A few scenes from the St. Lawrence Market on a busy summer afternoon
Archive for the ‘general Toronto’ Category
market day
Posted: August 14, 2025 in general TorontoTags: asparagus, bakery, blueberries, brie, cheese, crab legs, fish, food, fruit, kebabs, market, pasta, peaches, people, salmon, sandwiches, shops, strawberries
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my go to places
Posted: April 29, 2025 in general TorontoTags: Lens-Artists, my go to places, narrative, stories
“My Go to Places” was recently a photo challenge from John at Journeys with Johnbo, another wordpress blog. Because my blog is very Toronto centered, I don’t usually play along with such games but last week I thought that I would make an exception because “my go to place” is/are the streets and alleys of Toronto.
Every street has a story to tell, you just have to get out there and explore.
On the Danforth, part of a mural by Monica on the Moon (aka Monica Weikler).
I enjoy finding the quirks of the city – humorous signs in store windows, bizarre or funny graffiti, the quirky things people put in their front yards, and more. I like stumbling upon surprises that make me smile (or wince!).
A happy face and poetic words on a TTC bus stop pole – “She lives to see the sun and feel the wind and drink the rain”. Not bad words to live by!
But sometimes the joy is found in the ordinary.
Bright yellow signs of spring, and hope, in front of the stone buildings of Emanuel College, University of Toronto.
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Out on the streets the cliche of ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ holds true – it’s all there (have I complained recently about the street level ghastliness of some new condos?). And not just the on the streets, but also underground, wandering through buildings, or crossing above
Sick Kids Hospital, crossing over busy streets
below: Behaving well on the subway.
White Hydrangeas (A haiku for each petal)
…
Ivory flowers
sprout in the graveyard near me
soil-bound miracle
…
This ground is neutral
apparently this is so all I know is not
…
Dirt sits on a son –
a boy, thousand times unearthed –
who looks just like me
…
Bouquets mask his name
this world is not meant for us
still, white hydrangeas
I walk through ravines and along the lakefront….. past places that everyone recognizes as well as places that are hidden away.
A GO train travels just west of the CN Tower in downtown Toronto. A small piece of the white roof of the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) can be seen at the base of the tower.
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Walking beside the railway tracks, somewhere in Toronto.
I’ve seen the streets where we work, where we play, and where we live.
Duplexes on Eglinton
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Santa Claus visits the west end.
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Urban living downtown
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And I know that good things usually happen when you get out and be a part of the city. Of course we have problems (that Eglinton LRT is a mess isn’t it? and it’s a shame about the Science Centre, right?) It’s a friendly place.
Pedestrians, a few cars, and one cyclist, crossing at College and Spadina.
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At River and Queen East, cats and dogs in a mural by Uber 5000.
Like all story tellers, I bring along my history and my biases. If you were to walk with me, you might notice different things than I do. Or if we see the same things, you might offer a different perspective. You would possibly write a different story but that’s okay. Sometimes I wonder if I am writing stories about Toronto or if I am just writing my own story and Toronto just happens to be the setting!
Yorkville
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Riding the TTC
Woodbine Beach – winter stations 2025
Posted: March 5, 2025 in general TorontoTags: art, beach, benched, colour, design, dogma, graffiti, Ines Dessaint, Jesse Beus, Lake Ontario, pebbles, reflections, sand, snow, Tonin Letondu, Trae Horne, winter, winter stations
The annual “Winter Stations” public art installations are now up at Woodbine Beach. This year the constructions are colourful and fairly durable. They should be there until the end of March.
Once again, there are 6 installations to check out as you walk the beach.
below: “Watch” by Trae Horne. The opening in the fence faces due east
below: “Peak”, designed by University of Waterloo School of Architecture and the Department of Architectural Engineering. … ” angular peaks that frame perspectives and form pathways. Consisting of repeating structures of select shapes and sizes, Peak is an interactive installation that visually contrasts the existing site and offers refuge from the cold winter environment. “
below: “Parade” by Jesse Beus consists of six characters each with their own unique colour, shape, purpose, and identity. There is blue Shadey and green Jadey. Sunny is a yellow circle and Boxy is a red box. There is an orange pyramid called Slippey and a funny purple shape that is Blob.
below: “Ascolto” by French artists/designers Ines Dessaint and Tonin Letondu.
below: Standing at the edge of “Ascolto” and looking in.
below: “Solair”, by Toronto Metropolitan University Department of Architectural Science – Sunlight and air… light and wind…. together produce movement and reflections and an ever changing abstracted image. Each reflective square moves independently from the others.
below: “Slice of Sun” by a Portuguese group – Cláudia Franco, Mariam Daudali, and Tom Byrom. It is a semi-circle within a rectangle. There are steps inside the curved portion that can be used as seats but just be careful because if it is windy, you might get hit by a blowing strip of pink plastic!
below: Dogma graffiti at one of the lifeguard stations
skateboard portraits
Posted: January 22, 2025 in general TorontoTags: graffiti, Graffiti Alley, painted, portraits, positive creations, skateboards
Graffiti Alley is still an interesting place to explore. Unlike some street art locations that have succumbed to the scrawls and tags of the less well-intentioned, good art and ideas can still be found here. At present, adding to the eclectic nature of the graffiti in Graffiti Alley are a few interesting portraits done on half skateboards (or at least on wood in the shape of a skateboard). All are screwed onto wooden utility poles.
below: One on natural wood colour and the other in vibrant red. The sticker says Positive Creations.
below: A man with a mustache
below: Three on the same pole in Graffiti Alley – A red person with shaggy hair and light blue glasses as well someone with very long orange hair.
below: At the bottom, a quizzical look on a pink face.
the tree of life – a ceramic version
Posted: November 16, 2024 in galleries, general TorontoTags: art, branches, ceramic, Elaborate, flowers, gallery, Gallery 235, Harbourfront, leaves, Marc Egan, tiles, tree, tree of life
The Tree of Life is a symbol that originated in antiquity; it appears in most religions and cultures. Over the centuries it has been depicted in many different ways. Here, it is shown with colourful and imaginative flowers and leaves in an image that has been constructed using large ceramic tiles by artist, Marc Egan. The resulting artwork is 9 feet by 12 feet big.
It is on display at Gallery 235 in the Harbourfront Centre, It is part of an exhibit titled “Elaborate” that continues until 29th December 2024.
There is even a creepy crawly red and white bug!
Good morning, Bloor west from Christie
Posted: November 2, 2024 in general TorontoTags: autumn, bike lanes, Bloor, Bloorcourt, Christie Pits, city, colours, construction, halloween, jode roberts, morning, October, payphones, plaques, pumpkins, stores, Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, trees, windows
On a warmer than usual late October morning….
… when the early morning sun played with the autumn leaves in Christie Pits park
Of course, late October means Halloween with pumpkins and other spooky things.
below: This guy hasn’t had his coffee yet!
As I started putting together this post, I learned that Doug Ford wants to tear up Toronto bike lanes starting with those on Bloor, Yonge, and University Ave He has named them in his latest wannabe Toronto mayor action, namely Bill 212, Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024.
Ford claims that bike lanes add to the congestion on our streets (and makes his commute to work difficult). You will note the traffic chaos here this morning! The vans on the far side are (legally) parked. I suspect that Ford once sat in a traffic jam on Bloor and noticed that cyclists were moving faster than he was.
But I don’t want to get bogged down with politics and the antics of politicians, so I will leave you with a few scenes for Bloor West (approximately) between Christie and Lansdowne. There is some Halloween, some stores, some construction, some people, some architecture, some of the usual stuff! Maybe even a few things that will take your mind off politics!
below: Bloorcourt
below: A little bit of history…. small tiles in the doorway of number876
below: Banjara parking lot payphone with its own Heritage Plaque thanks to the Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, aka Jode Roberts.
In the summer of 2015, a coin-operated telephone was installed here, replacing three long-standing Bell payphones. This payphone served hundreds of residents, offering a vital communication link. To make a call, users had to insert metal coins through a slot. However, the phone mysteriously disappeared sometime in the past year.
The coin-operated payphone was patented by American inventor William Gray in 1891. Its use peaked around 2005, with nearly half of Canadians reporting regular use and over 150,000 payphones across the country. By 2015, more than two-thirds of these payphones had been removed. As of 2021, only a few hundred functioning payphones remained in Toronto. This plaque commemorates the payphones in this parking lot and their gradual disappearance from the urban landscape.
Heritage Plaque courtesy of the Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, 2024
below: Bloor and Brock
below: Part of a mural by Jimmy Chiale
below: Amazing! He’s a cumin being! Good things!
below: Angel Mary
below: Very large Italian flag by Vito Vesia Upholstery
below: By Dufferin station
below: Bloor & Lansdowne
below: Scrawl on a TTC bus stop pole. At first I thought that it was a biblical reference, but when I checked, I found that Daniel 5:5 is “Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote”. I doubt that has anything to do with gullible Christian hippies, right?
below: “Remember to Love! Go call your mom, say I love you and thanks!”
With thanks to Bill, Jeff, Paul, and Barry who walked with me that morning – and a shout out to the woman who said, “That’s so cute” when she learned that we were walking together. Cute?
When we tried to walk the Betty Sutherland trail
Posted: October 31, 2024 in general TorontoTags: construction, DOn River, East Don River, George S. Henry, Henry Mulholland, hwy 401, Lady of the Lake, Leslie Street, North York, path, ravine, redevelopment, Sheppard, trail
The best laid plans….
Tucked away on a dead end suburban street is a little park with a monument in it. A monument to a couple, Henry Mulholland and Jane Armstrong.
Dedicated to the memory of Henry Mulholland and his wife Jane Armstrong. Pioneers of this district who emigrated from Ulster in 1806 and took out the original grant of four hundred acres from the crown. He fought in the War of 1812 and later returned to Ireland to induce further emigration. While returning was drowned in the wreck of the Lady of the Lake in the Straits of Belle Isle in 1833. Erected by the eight branches of their descendents, 1937.
The ‘Lady of the Lake’ sailed from Belfast on 8 April 1833. She was bound for Quebec with 233 passengers aboard – mostly immigrants. On the morning of 11th May, off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship struck an iceberg. Only a few people survived.
Jane was not with her husband on that trip, instead she was at home with her 10 surviving children, the youngest of whom, Henry Jr. was born in 1829. Two more children later died of smallpox.
Jane and Henry were married in Co. Monaghan Ireland in 1806 so they must have emigrated as newlyweds. Their first child, Mary Ann, was born in 1807.
The 400 acres that the couple were granted were Lots 14 and 15, Con 3 in East York (south of what is now Sheppard and east of what is now Leslie). They built a log house on an island in the East Don River. Fast forward a number of years, after a number of changes of ownership and many changes in the neighbourhood, Henry and Jane’s great grandson, George Stewart Henry bought the farmhouse and property at Lot 14 Con 3 (for $14,500) to bring it back into the family.
The name George S. Henry may be more familiar to some of you. There is a high school named after him, and a whole neighbourhood, Henry Farms.
The reason that I found the Mulholland cairn? It is located close to one of the entrances to the Betty Sutherland Trail, just north of the 401 highway. A few years ago I walked the south end of this trail (you can read about it here: Paths to ruin and a course, 2021). Now I wanted to walk the northern section as well.
below: An ominous sign, construction on the trail!
below: It wasn’t long before the trail ended. There were six signs to warn us. The end was at the 401 highway.
Rather than retracing our steps, we went down to the river’s edge.
The East Don River flows under the 401
We headed back north instead of south. …Over a piece of the path that had washed out in the August flooding.
below: stag horn sumac
below: pear tree
below: swamp bush sumac
below: North York General Hospital in the background.
below: The East Don River flows diagonally under the Leslie Sheppard intersection. The black and white highrise in the distance is farther north up Leslie Street.
below: Looking west along Sheppard towards railway bridge
below: Seen just outside of Leslie subway station (at Sheppard). We didn’t see any wildlife, just a lot of traffic.
Apples on the sidewalk, north side of Sheppard…. Seems to suggest that once upon a time someone lived here and planted apples.
below: Looking east
below: Teasels
below: Chinese Crab Apple tree
Now on the East Don Trail (north of Sheppard) where there is more construction. Also, a large number of new trees have been planted.
below: Strange artwork outside Canadian Tire, just west of Leslie
Getting back to “Best laid plans”….. You may have noticed that these aren’t the most recent pictures (wrong season!)…. This post was written back in early September and I thought that I had uploaded it. Ooops. Forgot.
Sunny times
Posted: June 19, 2024 in general Toronto, locationsTags: bottles, candy, chips, fish, food, grocery store, jars, meat, multi ethnic, multicultural, rice, sauces, shopping, snacks, soya sauce, store, vinegars
And now for something completely different.. something very yummy!
I stopped at Sunny Foodmart on Gateway Blvd because I needed something quick for lunch after a walk. I was amazed at what I saw. I have been in Asian grocery stores before but this was so much more.
below: Obviously she is over-dressed for the hot weather that we’ve had this week! Photos are from a couple of weeks ago 😄
below: Pani Puri originally from India or Pakistan, sort of like samosas but round. Fried dough balls stuffed with good things.
below: Quite a selection! Wasabi, soy sauces, teriyaki sauces, sukiyaki sauces, rice vinegar, oyster sauce, and many labels that I can’t read.
below: More bottles, more sauces. Sesame oil, apple cider vinegar, and cooking wine too.
below: Filipino spaghetti sauce – I had no idea that that was a thing! And the packaging is bilingual English/French!
below: Chaat is another new word for me. It’s another food that originated in India and has spread as street food in many south Asian countries. In the freezer below you’ll find sausages, fish balls, Chicharon Bulaklak (pork ruffle fat), smoked herring, and dried danggit (a type of fish from the Philippines, also called rabbitfish or spinefoot fish). In case you’re wondering what ruffle fat is, it’s not actually fat… Chicharon Bulaklak is made with the mesentery (or the connective tissue that joins the internal organs together). It’s salty and crunchy apparently. No, I haven’t tried it!
below: Bags of dried hawthorn, dried orange peel, dried lily bulbs, and longan berries, along with white pepper, cardamom, and aniseed. One of bags is labelled as amomum tsao-ko which is also known as black cardamom.
below: Freezers full of goodies – corn on the cob, scallion flower rolls, assorted dumplings, and golden saba bananas (short stubby bananas from the Philippines).
below: More frozen food – udon noodles, lamb rolls, lobster rolls, and bean curd. Boxes of coconut milk are stacked on the other side of the aisle.
below: That’s a lot of hoisin sauce!
below: Floor to ceiling jars, bottles, and cans including cans of green jackfruit still in the box.
below: Pork pieces, feet and hocks
below: Colourful veggie jars. Red peppers, sliced pickled jalapeno peppers, pickled wild cucumbers, white asparagus, peas, pickled white cabbage, and roasted eggplant.
below: There were a couple of aisles of bags of rice stacked in piles on the floor. Thai jasmine rice is pictured here.
below: Marjan rice from the foothills of the Himalayas (Pakistan) as well as Basmati rice.
below: No grocery store would be complete without a candy section – orange, mango, peppermint and ginger chewy candies. Lollipops. Ricola in the original herbal formula. And don’t miss the Super Lemon or Super Cola candies!
below: Pizza snacks (very Asian!) and shrimp chips. Honey butter chips and sweet potato snacks. On the bottom shelf, want want crackers – part sweet and part salty and totally yummy!
My apologies. All photos were taken with my phone so the quality may be questionable especially after reducing the resolution a little before uploading them. I hope that you still enjoyed the tour!
Knock knock!
Hi! Just call me Tim. Actually, I’m nothing special; there are millions more just like me.
I am just an ordinary red and white cup, a Tims coffee cup. I’ll bet that you’ve seen many of my relatives and you’ve probably even held one of us. We can be very useful! And we certainly get around.
There are even rumours of a musical production! Theatre! Some of us might become stars!
I wasn’t asked to be part of the show, so many of us weren’t. But we have many talents and we do lots of interesting things. You just need to get to know us better.
“Someone left the cup out in the rain.
I don’t think that I can take it
cause it took so long to make it…”
Some of us are still a little hurt for not being cast in the upcoming musical.
We have a very busy social life and you can often find us mingling with friends as we gossip about the celebs we’ve seen and brag about how many instagram and twitter followers we have.
Stay hydrated my friends!
Hey! That’s my line
Some of even find time (and the energy) to cavort with the competition in secret places; you’ll never know where we’ve been! And we won’t tell.
We like to get out for a little Culture too, a little art to brighten up our day.
We often find time to be at one with nature.
Or just sit and watch the world go round.
We’re a little bit country
And a little bit city. Downtown…. everyone hum along…. “Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city…” Oh for a chance to see my name in lights!
You won’t find us in fancy restaurants. We’re more into fast food and eating on the street.
You probably shouldn’t find us here either…. the sights we’ve seen!
We like to go on road trips. There are even special places in cars for us to sit but it’s nice to get a window seat every once in a while (more sights, better sights!). Road trip to Sarnia anyone?
Sarnia? Yes. The musical is to be set in Sarnia … but it’s just pretend. No road trips needed. You have to be in Toronto to see the show to pretend you’re in Sarnia.
Yes, I am a bit obsessed with this theatre thing. It’s hard enough to try to be a winner and then discover that you’re just another discarded loser. The ego takes a big hit.
It can be cold and lonely out here. It’s hard to cope as all the life drains out of you.
No wonder some of us end up in shady places with sketchy companions. It’s not easy being cast away – first they use us then they ignore us. From hero to zero.
Sigh.
There are things we can’t do. Without arms and legs we have trouble making snow angels.
and life’s hobbies are limited. If I had a hammer it would be useless.
But we try to stay healthy, stay positive,
and not get too hung up on the little things.
And at the end of the day we count ourselves lucky to find the great bin in the sky. Not all believe – they don’t think that we can be recycled. Others haven’t lost their faith. Maybe we’ll come back again. I, your friend Tim, would certainly like to come back again!
At least it’s been a good ride while it lasted.
Editor’s note: No Tims cups were touched in the making of this blogpost.
Along the Riverbank
Posted: January 25, 2024 in general TorontoTags: Along the River Bank, beaver, bullrushes, catfih, coyote, damselfly, DOn River, egret, fox, frog, Luv, mink, Moises Frank, mural, Nick Sweetman, painted turtle, rabbit, raccoon, tensoe2, toad, white-tailed deer
There is a new mural (2022) in Toronto by Nick Sweetman featuring animals and plant life commonly found along Ontario’s rivers, especially the Don River that flows nearby. It adorns a wall/fence that runs the length of a new park, Riverside Square, which is southeast of Queen and the Don Valley Parkway.
below: The east end of the mural
below: A blue-fronted dancer damselfly (A very long name for a very small creature!)
below: Mink, toad, and a water insect called a water strider.
below: Catfish
below: A raccoon eyes the fish swimming past
below: A happy dog among friends, a raccoon and a cotton tail rabbit. If you look closely, there is a bridge in the background by the fox – Torontonians might recognize this bridge as one of the many that cross the Don River.
below: Red fox, coyote
below: In the middle
below: Egret diving for fish
below: White-tailed Deer
below: North American beaver
below: Painted turtle
below: Northern Leopard Frog
Tensoe2 and Moises (Luvs) also contributed to ‘Along the Riverbank’
This post also appears in Eyes on the Streets
as I walk Toronto 