Undressed Toronto: From the Swimming Hole to Sunnyside, How a City Learned to Love the Beach, 1850 1935 By Dale Barbour rare books it is simultaneously modest and collectors it is simultaneously modest and erotic stiff card covers It explores anxieties about modernity and masculinity and the weight of nostalgia in public perceptions and municipal regulation of public bathing in five Toronto environments that showcase distinct moments in the transition from vernacular bathing to the public beach: the city’s central waterfront it was a novel form of public space in the nineteenth century and Torontonians had to decide how it would work in their city