Archive for December, 2015

intersections – St. Clair and Vaughan

Posted: December 9, 2015 in graffiti and street art, history, intersections
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This post is the result of a very wobbly and random circular walk around part of the Wychwood Heights neighbourhood last weekend.   A hodge podge of this and that.

below: The intersection of St. Clair West and Vaughan Road circa 1912

Historical black and white photo of a two sorey brick building at an intersection of two dirt roads.

below: I didn’t quite recreate the picture above but it is still obvious that the brick building is still standing after just over 100 years but that every thing around it has changed.

Two storey brick building, now Hakim Optical on the corner of an intersection.

below: Just to the north,  78 Vaughan Road…. didn’t this store used to be an ice cream place?

empty store front at 78 Vaughan Road, empty on one side a closed tattoo parlour on the other.

below:  Ah yes, there is still remnants of ice cream cones above the window so my memory is correct.
I wonder what happened to it?

side of a brick building that used to be an ice cream store. Painted red with some white parts, front has been removed from lighted signs, exterior decorations have been removed except a faint outline of ice cream shapes remain above the window.

There are a number of alleys to the north and west of the intersection of St. Clair and Vaughan Road.  Most of them are quite tidy and well looked after.   They were also full of surprises, bright little things that put on a smile on your face on a December afternoon.

below: Like little pictures painted on canvas….

A small canvas painted turquoise and the words say hello written in small red letters, attached to a fence in a lane

A small canvas painted red and a small yellow heart painted in the middle. The words say hello are painted on it too but they are harder to see. It is nailed to an old wood fence

A small landscape painted on canvas and attached to a telephone pole in an alley

below: and painted on wood

a two tone pink fish painted on wood, cut out, and nailed to a wood fence.

below: or painted directly on poles.

On a wood telephone pole, a small bird painted in white, black and blue.

below: There was a fence made of old wood doors

an old picket fence that is falling aoart, and a fence made of doors that is behind it.

close up of old picket fence that is falling aoart, and a fence made of doors that is behind it.

below:  There was a great creature with googly eyes and a rectangular orange nose.

Two big googly eyes attached to a telephone pole

below: And of course there were some painted garage doors.

street art on garage doors, musical instruments covering two garages, a guitar, a trombone, also the words sweet sweet music everywhere

below: These garage doors are a sample of the more than 40 doors that have been painted as part of the Kenwood Lanway Art Initiative.

painting on a garage door of a moose at sunset

painting on a bright blue garage door of the Toronto skyline with a large Canadian flag behind ithe skyline

While walking on the streets in the neighbourhood I saw a couple of little houses

little narrow white bungalow with a yellow front door set back from the road. There is a straight walkway from the sidewalk to the door, and there is a lot of shrubery in the front yard especially near the sidewalk.

as well as larger buildings with intricate architectural details.

below:  A checkerboard effect with the bricks on the La Salle Apartments.  As an aside, the small bush in front of the building was in the picture no matter what angle I tried.  It was a lilac bush and I am sure that there were buds on it.

Part of a low rise apartment building, over the door, no windows. Checkerboard pattern in the bricks. The words La Salle Apts in large white letters across the bottom of the picture.

below: A little fake balcony with a white post railing on a low rise apartment building.

A white framed window in a red brick building. Below the window are a few white pieces of wood that look like a balcony railing even though there is no balcony there.

below: A line of little arches across the roofline is echoed in the larger arch patterns over the windows.  There is a small relief sculpture near the top corner of the building (slightly behind the tree) but I can’t tell what’s on it.  A coat of arms maybe?

brick pattern across the top of a building. scalloped, or looking like little arches to match the larger arches over the windows.

below:  There were quite a few four storey brick apartment buildings that looked like they were built in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Perhaps there was a  little ‘condo boom’ at the time?

4 storey apartment building on Vaughan Road, red brick with white upper storey, diamond shaped details, two little peaked roofs over windows.

four storey apartment on a corner

front door and front of building, four storey apartment building in red brick with stone window and door frames.

 

Two four storey apartment complexes and a single family home on Vaughan Road.

below:  Like the condos of today, many of the buildings had names such as Maple Villa

Stone door frame and entranceway to Maple Villa, a brick low rise apartment complex

and Maplewood

stonework over the door of the Maplewood apartments at 172 Vaughan road, and the art deco like decorations beside it.

below:   The backs of all those apartment complexes are nearly as interesting as the fronts.
This is one of the only construction sites I saw although….

vacant lot with a number of low rise brick apartment buildings in the background.

… this Presbyterian church looks like it is about to be redeveloped.  It is one of three churches at the corner of St. Clair and Wychwood.   The church was built in 1926.  There is a brief description of the property on the Stanton Renaissance website but very little information is given beyond a “transformation” of the church and the creation of “high end residential boutique”.

An old brick church at a corner. It is now empty. There is a large sign in front of it advertising Stanton developments.

below: Mural for Sea With Fish and Chips on St. Clair West

mural for Sea Witch FIsh and Chips restaurant, a large sea serpent

A little yellow sticker on a bank night deposit box, looks like a little smiling creature looking over the sign that says contains no cash or negotiables, except that the word no has been scratched out

below: As I circled back the intersection of Vaughan Road and St. Clair West, I spotted a large doubledecker strawberry and vanilla ice cream cone on the side of Dutch Dreams.  Hey!  The answer to my question.  The ice cream place from 78 Vaughan Road has moved a couple of blocks south, complete with it’s collection painted old fashioned milk cans.

A very large plastic icce cream cone, double scoop, strawberry on the bottom and vanilla on the top, decorating a brick building. The shutters on the windows of the building are green, red and white

bright yellow entranceway, a line of different coloured milk cans along the exterior wall, sign says Dutch Dreams, candy and ice cream.

below:  One last picture.  As I waited for the Bathurst bus, I found myself standing across the street from this building.   The curve of the roofline is interesting, but even more interesting is the the fact that there is an occult store in Toronto.  Candles, herbs, incense, jewelry, I’m now wishing that I had crossed the street to investigate further!   And, smile, the store next to it is Pandora’s salon.  Pandora, the one who in ancient times opened a box and unleashed all sorts of evil on the world.

 

store front, one is an Occult Store, in an old brick building with a curved roofline over the middle of it.

I spy, we spy

Posted: December 7, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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There is so much to see in this city, big and small, mundane and interesting, bland and colourful, old and new; we’ve got it all.   It’s not uncommon to walk a route many times and still see something new each time.  The little details are easy to overlook.  Yesterday I walked parallel to Queen Street West from Roncesvalles eastward.  There are lots of little alleys in the area and the streets are interesting too.  I wasn’t alone.  Penny (from Walking Woman blog) provided a second set of eyes as we went looking for whatever there was to find.   Four eyes really can be better than two!  Although we saw many things (of course!) I’ve chosen to concentrate on the “little things” that we spied.

below: Happy. Faces at our feet. Happy to see you walk by.

A blue square shaped painted spot on the pavement. Two eyes and a smiling mouth have been drawn on top in darker blue

below: Faces above our heads. A one way sign as a canvas.

Two faces drawn on a one way sign

below: And faces at the end of the path.

garage door painted green with a white line drawing of an odd shaped face, as seen from looking down a path, fences on either side of the path

below: Yesterday’s lovebot sighting

black line drawing of a lovebot on a yellow section of a graffiti picture on a garage door in a laneway

below: It’s December, but this house is still ready for Halloween.

A small porch in front of a house that is still decorated for Halloween, a couple of fake arms and a fake tombstone with RIP on it.

below: A little leprechaun in a tree. Perhaps he’s been here since St. Patricks Day?  And how many leprechauns have crossed here?  We weren’t lucky enough to see any yesterday.

Up in a tree, a decoration with a leprechaun holding a broken sign that says leprechaun crossing.

below: One use for a bathtub!  Dirty, not clean.

An old fashioned white bathtub in a front yard. It's been filled with dirt and is now used as a planter.

below: A different approach to keeping the flowers blooming well into December… they’re looking a little faded, but they are still pink and growing in abundance.

a ring of pink plastic flowers around the base of an evergreen shrub in a front yard

below: But even a single flower adds to a picture.

An abstract painting with the words you need this written on it. below, tucked into the hinge of the door is a plastic red rose

below: Pictures on walls can delight, even ones as simple as this little pinwheel.

8 sided pinwheel in reds and blues fixed against the top corner of a shed or garage wall in a lane

below: Make art not war….

make art not war slogan painted on a garage door in a red line drawing face

below: … or make money.  The money shot.

graffiti with two dollar signs and three cent signs on a rust coloured brick wall

below: She was hiding in the back corner of a store.

head of an old mannequin with blond wig, one eye is missing, and the covering on her is wearing off.

below: Miniature eclairs for sale at The Tempered Room. We didn’t try them but they looked fabulous.

miniature eclairs for sale in a store

below: Dean’s pink ride was parked for the afternoon.

the back of a bright pink car with the license Neon Dean

below: A mystery message.  Google tells me that pav is a type of Indian bread but I don’t think that that’s what the writer was referring to here.  Belongins (belongings?) here probably means possessions but I like to play with words and so I wonder if it is the other meaning of belonging, i.e. as in “a sense of belonging”.   Or maybe, he be longing all his life to be under a palm tree?!

graffiti on a white door in an alley, the words All My life Belongins Pain with a small drawing of a palm tree

below: The sign for Cattlemens Meat Market is looking a little worn,
and not because it’s been here since 1538!

old sign on the back of a building that says Cattlemens meat market 1538

below: And last, three stencils that were close together in an alley, three animals, an old fashioned upright vacuum cleaner and an old video camera.

stencil of three small animals walking across the lower part of a grey garage door.

black stencil of an old fashioned upright vacuum cleaner

black stencil of an old fashioned video camera. Someone has written the word true under it.

danger, open edges

Posted: December 2, 2015 in locations, old buildings
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Sometimes when I walk I find a view or a photo that suggests a theme for the day; something that summarizes the area that I’ve been walking through.  On Saturday, this was the photo, a construction site on Wellesley Street -a massive hole in the ground amongst a growing number of high rise buildings.

red and white danger sign on a makeshift wooden fence that says danger due to open edge. Beyond it is a very large hole for a construction site. A bulldozer is in the hole, downtown Toronto is in the background.

a large number of new high rise buildings just beyond a large hole in the ground where another condo is being built

This piece of property, between Wellesley and Breadalbane streets, had been vacant for a number of years.  It was once owned by the province; back in the 1980s there were plans to build a ballet and opera house there.  Those plans fell through and the land remained vacant while community groups lobbied for a park to be developed there.

When I first walked the area in April 2013, there was a blue fence around the site.

A wood plywood fence painted blue. Someone has painted three large white dollar signs on as well as the word ka-ching.

The blue fence is gone. According to the development proposal sign, two towers are being built here with a combined height of 99 floors.  A nine or ten storey L-shaped podium will run along St. Luke Lane and Wellesley Street to join the towers.    The plan also allows for park land on Breadalbane.  When I checked the website for the development, 11 Wellesley aka Wellesley on the Park, there is only one tower pictured and it doesn’t look like the description on the sign.

Ah, a little light bulb goes on.  The sign describes the developers’ original plan.  A change in the plan doesn’t mean a change in the sign.   So…  this seems to be the future home of one 60 storey condo tower on one third of the land and a 1.6 acre park on the remainder.

two bicycles parked on a sidealk in front of a fence that has a development proposal sign on it. Building site behind that, thena wall of skyscrapers in the background.

My Saturday walk had actually started close to Yonge and College.   I was drawn to the nondescript block of stores that are now boarded up in preparation to be demolished.

A block of two storey stores on Yonge street has been boarded up in preparation for demolition.

I’m wishing that I had taken pictures previously of these stores just to document the history of that part of Yonge Street.  I had many chances to do so, but the building never seemed interesting enough.

a man is walking past a row of boarded up stores that are about to be demolished.

development proposal sign above a large number 501, with an office/retail for lease sign above it.

Whether or not you think that two 58 storey towers with a shared 7 storey podium is an improvement is an entirely different question. It will contain 960 condo units and 5 storeys of above grade parking (because the subway runs underneath) with 320 parking spots.  Lobby access for the buildings will be from Maitland and Alexander Streets on the north and south sides of the property.  Or at least that’s what’s on the sign.   But fool me once, so I checked the  website for the condo (TeaHouse Condos in this case) and once again the information doesn’t match.  According to the website there will be two towers but the north one will be 25 storeys and the south one will be 53 storeys.  Whatever the end result, it will be different from what’s there now!

 

At least one person had an objection.

development proposal sign on a yellow wall that someone has written enuf on in big pink letters

A walk around the back of the building shows that we aren’t losing much there either.

two stroey building boarded up and ready for demolition, with a parking lot, behind a chain link fence.

 

The next site that I explored is just to the south where a hole is already in progress on the SW corner of Yonge and Grenville.

A hole in the ground on Yonge Street for construction of a building.

Photo taken from St. Lukes Lane

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below: This hole has exposed the north wall of the brown brick Oddfellows’ Hall as this view shows.  This is looking south, with College Park in the background (built by the T. Eaton Co. and opened as a 6 storey Eatons store on 30 October 1930).  Behind the chain link fence is St. Luke Lane.

back of a large four storey brick building behind an open hole construction site, taller buildings in the background (College Park)

Now you see it… soon you won’t.  The condo tower here will be 66 storeys high.

open hole at construction site surround by fence, brick building in the background.

Oddfellow’s Hall was built in 1891 and 1892 by architects Norman B. Dick and Frank W. Wickson for the Independent Order of Oddfellows.  It has two octagonal turrets and is a playful mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles.   The building had a 20’ x 46’ long grand hall for IOOF private meetings as well as offices and storefronts.

below: Looking north up Yonge Street at College Street, about 1970.  The Bank of Commerce (later Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and now CIBC) was an early tenant of the building.  Also in the picture is the old fire hall tower but more about that later.

old photo from about 1970 looking north up Yonge Street from College Street. Oddfellows Hall is on one corner with main tenant as Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Old fire hall tower is in the distance.

Photo found online, original source was City of Toronto Archives

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below: Most people will recognize the building as Starbucks.

Oddfellows Hall, a large brick building with two hexagonal turrets, brick, now a Starbucks on the ground floor.

starbucks at the corner of Yonge and College

Back to Grenville Street where there is yet another development.  On the west side of St. Luke Lane is a partially completed condo that has incorporated the facade of what is known as the John Irwin house.  It is one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the area;  in 1873 it was recorded as being owned by a John Irwin.

An old three storey brick house, the John Irwin house has been restored and incorporated into a new condo development that is in the process of being built, cement mixer in front, men working.

This house wasn’t always in this location though.  It was moved a few metres east along Grenville, from one side of the condo development to the other.  I found a photo that I took in April 2013, just after the house had been moved.  Here you can see the back of the house as well as St. Luke Lane to the right.

back of an old house from the 1870s, the John Irwin House, a three storey brick building, that was moved from one site to another. It is sitting on supports at the edge of a construction site.

Does your head hurt yet?  Because there is more…..
But first, a break.  A few other pictures from the area.

below:  No Parking in St. Luke Lane, twice.

A red sign on a red wall. In yellow letter that are peeling off, the sign says Private Parking Only, mcdonalds.

A light yellowish grey wall with a yellow sign that says no parking. Old sign, looking worse for wear. A piece of flat scrap metal is leaning against the wall
  below:  And a man (Van Gogh? someone else?) with a red umbrella but more remarkably, a white picket fence almost hidden under vines by Wellesley Street.

A drawing of a man on white paper pasted to a concrete wall. A red stenciled umbrella is on top of his face. A white picket fence is beside the wall.

below: Also in St. Luke Lane, a mural commemorating the Highway of Heroes.

A mural commemorating the Highway of Heroes

And back to the program….

So far we have two holes in the ground, a partially finished condo, and a block that has just begun to be demolished.  The last development that I saw in the area was one that is still in the planning stages.  The development proposal sign posted beside Currys Art Supplies (the blue awning) is a clue that changes are imminent at 480-494 Yonge Street.  This building is on the SW corner of Yonge and Grosvenor.   The sign says one 45 storey tower but by now I don’t believe the signs!

development proposal sign at 490 Yonge street

480 Yonge Street is a heritage building as is the old fire hall (1872).   The top corner of 480 Yonge is just visible in the bottom left of this picture.  It is to be incorporated into the new development if it goes ahead.  The fire hall tower is going to be preserved but the building in front of it will be removed.  The sidewalk will also be widened as a result.  That’s the opening act of this story; there may be changes before the final curtain.  The developers applied for a zoning amendment (increased height and density) earlier this year but I do not know the results of that.

old fire hall tower above a newer building, or a newwer facade on an older building, red dump trunk on the street, large new condo being built in the background, Yonge St.

below:  On the NW corner of Yonge and Grosvenor is this building.   I don’t know if there are any plans in the works to redo this stretch of Yonge Street but after seeing all the new developments, I’m starting to get a bit sentimental about the old buildings.  So here is documentation of what remains, starting with  A & W Home of the Burger Family at 496 Yonge.

Three storey older grey building on a downtown corner.

below: between Grosvenor and Breadalbane – Cuban cigars and Persian food

Three three storey buildings in a row, old brick buildings, on Yonge St in downtown toronto, 502, 504 and 506. Yonge Market, Persian restaurant, a Cuban cigar store.

below: SW corner of Yonge & Breadalbane – old and new, short and tall

sw corner of yonge and breadalbane streets showing older stores in the foreground and taller condos in the background.

below: SW corner of Yonge & Wellesley – tattoos, massages, and payday loans.

southwest corner of Yonge and Wellesley, a row of old buildings, now storefronts. A Massage parlor and a tattoo place, a convenience store and a Money Mart. Gass condos in the background.

below: NW corner of Yonge & Wellesley – Not just noodles

not just noodles restaurant on the corner of Yonge and Wellesley as well as more stores going north up Yonge Street.

elicser people in Scarborough

Posted: December 1, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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If you are driving or walking west on Sheppard Avenue, just past Midland Avenue, you will notice a new mural on one corner of a railway underpass.   This mural was recently painted by street artist Elicser.

a mural by elicser showing different people, on an underpass on Sheppard Ave East. An older couple, a woman in a pink head scarf, some students, some men and women.

part of a mural by street artist elicser, an older couple. The man has a white beard and is bald.

part of a mural by elicser, a woman in a pink head scarf, with a younger woman walking down a road behind her

part of a mural by elicser, students with backpacks walking, a boy with a Blue Jays baseball cap.

part of a mural by elicser, a group of 4 people, 2 men and 2 women. One of the women is on the shoulders of one of the men.

Monica, and others, on the Danforth

Posted: December 1, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
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A short walk earlier this month along the laneways  south of the Danforth near Woodbine Ave.

below: A mural by Monica on the Moon, styled after Katsushika Hokusai’s ‘Great Wave off Kanagawa’ picture.   This is only part of it – the mural wraps around the back of the building.

wave mural by Monica on the Moon in a laneway, the mural is styled after Katsushika Hokusai

below: Just throwing a little bit of fun into the mix.  The ‘Great Wave’ has inspired many other great works of art over the years including this Cookie Monster one:

picture of Great Wave off by K Hir, with Cookie Monster eyes photoshopped onto the largest wave, a cookie added under the crest of the wave to make it looki like cookie monster (from Sesame Street) is eating the cookie.

below: Leaving the Danforth area briefly, there is also this mural by skam near Bloor and Bathurst.  You can find it in Loretto Lane on the side wall of Kinka Restaurant.

mural based on a Japanese picture called the Great Wave. In it there is a fish jumping with the wave. Mural on the side of a restaurant in a lane.

below: A little path leads onto a mural on Amroth Ave just south of the Danforth that was painted by Airways Airbrushing and Sign Co.    It was funded by the City of Toronto and the Danforth Mosaic BIA.

mural of a park scene, grass, garden, trees in spring, mural on the side of brick building.

below: Historical mural on a Bell box, ‘Danforth’ 1912 by Emilia Jajus 2012.

mural painted on a metal box on a sidewalk. Historical picture of the Danforth in 1912 painted by Emilia Jajus. A horse drawn wagon is going down a dirt road, a couple of buildings in the background.

below: Another Monica on the Moon mural

panorama picture of mural by Monica on the Moon, white line drawings on brown background, across the back of a building in a laneway

part of a mural by Monica on the Moon, white line drawings on brown background, across the back of a building in a laneway - jumping fish, a tree

a mural on the back of a building in a laneway. Brown background, white line drawing of different animals and shapes, two geese or ducks flying to the right, a tree painted beside a doorway.

mural by Monica on the Moon, white line drawings on brown background, across the back of a building in a laneway - a deer behind a metal gate, spirals and swirls

below: Alley ratz and company

On a white wall, a black line graffiti drawing of a rat with a long tail.

black line drawing on white fence with a hole in it. A face, and a lot of spirals

black line drawing on white fence with a hole in it. On a plywood fence, a face, and a lot of spirals

  below: A red fish swimming in bright blue by an unknown artist.

bright red fish with it's mouth open painted on a bright blue wood fence

mural painting on a wall, bright blue background, a person in silhouette, a red flower, a yellow and green butterfly, and a red tulip

sticker on a pole. The sticker covers part of a metal sign that says Attention across the top

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