Queen Street East through Riverside has quietly become Toronto's most walkable mural district — 40+ commissioned and semi-legal works across a 1.5km stretch, with particularly dense clusters around the Broadview intersection, the Jimmie Simpson Park walls, and the Greenwood Ave corridor.
Neighbourhood: Riverside · Address: Queen St E from Carlaw to Greenwood, Toronto, ON · Hours: Mon–Sun 24 hours · Price Range: Free · Editorial status: Not yet verified
Riverside’s Mural Mile packs over 40 street art pieces into just 1.5km, making it one of the densest outdoor galleries in Toronto. The ever-evolving mix of massive commissions and DIY art invites you to discover something you haven’t seen on every pass.
Nearly every block features large-scale works, artist tags, or collaborations between locals and international muralists, unlike the scattershot murals found elsewhere. The Broadview and Jimmie Simpson walls act as unofficial open-air galleries, and the Greenwood corridor includes rotating semi-legal pieces, so it’s rarely the same twice.
Liberty Village Industrial Walls is one of those Toronto sights that doesn’t really behave like a formal attraction. There’s no ticket desk, no neat entrance, and no suggested route. You’re basically walking through an old manufacturing district where the brick walls got handed over to muralists, designers, and brands with serious production budgets, and the result is huge. Not just “big for a laneway” big — full warehouse-face big. These are the kinds of murals you spot from the King streetcar between Strachan and Dufferin and immediately wish you weren’t stuck behind the window glass as they slide past. That’s part of the fun, honestly. The area still feels a little workday-first. You’ll see office workers with coffee, people heading into tech spaces, couriers, dogs tied up outside cafés, and then above all that, these massive painted walls that turn regular industrial blocks into an open-air gallery. Some pieces are polished and graphic, almost ad-campaign clean. Others lean more street, with texture from old brick, patched surfaces, loading doors, and fading layers underneath. Because the walls are so large, artists can do things here that wouldn’t fit anywhere else in the city — giant faces, long sweeping abstract forms, lettering you can read from half a block away. If you like photography, this area is great because the scale does a lot of the work for you. You can shoot wide and get whole façades, or move in close and use the brick, paint drips, and metal fire escapes as detail shots. Midday is actually your friend here. Usually that’s flat light and not ideal, but in Liberty Village it helps a lot because the buildings are tall and the streets can get shadowy fast. Around noon, the light drops into the alleys and the colour reads properly instead of getting swallowed by contrast. The best little detour is the alley behind the east side of Liberty Street. Go in expecting nothing fancy — it’s still an alley — but the walls on all four sides are painted, so you end up in this mural box canyon with colour everywhere you turn. It’s especially good at midday when the sun reaches down and lights the brick evenly. If you’re taking photos of people, that’s your spot. A practical note: this is best done Monday to Friday, roughly 9 to 5, when the area is active and open-feeling. On weekends it can feel oddly empty in some pockets, and depending on construction or loading activity, a few sightlines change. Wear decent walking shoes because you’ll probably wander more than planned, and keep your eyes up — some of the best work sits above parking lots, garage doors, and side entrances you’d normally ignore. It’s free, easy to pair with a ride on the King car, and worth returning to because the walls change. Even when the murals stay the same, the light, the street activity, and the quick glimpses from passing transit make it feel different every time.
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