intersections | as I walk Toronto

Archive for the ‘intersections’ Category

dense and denser

Posted: August 11, 2025 in construction, intersections, old buildings, public art, transportation
Tags: apartments, Canada Square, Catherine Widgery, condos, construction, demolition, development, Eglinton Ave., history, Ilan Sandler, KPMB, LRT, Mindshadows, North Toronto Collegiate, NTCI, Postal Station K, St. Monicas church, St. Peter, TTC, Yonge Street

…. another visit to Yonge and Eglinton

Of course, this is also the location of the Eglinton station on the mysterious Eglinton LRT. The underground walkways between it and the Yonge – University subway line are complete, as is the entrance on the south side of Eglinton. The latter is a large building and it will definitely help with the flow of traffic… but it sits idle.

below: All of the old Eglinton station bus bays are long gone.

below: Canada Square, home to Canadian Tire head office for more than 50 years, was built in the 1960s and 70s. It consists of two towers connected by a lower section – it is this middle connecting piece that has the vertical concrete slabs on the exterior. These verticals are on both the Yonge Street side (below) and this motif is repeated on the back of the building (see photo above, behind the new station entrance). Earlier this year, Canadian Tire announced that they had renewed their lease for another 20 years and that the building was going to be redeveloped/upgraded/modernized in the near future.

below: Northwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton

below: The Duke of York pub at Yonge and Roehampton

below: The old Postal Station K has been incorporated into a new condo development. The older building dates from 1936; it was built on the site of Montgomery’s Tavern (made famous in 1837 when it was the epicenter of William Lyon MacKenzie’s rebellion). It was a big square building but with Art Deco elements around the entrance. Because it was built in 1936, it actually featured (and still does) the Royal Insignia of King Edward VIII whose reign was very short-lived because he abdicated the throne only 11 months after being crowned.

below: North of Montgomery/Broadway more development. More cranes.

below: About 15 years ago, North Toronto Collegiate (NTCI) was rebuilt on Broadway. The new school was incorporated into a condo development. At the north entrance to the school is an artwork by Catherine Widgery’s called “Mindshadows”. It is a 20 foot high stainless steel cube on legs that is covered with numbers, letters, and words. Serene, provoke, laugh, loud, big, spirit, and up are some of the words.

below: View from Broadway of the North Toronto football field and track and some of the condos that surround it.

below: Looking north from Roehampton

below: At the south entrance to NTCI (on Roehampton) is another public art installation. “What’s your name?” by Ilan Sandler (2011) contains the first names of all the NTCI students since the school opened in 1912. Each name only appears once – but there are still 2053 different names such as Sven, Connie, Marlee, Janis, Lola, Ephraim, Bryan, and Snezana.

The neighbourhood that is north of Eglinton and east of Yonge has been the home of many apartment buildings for at least a few decades. A growing number of them have been replaced by taller glass and steel condo developments, especially since the city has targeted the area for “… tall buildings and an intense concentration of office, retail, institutional and residential uses…” (quote comes from Yonge Eglinton Secondary Plan, 2018)

below: Old style (1920s?) 4 storey walk-up apartments. There was a time when this type of architecture was common and these apartment buildings are (were) scattered around the city. There aren’t as many as there used to be although some, like this one, has been renovated and kept in good shape…. a testament to their good design.

below: Concrete building from the 1970s at 2323 Yonge …

below: … but it too has a blue and white development notice on the side of this building. Fifty eight stories with 40 car parking spots but room for 350 bikes.

below: St. Monicas church, an A-frame structure built in 1959, is set well back from the street with a parking lot in front.

below: One of the many stained glass windows inside St. Monica’s church. This image shows a window that features gold crossed keys which are a symbol associated with St. Peter. These are the keys to the Gates of Heaven. The church website describes this window as representing the (Catholic) Sacrament of Reconciliation (the pardoning of confessed sins).

below: Redesigned. From the KPMB website, this is rendering of the proposed new St. Monica’s church. It has been brought forward closer to the street which also allows for a new condo tower behind. That’s the plan.

below: Beside the church is St. Monica’s school. The original brick building was built in 1916. A few additions have been added over the years.

below: Changes are also happening to the west of Yonge Street. For instance, this building on Eglinton between Duplex and Henning is coming down.

below: Old, new, and in between

below: Remnants of what used to be.

below: As I am sure you are aware, I have blogged about Eglinton Avenue before. Back in 2015 (ten years ago!!) I posted this photo of Eglinton and Duplex. Both glass buildings are now gone. The Toronto Hydro Systems building (the short brick one) at the northwest corner of Duplex and Eglinton remains – it is the one with the coloured patches on the wall in the photo above.

below: Same corner, slightly different angle, taken this past week.

below: After the glass clad building on the northeast corner of Duplex and Eglinton came down, the backside of the Yonge Eglinton Center was exposed (on the right) as well as another tower (in an area that needs to be explored more!).

below: With thanks to my mother who walked with me that day.

intersections – King and Queen

Posted: March 15, 2025 in alleys, graffiti and street art, intersections, locations, memorials, old buildings, stores, transportation
Tags: alleys, birdo, Easy restaurant, garages, houses, Jim Bravo, lanes, lovebot, mini mart, murals, parkdale, Queen West, Queensway, reflections, Roncesvalles, street art, streetcars, TTC, windows

… and Roncesvalles and Queensway.

King Street merges with Queen Street twice, once in the east at River Street and once in the west when King turns north and joins Roncesvalles. At this point Queen becomes the Queensway.

below: Queen streetcar traveling westbound (center of picture) while a King car makes the turn north into the intersection (right side).

If that King car continues north, it travel up Roncesvalles to Dundas West station.

below: Looking west on the Queensway with all the overhead streetcar wires because….

below: … the TTC Roncesvalles Carhouse is right there. It is 28 streetcar tracks wide and is used for storage and maintenance of part of the TTC’s streetcar fleet.

below:The Queensway also runs parallel to (and within sight of) Lakeshore Blvd, the Gardiner Expressway, and Lake Ontario.

below: There is access to the waterfront is by a pedestrian bridge.

below: Also at this intersection is a memorial to all the Polish citizens who died at the hands of the Soviets during WWII.

monument in a park, large stone with a plaque on it,

Plaque reads: “1940-2000, In Memoriam … Lest we forget… May the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of Polish citizens in Soviet forced-labour camps, political prisons and execution sites, always remind the world that freedom is bought with great sacrifice.
Dedicated to the memory of over one million seven hundred thousand Polish soldiers and civilians arrested in EAstern Poland by the Soviet secret service (NKVD) in 1940-1941, for the only reason that they were Polish citizens and were deported to the far reaches of the Soviet Union (siberia), where many were executed or died of hunger, cold, disease, and exhaustion during World War II.
[words in Polish]”
Alliance of the Polish Eastern Provinces in Toronto, February 10, 2000.

The rest of this post are images of some of the sights along Queen West and in the alleys behind. Some of them may look like photos that have appeared in prior blog posts…. Many things have changed over the years and yet many things remain the same.

below: North side of Queen West, looking towards Roncesvalles.

below: South side of Queen West, looking towards Roncesvalles

Some of the old architecture remains – Volumes could probably be written about all the old architectural features that can still be seen out Queen West and King West. Many of which date from when Parkdale was an affluent suburb of Toronto.

below: An old Royal Bank of Canada building (now used for other purposes).

below: An old Second Empire type of building, that is now home to the Easy Restaurant as well as Rosa’s restaurant.

below:Back of the building – King Street side.

below: The original mural with its yellow convertible once seen on the back of the building is still there, it’s just hidden by a more recently built structure to store garbage bins and other stuff in.

below: If you have passed by this intersection, you may have noticed the yellow motorcycle rider on the King Street side of the building.

below: Dancing in the window

below: A doggie in the window!

below: Ford among the light fixtures. Who is the dimmest bulb?

below: An anchor, many stickers, and a red skull and crossbones

below: Potato sack racers in a mural by Jim Bravo. The sacks all say “Eva’s Fine Deli” on them so perhaps this was once the wall of said deli? Now it is the Dosa restaurant on Roncesvalles.

below: Dreamer

below: Birdo paintings that have faded and weathered. Check out an earlier post if you want to see what they once were like (Animals and Birdo Birds) This post was from March 2015, ten years ago!

birdo street art painting in an alley, bird with blue and white body

below: Still Alive! It’s always marvelous to encounter Lovebot the Robot in the wild.

below: More alley backyard views…. another house with a rooftop terrace or deck. I have mentioned before in other posts with other alleys, that this type of renovation/expansion has become very common throughout the city.

to Bloor and west on Bathurst

Posted: May 18, 2024 in construction, intersections, locations
Tags: Alternative Thinking, bathurst, Bloor, construction, dragon, hot dogs, houses, infill housing, Iran freedom mural, Korean restaurants, Koreatown, lilacs, Markham Street, Mirvish village, murals, redevelopment, residential, spring, workmen

below: Medallion embedded in the sidewalk outside Bathurst subway station entrance showing the way – South to Bloor and west to Bathurst is first on list for today. … Or maybe round and round in circles?

below: Looking south on Bathurst towards Bloor. The southwest corner of Bloor and Bathurst is now a solid block of condos.

below: Same collection of buildings but from a slightly different angle. Giant concrete pillars in front of ground level glass wall. Argh. Unoriginal Toronto architecture.

below: Working at heights. It looks like road access from Bathurst towards Markham Street. More concrete pillars!

below: Alternative Thinking and its neighbour directly to the south remained the holdouts and are now completely surrounded by new development.

below: Around the corner on Bloor near Markham. The sidewalk in this stretch has been widened with benches and planters added.

below: Honest Eds is long gone.

below: Work continues on the re-making of Markham Street.

below: Ed’s Mercantile Store & Studio. Vintage and Handmade Goods – it’s not exactly Honest Ed’s but it was at least worth a smile and a chuckle (and a photo!)

below: Stop. Stop building.

below: From Palmerston, the new condos rise up behind.

below: Spring! Lilacs in abundance in front of an old brick house with fabulous balcony space.

below: One block south of Bloor is Lennox

below: There is a lane that runs north from Lennox that ends behind the stores on Bloor. The old buildings are dwarfed by the newer condos.

below: Same alley, new infill housing

below: This isn’t the exact view from that lovely infill house, but it’s close.

below: Still in the alley trying to get a good view of what’s happening on the site… Some of the old houses on Markham have been kept (or at least their facades).

below: Bloor Street from Markham Street west to just beyond Christie is part of the Koreatown BIA which suggests a preponderance of Korean businesses.

below: Businesses like Seoul Hot Dog, Mummy Korean Restaurant, and Mapo Korean BBQ.

below: Korean Village Restaurant

below: Imagine Your Korea mural (in 2 photos)

below: A green dragon breathes fire outside Chung Chun Rice Hot Dog in a mural by Allan Render, John Norbrega, and Stacey Kinder (Blinc Studios), 2019.

below: But in typical Toronto style, many other ethnic groups are represented here – Ave Maria Latin Cafe

below: Pour Boys keeping an eye on Bloor.

below: … Tibetan Paper Store… and more.

below: “If you are reading this, Iran is not free”

southern Spadina, from Dundas to Ireland.

Posted: March 9, 2024 in alleys, intersections, locations, stores, transportation, waterfront, windows and walls
Tags: Canada Malting Co., Chinatown, construction, Curtia Wright, graffiti, Ireland Park, June Kim, mannequin, Omni Coastal, people, poles, Radium Yellowknife, Rowan Gillespie, silos, Spadina, stores, street scenes, traffic, TTC, tug, vegetables

Spadina has many faces – It starts at Eglinton as Spadina Road where it runs south through Forest Hill. It’s journey southward then continues through a number of different parts of the city including a spot where there is a block missing at Casa Loma. Pedestrians can use the Baldwin Stairs but traffic has to detour around the castle. At Bloor it changes to Spadina Avenue and widens to allow streetcar access down the middle of the road. Here, it is also the western edge of the University of Toronto.

Just north of College Street, Spadina becomes Spadina Crescent as it forms a circle around what is now the Daniels Faculty of Architecture building. South of College Street to Dundas the neighbourhood is somewhat eclectic with a mix of Kensington Market and Chinatown.

below: Celtuce and asparagus for sale. Celtuce was new to me – I’ve never seen it before. It is also called also called stem lettuce, celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce, or Chinese lettuce. Unlike other lettuces, it is the stem that is eaten (although the leaves are also edible).

below: Collaborative mural under the window, the work of June Kim and Curtia Wright. East meets West, painted back in October.

below: Holy Chinatown window Batman!

below: A Canada Post mailbox decorated originally with an image of the Year of the Rat (from Lunar New Year calendar) stamp issued in 2020.

below: Waiting for the streetcar

below: Looking eastward along Queen Street West with a web of streetcar wires overhead and many tracks underfoot. The new Ontario Line subway will cross here with a new Queen-Spadina station being planned. Between Sherbourne (Moss Park) and Spadina the Ontario Line will be under Queen Street. West of here the tracks will swing south to a station at King and Bathurst.

below: Another eastward looking view, this time from a bit farther south at Adelaide, a street that has become canyon-like as it makes it way through the older brick buildings in foreground and then the taller glass buildings as it gets closer to Yonge Street and the downtown core.

below: And a little bit more south again… the CN Tower rises into the fog as it peeks out between two glass condo buildings at King and Spadina. South of King is the new development “The Well” that opened recently. I have blogged about it previously (Well, Well, Well, 27 Nov 2023)

Spadina is also a major access point to Lakeshore Blvd and the Gardiner Expressway. This section of the road is rather barren if you are on foot (unless you are a concrete aficionado LOL)

below: Another eastward view – Both Lakeshore Blvd westbound (but not eastbound!) and the Gardiner Expressway are elevated and they run parallel as they cross over Spadina.

below: Standing on the northwest corner of Spadina and Queens Quay. This is where Spadina ends – at the waterfront with some of the docks and parks that have been redeveloped in recent years.

below: Looking north up Spadina from Queens Quay.

below: Look! Continue walking towards the waterfront but be careful crossing the bike lanes of the Martin Goodman Trail!

below: Spadina Wave Deck

below: The Omni Coastal, a tug boat, is docked at Spadina Quay.

below: Pulling back a little farther… the CN Tower is still hiding in the fog.

below: Ahoy matey!

below: It’s a much quieter scene in the winter when fewer boats are here. In the background, the Canada Malting Company silos still stand strong.

below: Looking for the signs of spring and finding the beginnings of tulips and daffodils in the Music Garden

below: Some useful information: “Bathrooms, Where can they be found?” Number one on the list is Billy Bishop Airport and I can attest to the fact that yes, they have bathrooms (check in the ferry terminal building).

below: Another red tugboat in the fog – this one is the Radium Yellowknife.

below: The silos have been under wraps as they have been renovated.

below: Built on reclaimed land in the early 1900s, the silos have been empty since 1987 and had fallen into disrepair. Although they are now missing a couple of letters, the silos are in much better shape. I am not sure if there is any use planned for the structures but the site is being turned into a park, Bathurst Quay Common.

below: If you walk past the silos, you come to Ireland Park with its memorial to those who fled the Irish famine in the 1840s. The park also has seven sculptures cast in bronze by Rowan Gillespie of Dublin Ireland. The installation is called ‘Arrival’. These figures match an earlier installation on the Customs House Quay in Dublin, ‘Famine’ (1997). A third installation in Tasmania Australia completes the trilogy.

below: Along the exterior walls of the silos, a few signs have been posted that tell the story of Irish immigration to Canada. This is one of those signs.

sign half in English and half in French that tells the story of the ship called The City of Toronto that brought irish immigrants to Canada in 1847.

Arrival of the City of Toronto – When the steamer City of Toronto dropped anchor at Rees’s Wharf on Sunday, 6 June 1847, City officials had no way of knowing the boat was a harbinger of the chaotic and overwhelming migration season to come. The City carried 700 people. More than half of the adults on board were “indigent” migrants from Ireland, all traveling at the expense of the government.
Given reports of ongoing distress and hunger in Ireland, the volume of immigrants was expected to be high that year, but Toronto was still unprepared for the tidal wave of Irish Famine immigrants now cresting its shores. Toronto, with its population of 20,000 would eventually receive 38,000 immigrants in 1847.
Steamships arrived filled to capacity with passengers exhausted and sick from their weeks-long journey. Many of those who had been deemed healthy by doctors at Grosse Ile were beginning to show signs of typhus.
The logistics of receiving, triaging, housing, treating and transporting (or burying) this wave of newcomers fell to a group of municipal and provincial officials, who had to make do with rudimentary medical and settlement infrastructure and resources.

It’s a mess!

Posted: January 27, 2024 in construction, intersections
Tags: construction, hoardings, Ontario line, pedestrians, people, Queen St., sidewalks, Yonge St.

Queen Street is now closed to all traffic from just east of Bay Street to Yonge Street and again between Yonge and Victoria Streets…. for about four and a half years (any bets on 5 years? or more?). The new Ontario Line subway is being built here. There will be 4 stops along Queen – Moss Park which is between Sherbourne and Parliament, then Yonge, Osgoode, and finally a stop at Spadina & Queen before the line heads south to King Street and then the Exhibition.

Because of the existing infrastructure in the area there wasn’t much room for construction, hence the takeover of the street. 501 Queen streetcars and buses are diverting along Richmond and Adelaide streets.

It all makes for a complicated mess for pedestrians.

below: The first warning sign of changes ahead, a little orange sign that says that the sidewalk on the north side of Queen Street is closed between Victoria and Yonge.

below: Queen and Victoria, looking west towards the construction

below: Looking south on Victoria from Queen

below: Ontario Line hoardings.

below: Northeast corner of Yonge & Queen

below: Looking east from Yonge

below: Westward view past concrete barriers and wobbly green and metal fencing

below: Crossing Queen Street

below: From the Eaton Centre looking east past Yonge Street.

below: Entrance to the Queen subway station

below: A break in the construction zone for pedestrians.

below: Barricade across the sidewalk on the south side, by the Eaton Centre

below: Queen Street is closed in front of Old City Hall

intersections – McCowan and Sheppard

Posted: November 11, 2023 in construction, graffiti and street art, intersections, locations, transportation
Tags: construction, equipment, machines, Metrolinx, Nugget Ave., railway, Scarborough, Sheppard, subway, trains, trucks, tunneling, West Highland Creek

After years of false starts, indecision re routes, and all the other consequences of being City Council’s favorite political football, the new Scarborough subway extension is underway.

Once upon a time, the extension was to only go to Scarborough Town Centre and was derided as the “One Stop Subway”. Now it seems to be three stops from the present Kennedy station with the end point being at McCowan and Sheppard. In true Metrolinx style, it seems like the last station is going to be called Sheppard East. Such imagination! … to have three stations called Sheppard! That seems to be the situation at present…. as for tomorrow’s situation? Who knows…..

In case you’ve never been to that intersection, let me show you what’s there…..

below: Looking west on Sheppard approaching McCowan with Metrolinx site on the right hand side. This construction site is very large and dominates the area.

below: One of the entrance gates to the Metrolinx construction site. Note all the stacked concrete sections that will form the tunnel walls.

below: This blue object is part of the equipment needed to move dirt brought to the surface by the Tunnel Boring Machine that is working underground (There is also a TBM working out in Rexdale on the Crosstown West).

It is a very big machine

below: Gate B

In general, the area south of Sheppard is residential while the area north of Sheppard is industrial or commercial. Canadian Tire is on the northwest corner.

below: Apartments on Sheppard (south side, east of McCowan)

below: Because of the angle from which this photo was taken, the exact locations are slightly unclear. The Medical Clinic is 4651 Sheppard East. To the west of that is a vacant lot that used to be a gas station and it is on the SE corner of McCowan and Sheppard; it is in the process of being redeveloped. The apartment building is actually on the SWt corner of McCowan and Sheppard.

below: looking east on Sheppard from McCowan

below: Walking McCowan north of Sheppard is partially impeded by a fence across the sidewalk…. but it is easily bypassed. Nugget Avenue is just beyond the fence.

below: Looking southeast from McCowan and Nugget where West Highland Creek branches. The large Metrolinx site fills the triangle formed by McCowan, West Highland Creek, and Sheppard Avenue. The white apartment building in the distance is on Sheppard Ave.

The creek’s concrete bed might make for easy management of the water flow but it makes for an ugly scene – unfriendly to both nature and people. There are parks north of here on both branches of the creek but here where most of the land use is industrial or commercial, little attention is paid to the esthetics.

below: Dufferin Concrete at Nugget and McCowan

below: Nugget Avenue crosses West Highland Creek. The plaza at 20 Nugget Ave, with the red and white stripes, was shut down (bought out) by Metrolinx. Apparently, the two-acre property is needed for an emergency exit and underground tail track for the future Sheppard East Station.

below: Spotted on a bulletin board at a bus shelter on Nugget (It’s a collection of bible verses).

below: Immediately north of Nugget Avenue are train tracks. This is the western edge of the large CPR Toronto Yard. If you are interested in this yard and some of the trains, I blogged about it previously (Around the marshaling yards – with love and peace).

below: North side of tracks along McCowan

golden mile

Posted: September 27, 2023 in construction, history, intersections, transportation
Tags: apples, Eglinton Square, Flexible Packaging Corp, Golden Mile, IPEX, LRT, O'Connor, pharmacy, redevelopment

This has become one of the more forlorn corners in the city – the northeast corner of Eglinton and Vic Park. I am not sure what the structure was originally used for or what it looked like back in the day. Now it just stands there, perhaps in limbo like the Eglinton LRT that it sits next to.

There is another one at the other end of the Golden Mile Mall (one block east at Pharmacy & Eglinton). Brutalistic and ugly.

The Golden Mile Mall opened in 1954. And even Queen Elizabeth II visited it (in 1959).

below: Golden Mile Mall parking lot today. The mall (or plaza) has a No Frills and a Joe Fresh, both of which are part of Loblaws. In fact, Choice Properties REIT (also Loblaws) owns the 19 acre site and has plans to redevelop it into a mixed use site. The site runs north of Eglinton from Victoria Park to Pharmacy. It’s early in the process so anything can happen but if you are interested, the site plan is a downloadable pdf

large parking lot at golden mile mall, not many cars

Did that tall metal structure have a purpose? Or just decoration?

Even back in the 1950s the parking lot was enormous. I get the impression that the golden mile wasn’t so golden if you didn’t own a car.

black and white photo from 1950s of cars in a parking lot in front of a mall, the golden mile mall

Photo Source: From Old Toronto Series facebook page. If you are interested in the way Toronto used to look, check them out!

below: Part of the mall was destroyed by fire in 1986

black and white photo of firemen rolling up hoses in front of burnt out woolworths store

Photo Credit: Rick Eglinton, Toronto Star Photograph Archive, “Original Toronto Star caption: Fire guts part of Golden Mile plaza. Three of the 50 firefighters called out yesterday to battle a spectacular fire that gutted the west end of Scarborugh’s Golden Mile Plaza roll up their hoses after finally dousing the last ember. The mall, built mostly of wood in the 1950s and once Canada biggest, is now being demolished. The Ontario Fire Marshall’s Office has not yet determined the cause of the blaze. Published in Toronto Star, 16 December 1986”. Found online at Toronto Public Libbrary Digital

As I alluded to above, the Eglinton LRT has been built here. As most of you know, this is the mystery transit line – nobody knows when it’s going to be operational. Not even Metrolinx knows. Coincidences are such that after I took these photos I discovered that Metrolinx was supposed to make an announcement about the Eglinton LRT this afternoon (Sept 27). As it turns out the announcement was that there was no announcement but they will make more announcements in a couple of months.

below: So O’Connor LRT station sits waiting… Just in case you don’t know, O’Connor station is at Eglinton & Vic Park (O’Connor Drive ends at Vic Park a short distance south of here).

below: O’Connor LRT station, from another angle

below: I was shocked to see a streetcar pull into the station! They really are running tests or training people, or whatever it is they’re doing. Back in early June 2021 (more than two years ago!) the first LRT vehicles made their debut in Toronto (blog post from that day)

When the area was first settled it became farmland. A few apple trees still grow along the side of Pharmacy Ave

During WW2, the Canadian government bought some of that farmland and built a munitions plant known as GECo (General Engineering Company). This factory was south of Eglinton and east of Pharmacy. After the war, many other industries moved into the area. Beginning in the 1980s, the industries started leaving.

below: Today there are still a few left such as this IPEX facility – they make thermoplastic pipes (such as PVC pipes used in plumbing)

Another industry, Flexible Packaging Corp, has moved on

If you google their address, 1891 Eglinton Ave East, you will discover that there are plans for the latest trend – the mixed use community – here too. Tall condo towers, retail, and public space (here 5 towers, 4 of which between 30 and 45 storeys). There are going to be a few of these along Eglinton. For instance, the Crosstown neighbourhood is well underway at Eglinton and Don Mills. And there is the Golden Mile Mall redevelopment that I mentioned above.

The Eglinton LRT has, not surprisingly, encouraged a lot of redevelopment. Almost every building along Eglinton between Victoria Park and Pharmacy has a blue and white development notice in front. I didn’t walk farther east but I suspect that a similar story is playing out there too.

below: At the southwest corner of Eglinton and Pharmacy, one tall tower of 35 storeys

below: North side of Eglinton, 2 towers – 38 and 40 storeys.

Across the street from the Golden Mile Mall is Eglinton Square, another mall. It too has a development notice out front. It was dated 2018 so take it with a grain of salt that the mall is retained but 91 rental units behind it will disappear. … Can we believe that? So… A quick google and yikes! Seven towers, 5 of which are 40 storeys or more for 1 Eglinton Square. Really? Are we that short of ideas for housing? In twenty to thirty years are we going to look around and wonder what the hell happened here?

below: HBC on the west side of Eglinton Square

below: This is the triangle formed by O’Connor Drive, Eglinton Ave., and Victoria Park Ave. The parkette that was here is all dug up. I’m not sure that I want to know what’s happening here.

Graffiti

below: Danger due to blunt mop. At first I thought it was someone’s strange humour but on closer look realized that it was an advert for a soundcloud account.

below: Help wanted! and “help” available at a price

*****

Additional Note:

This is the “Progress Chart” released by Metrolinx today re the Eglinton LRT.

Queen East and a little bit Eastern

Posted: September 23, 2023 in construction, doors, intersections, old buildings, stores
Tags: architecture, Bareket, buses, Consumers Gas, Curtia Wright, doors, dutch love, Eastern Ave., Elicser Elliott, fence, flowers, Gales, ghost signs, Hebrew, houses, Leslieville, Mediah, murals, Queen Street East, redevelopment, signs, stores, trucks, vacant lots, welcome, Welcome Back to Main Street

These are some of the photos that I took the last time that I walked along Queen Street East – with a diversion or two down to Eastern Avenue. It was a wander around parts of the Leslieville and Riverside neighbourhoods. In no particular order….

below: Leslieville mural painted by Elicser Elliott, Queen Street East

below: Queen Street shops

below: Hebrew letters, part of a project called “Welcome Back to Main Street” from back in 2021. The Riverside Neighbourhood and Leslieville BIA collaborated with STEPS Public Art as part of the I HeART Main Street Challenge. The painting was done by local artists Bareket and Curtia Wright

below: … and nearby, “welcome” in Polish, witamy.

below: At 744 Queen East, the old white Bank of Commerce building with its bowed front facade, dates from 1905. The architects who designed the building were Darling & Pearson who were responsible for a number of bank buildings in Toronto and other Canadian cities.

below: Blessed Love Caribbean Grocery and Take Out.

below: A frenzied backdrop to a sidewalk patio.

below: Ghost sign at Queen and Coady.

below: More details from the past trying to hold on. The “blue box” has obliterated the old gabled roof structure that has probably been there for more than 100 years.

below: Canadian flag motifs on planters

below: Strange ducks on posters, a form of graffiti? Or just weirdness?

below: Sax player at the Duke

below: Mediah on Queen

below: on Broadview

below: Gales Snack Bar, Eastern and Carlaw.

below: Old row houses on Eastern – 4 in a row, 3 blue but 545 is in its original brown.

below: Something else that is old – an old style bus shelter close to an old metal Queen Street street sign affixed to the brick building.

below: And one last “you don’t see many of these anymore” – old parking meters. Anyone got coins?

below: Snapdragons

below: Lilies and hostas

below: More flowers, and a baby pram too. Did you know that pram is just a short form of perambulator? How British is that! Even better, the second meaning of perambulator is, “a person who walks, especially for pleasure and in a leisurely way.”

below: More than flowers!

below: Perambulating on Queen West!

below: Traffic on Eastern Ave, headed downtown.

below: No trespassing sign on one of the many vacant lots on the south side of Eastern.

below: This is one of the vacant lots on Eastern; it’s just west of Leslie. The containers are offices (?) for GM as in General Motors. They are sitting on a seven acre site that is otherwise empty. Starting back in 2016 there was talk that this site would be developed as a GM Mobility Campus but approval from the city was never granted. The previous buildings (film studios) were demolished and the lot lies vacant.

below: Another space is for storage of old buses and trucks, movie props and other remnants of film productions.

below: … which happened to be unlocked the day I walked past.

below: On Leslie Street, at Eastern, this whole building is for lease because….

below: .. as the letter states, the last tenant was locked out. They abandoned the premises leaving behind more than $100,000 in rent owing to the landlord.

below: The former Consumers Gas Company (now part of Enbridge) has had a large presence on Eastern Avenue for many years. This stone on the exterior of the building names all the Consumers Gas directors in 1907 (presumably when the building was built?). J.L. Blaikie was the president and A.W. Austin was the vice-president. The mayor of the city, E. Coatsworth, was also a director. There was a Sir W. Mortimer Clark on the list and, to no one’s surprise, the other names were all very anglo.

below: Queen West at the CNR tracks

below: Little red picket fence

below: Renovations

below: Note the many hydro meters all in a row – six units in what was once a single family home.

below: So far so good

below: Nice

below: You never know what you will find written on the concrete.

below: In memory of Karolina Huebner-Makurat who died on a Friday afternoon in August because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was caught in the crossfire during an altercation outside a supervised injection site. Senseless. Horrible.

Stay safe.

starting at Queen and Sumach

Posted: July 15, 2023 in construction, history, intersections, locations, old buildings
Tags: abandoned, Ashby Place, Canadian flag, Cherry St., Dominion Pub, Elicser Elliott, heritage, historic, houses, Inglenook school, mural, Rowell Soller, stores, Sumach St., Sweet Marie, terrace houses, the Magic Building, William George Storm

First, let’s get our bearings….

below: This was, until recently, the Dominion Pub. It is on the northwest corner of Queen St East and Sumach. It was a popular spot with a decent patio. When I saw that the Dominion was closed and the property for lease I decided that I’d better document the area. There is just so much happening, or about to happen, here in terms of development.

below: Directly opposite, on the northeast corner, is this row of buildings – 502, 506, and 508 Queen Street East. The buildings appear to be empty but there is no development notice sign. Only 502, Sweet Marie Variety, is considered of any historic value.

below: Just to the east, more of the same. One is for sale – It’s just over 1600 sq ft, and can be yours for $1,800,000. These pictures were taken on the 1st of July and as I write this almost two weeks later, it is still on the market. Care to be a commercial landlord? Or maybe hold onto it in hopes that a developer wants to buy you out?

below: One more change of viewpoint… South side of Queen, looking west to Sumach Street

below: Stepping back in time (can anyone date the cars?), to the same intersection but from the other side, Queen Street looking west at Cherry Street.

black and white vintage photo of Queen street, looking west, at Cherry street

City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1488, Series 1230, Item 2285, plus some enhancing with Photoshop

below: The building on the corner with the mansard roof is still there. The bright green part of the building lost its roof in a fire a few years ago. Both buildings date from before 1884.

below: The fire also destroyed one of the row houses immediately beside, leaving a vacant lot in its place. 469 Queen is a terrace house built in 1877. The ivy covered building (the Magic Building) faces Sumach Street.

below: The brick warehouse/factory at 489 Queen Street East was built in 1884. This building has been renovated and turned into office space.

below: Just east of the old warehouse is another short row of terrace houses from the same time period.

below: A little further east

below: And a little more…. a row of flat roofs on two storey brick store fronts. They also all have three narrow windows on the upper floor.

Jumping back to the start, the Dominion Brewery opened in 1878 and was in operation until 1936. The original owner was Robert T. Davies who bought the site in 1877; he had worked previously at his brother’s brewery, Don Brewery which was only about two blocks away. A large part of this structure still stands, especially the part facing Queen Street. The lower right corner of this image shows the Dominion Hotel which was attached to the brewery but wasn’t part of it.

below: The Dominion Hotel as it appeared in 1945. The little tower and fourth floor no longer exist. The hotel was built in 1889 by Robert Davies (same as first owner of the brewery).

An older black and white photo of the Dominion Hotel. Once upon a time it had a tower.

This image was found on Wikipedia but is originally from the City of Toronto Archives, listed under the archival citation Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 520. (public domain).

below: Painting by Rowell Soller on Queen Street

below: From under the scaffolding in front of the Dominion Pub.

below: The front entrance of the Magic Building on Sumach Street, south of Queen (that’s the ivy covered one a few photos above).

below: Not only does the building have a lot of ivy on its walls, it also has a painting by Elicser Elliott with a red-capped man at ground level.

below: The box on the sidewalk across the street from the wizard painting has also been decorated by Elicser Elliott.

If you walk south on Sumach, it is a short block to King.

below: Looking down the alley to another street of row houses, Ashby Place, with newer Corkdown developments behind that.

below: A closer look at a couple of the houses on Ashby Place – they’re small!

below: This is the northeast corner of King and Sumach. This intersection has more than 30 of poles, or at least I lost count at 30. Most of them are for the 504 streetcars.

below: Southeast corner of King & Sumach… a mix of old and new

below: On the northwest side of the intersection are a couple of old brick houses that still survive.

below: When I looked for old photos of the area, I found this one…. If I am not mistaken, it is the same location as the photo above but from a different angle. The building that looks like it’s going to collapse any minute has been replaced by Central Auto. On the right hand side of this photo there is a striped brick building in the background. This is a church at the corner of King and Bright.

old vintage black and white photo of housing at King and Sumach

Housing – Nov 3, 1936, 472 and 474 King St. and 42 Sumach. City of Toronto Archives, Series 372,

South of King Street, Sumach curves to join Cherry Street at Eastern Avenue. As you travel south, Inglenook School is on your right. Between 1834 and 1890 this site was the home of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn, refugee former slaves from Kentucky who started Toronto’s first taxicab company. The school was designed by William George Storm (1826-1892) as Sackville Street School. Storm also added the tower to St. James Cathedral and designed the wrought iron fence around Osgoode Hall amongst other things.

white car parked in frontof an old school building, brick, two storey, with condo development going on behind, is now Inglenook community school.

Inglenook School’s claim to fame is that it is located in the oldest continually-operated school building in the Toronto District School Board.

From here Sumach Street becomes Cherry Street. The Distillery District is the next attraction on the route before Cherry crosses the Lakeshore (closed at the moment) and heads through the Port Lands to Cherry Beach. But all that excitement will have to be found in other blog posts!

888 Dupont

Posted: June 7, 2023 in construction, history, intersections
Tags: 33wallflower33, Aked, car, construction, daisy, doors, Dupont St., graffiti, life, Ossington, pasteups, posters, protest, redevelopment, slaps, windows

below: 888 Dupont Street is at the northeast corner of Dupont and Ossington. The building was designed by Canadian architect William George Hunt and was built in 1921. The first owner was Thomas Oswald Aked whose company Aked & Co (or Aked Worsted) was in the yarn spinning business.

After World War I, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind established a broom, brush, and mop-making business to provide employment for servicemen who had lost their vision in combat. In 1952 this business, Blindcraft, moved into 888 Dupont.

below: The entrance to 888 Dupont is now behind a construction fence.

In recent years the building became home to many artist studios. Although the building was never deemed residential, some artists used it as a place to live. They have now been evicted to make way for condo development by TAS Design.

below: Through a gap in the window…