear decent shoes because the pavement is uneven in spots, and if it’s recently rained, some sections get grimy fast. Still, if you like urban spaces that show Toronto’s current personality without overexplaining themselves, Liberty Village Laneways are a smart stop. They’re not romantic. They’re not precious. They’re exactly the kind of place where this city’s business side and creative side awkwardly, interestingly collide.