SHELDON LEVY, the motorcycle-riding president of Ryerson University has been opening up his campus to the city for some time now.  St. James Square, 50 Gould Street, is a tranquil space of mature trees, flowers, and an expansive grassy knoll – five minutes from the bustle of Yonge and Dundas.  St. James Square is hidden in plain sight.

EGERTON RYERSON (1803-1882) founded Ontario’s first teacher training facility here in 1852.  The Toronto Normal School was succeeded by a Royal Canadian Air Force training facility during World War II,  the Toronto Training and Re-establishment Institute for ex-servicemen and women, then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, and in 2001 Ryerson University.

As city-builder SHELDON LEVY puts it: “a healthy downtown is good for Ryerson, and a healthy Ryerson is good for downtown.”