/The Town of Mount Royal was billed as a "new Westmount" when designed about a century ago at the other end of a train tunnel to downtown. Toronto architect Frank Darling (possibly related to 31-year-mayor
Thomas Darling?) came up with the idea and
Frederick Todd, an experienced designer who worked with Olmstead, did the rest of the
road layout details.
Garden City notions of healthy-happy park-filled utopia coloured the plan for what was called "Model City," which was to have spokes coming out of a central wheel.
The
layout mimics that of Washington D.C. but some believe the underlying message was to announce loudly the British-ness of the area by replicating the Union Jack.
