Cherry Beach, Public beach in Port Lands, Toronto, Canada.
Cherry Beach stretches along Lake Ontario with sandy shores where visitors swim, sunbathe, and enjoy water activities throughout the warm months. The site includes changing facilities, restrooms, and lifeguard stations positioned along the waterfront.
The land was originally marsh and sandbar, filled in and used by settlers from the 1850s, when the community of Fisherman's Island had a commercial fishery and a church. The park was created in the early 1930s and named Clarke Beach Park after alderman Harry Clarke. The city officially renamed it Cherry Beach in 2003, a name locals already used.
The name Cherry Beach was already common among locals before the city officially adopted it in 2003; the park had been gazetted as Clarke Beach Park after alderman Harry Clarke. Pukka Orchestra's 1984 radio hit "Cherry Beach Express" referred to alleged police beatings of gay, indigenous and homeless people at the beach between the 1940s and 1990s, and the police tried to have the song banned.
The Martin Goodman Trail passes through the park, and a metered parking area sits by the wooded edge near the soccer fields at 275 Unwin Avenue. The beach has change rooms for bathers and barbecue areas for picnickers, plus an off-leash area for dogs. Summer water is calm and slightly warmer than elsewhere in Toronto, sheltered by the Leslie Street Spit.
The only major stands of cottonwoods in the Toronto area outside the Toronto Islands grow at Cherry Beach. The beach also featured in a 1981 treasure-hunt contest on The All-Night Show: a clue pointed here and hundreds of viewers arrived to dig up the sand until police stopped them.
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