Last week I visited what remains of Mirvish Village, that stretch of Markham Street just south of Bloor Street next to Honest Ed’s store. As most of you know, Honest Ed’s closed at the end of 2016. All the stores and businesses in the first block of Markham Street have now closed too. The buildings still remain although they are empty and a blue temporary fence now separates them from the sidewalk. I am not sure if they are going to be demolished, or the facades retained, when that area is redeveloped in the near future. I was interested in documenting what remains and/or what is going to disappear as Markham Street undergoes yet another transition in its long and storied life.
Some of the photos that I took were of doors. For a few weeks now I have been following the blog My Life Lived Full . Joanne (the author of said blog) participates in “Thursday Doors” which is a weekly photo feature hosted by Norm Frampton at Norm 2.0. I like doors and have many photos of doors. I’m not sure I’ll be a regular contributor to “Thursday Doors” but I thought that I would add my collection of Mirvish Village doors to this weeks feature. The following door pics were either taken last week when everything was empty or on the last day of 2016 when businesses were winding down.
below: The upper level was a gallery. The words ‘No Man’ are still on the door.
below: This is one of the photos from the 31st of December. Tintin is no longer there.
below: Entrance to the Victory Cafe with the Christmas lights still wrapped around the post and a clipboard in one of the windows.
below: The back of one of the buildings on Markham Street. This photo was taken from the parking lot behind Honest Eds.
below: Honest Ed’s exit onto Markham Street with its overlapping and out of date shopping hours sign over the door.
as I walk Toronto 
Oh, great, more Toronto! Welcome to Thursday Doors. My favourite is the yellow one with the green aura. 🙂
Yes, great colours and lots of character!
Welcome to Thursday Doors! I like the yellow door with the green aura too, and the blue doors with the chairs all haphazard outside of them. 🙂
A few places left chairs behind. Not sure why. It’s always interesting to see what remains.
Welcome to Thursday Doors! You started out in fine fashion with a great gallery. The yellow one with the art all around it really stands out to me. Have to admit it was a bit of a start to arrive here, as you have the same WP theme as I do and I thought for a moment something had gone wrong and I’d been directed back to my site. 🙂
janet
I noticed your theme 🙂 I started using that one because in the beginning my blog was mostly about graffiti and street art. It works as well as any other theme. Thanks for the welcome!
I was overwhelmed by the choices when I started years ago and just thought this one looked good. I periodically toy with the idea of changing themes, maybe getting one that shows off photos more, but I’ve never summoned up the resolve to give it a try. 🙂
janet
At least there aren’t too many others using this theme – I’ll take that to be a good thing! I rarely see it on other blogs.
Great doors and I love the street art.
Thanks!
Thanks Mary for the shout-out. Your photos are always so interesting for me because you tend to turn your lens on parts of the city I don’t “see”.
I was down at Honest Ed’s about a month before they finally closed the doors and walked around the store taking a few photos. It makes me sad that these great icons of the city are being destroyed in favour of ugly, boring condos. I hadn’t realized that even more smaller buildings behind it were also affected by this new development project 😦
Welcome to Thursday Doors. I really liked the 2nd one. I could imagine sitting out there on a warm summer day.
I think Markham street is being turned into a pedestrian walkway although I am not sure. Plans often change from initial project to final product. We shall see.
I like your idea of keeping an eye on it over the development cycle. It should be interesting.
Oh my, Honest Ed’s was an institution there for so long. You put together a nice collection indeed. Welcome to Thursday Doors. So glad you decided to join us this week.
Honest Eds, now empty and fading fast. I’m not sure when it’s going to be demolished or what’s going to happen to the large sign with all the lights (if anything). So many changes happening these days.
What a flood of memories…