The overnight part of Nuit Blanche ended Sunday morning. A small group of its works stays up through Saturday, October 10, and most of them are in and around Old City Hall at Queen and Bay. That's a short walk up Bay Street from The St. Regis Toronto. All of them are free. The building that holds them has been mostly empty since the last court moved out in 2025, and the City describes it as only "occasionally open."

The match between the art and the building is close. This year's downtown exhibition, Tomorrow's Memories, marks the festival's 20th edition, and much of it deals with things that disappeared or never got made. For six days it fills one of the city's best-known buildings with an unsettled future.

A landmark between uses

For most of its life, people went into Old City Hall because they had to. Court security limited who could walk in. Ontario announced in 2023 that the provincial courts would move to the new courthouse at 10 Armoury Street. The City's Provincial Offences South Court, the last active tenant, moved to 92 Front Street East on March 5, 2025. City staff expected the building to be vacant once that court was gone, with no other active use planned.

On February 5, 2025, City Council asked for a study of a Museum of Toronto and a Toronto Public Library branch in the building, along with other uses that could sit alongside them. The study was due in the second quarter of 2026. As of this week, CreateTO's project page still lists Old City Hall as vacant and in pre-development. Under proposed use it says "exploring potential future uses for the building." Earlier efforts to find a private tenant failed. The staff report pointed to market conditions and restoration costs, and repeated a 2019 estimate of about $225 million, in 2020 dollars, for a full restoration and upgrade.

Since then, the public has gotten in for set events, such as a Friday courtyard program in summer 2025 and Doors Open Toronto on May 23 and 24, 2026. The Nuit Blanche extension adds six days in a row.

What is inside, room by room

These works were made for the building. Each one uses a different part of it.

Simile Aria by Maggy Hamel-Metsos turns Old City Hall into one large instrument. Rebuilt organ pipes and industrial air compressors play across several rooms. In a building that has gone quiet, the sound carries much of the show.

Museum of Lost Things by Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky is in the Library, room 155. The artists turn people's drawings of lost or thrown-away belongings into three-dimensional lantern sculptures. Council's study is weighing a library branch for the same building.

Ephemera: The Art We Didn't Make is Blessyl Buan's piece with Toronto Dance Theatre. It runs across the main floor, the second-floor staircase and the balcony. Dancers move through the space while visitors leave thoughts and offerings about creative lives that were interrupted or put off.

At the Edge of Remembering by Par Nair is on the second floor. It's a soft field of 500 hand-embroidered felt mango leaves about memory, nostalgia and diasporic futures.

What is outside, on the forecourt and the square

The works outside are louder.

• I Miss You: T.Dot Memories is in the Old City Hall courtyard. It's an inflatable that lights up, by Francesca Nocera, known as SUN SUN, showing landmarks the city has lost, including Honest Ed's, Sam the Record Man, Ontario Place and MuchMusic. Ayo Leilani, known as Witch Prophet, curated the project.
• UFO by Brandon Vickerd is a crashed flying saucer on a crushed car, with strobe lights and smoke. NOW Toronto lists it at Old City Hall, and the City's access guide places it on Queen Street West, east of York Street, in front of Old City Hall. The City's live map shows the exact spot.
• Blankets (Under) Cover, 2022 by Shelley Niro is back from the festival's 2022 edition. It's on the south lawn of Nathan Phillips Square: 13 stretched point blankets, one for each province and territory, showing wildlife and scenes of Indigenous daily and communal life.

SUN SUN's inflatable, of landmarks that are gone, sits in the courtyard of a landmark whose next use hasn't been chosen.

The hours favor daytime, and Thursday is the exception

The schedule matters most for anyone working in an office tower nearby. The Old City Hall works with posted hours all keep the same schedule.

On five of the six days, the doors close at 7 p.m. Thursday is the only evening, and it's also the only day closed at lunchtime. For anyone at a desk on Bay Street, that leaves two choices: a long weekday lunch, or Thursday after 5. NOW Toronto lists no daily hours for UFO, Blankets (Under) Cover or At the Edge of Remembering, so check the City's extended-projects page for those.

Two other works stay up farther out. Deep Reverie by Bitbrainz, in the College Park courtyard at 444 Yonge Street, is an augmented-reality piece with UV-reactive tapestries, open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. It's the easiest one to see late at night. Avataq Gathering by Couzyn van Heuvelen, inflated foil sculptures based on the traditional Inuit hunting float, is at Chelsea Toronto, 33 Gerrard Street West.

A Thursday evening, start to finish

Thursday's late hours make one route easy:

1. Leave 325 Bay a little after 5 p.m. and walk north on Bay to Queen. The outdoor works there have no posted hours, so the inflatable and UFO may be most striking once it gets dark.
2. Start with Simile Aria and the main floor, where Ephemera uses the staircase and balcony.
3. Go up to the second floor for At the Edge of Remembering, then back down to room 155 for Museum of Lost Things.
4. Cross to the south lawn of Nathan Phillips Square for Niro's blankets, then walk back down Bay.

Anyone staying in town for the long weekend has another reason to stay close to home. LOUIX LOUIS at The St. Regis is serving a Thanksgiving Royal Brunch from October 10 to 12, at $100 per person, with seasonal mains and a pumpkin dessert. Saturday is the last day for the installations and the first day of the brunch. A late-morning brunch, then a walk up to Old City Hall before 7 p.m., fits both.

After Saturday

When the installations come down, Old City Hall goes back to its official status of vacant, future use under review. The 2025 report set aside $16 million for safety and legal requirements, keeping the empty building in good condition, and the use study. It doesn't fund a full restoration, which staff said would come after a long-term use is chosen.

Across the street, the next scheduled event is Cavalcade of Lights at Nathan Phillips Square. It opens November 28 with an opening-night program, free skating and light installations, and runs through January 7, 2027. Until then, Saturday at 7 p.m. is the last posted time this fall to see Old City Hall's interior.

Old City Hall's future is one of the civic decisions at the top of Bay Street that we follow closely. If you'd like to talk about how changes along Bay and Queen fit into your plans, Andy Taylor and our team would be glad to meet with you. Request a private consultation.