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inside Leslie Barns

Posted: June 6, 2016 in events, locations, transportation
Tags: building, cameras, Doors Open, interior, kids, Leslie Barns, new, outside, PCC, people, Peter Witt, photos, pipes, riding, streetcars, tours, tracks, TTC, vintage, wires

As you all know, the TTC is replacing their older streetcars with new longer Bombardier streetcars. Or at least they are trying to 🙂 Because they are longer, they don’t fit into existing “garages”, hence the new Leslie Barns facility. Located on Leslie St., south of Queen, it is the new streetcar “home”. It is where streetcars are parked, maintained and repaired. It has been in operation since Nov 2015 but the first chance the public got to peak inside the finished complex was at Doors Open on the 28th of May.

below: While waiting for a streetcar at the corner of Queen and Broadview on the way to visit the Leslie Barns, I saw this renovated TTC streetcar from the 1950’s.

below: The streetcar tour involved riding a new streetcar through a maintenance bay in the building and then around the parking lot out back.

below: Exterior, parking space for at least 100 streetcars

below: Special bays have been constructed with space for workers to access both the underneath and the top of the streetcars. Because the cars have been designed to ride low, a lot of their workings such as the HVAC and propulsion systems are built into the roof of the car.

below: It’s a big space! …. 17,510 square metres (188,500 sq ft) in fact.

below: A spic and span shiny paint room

below: A myriad of colour coded pipes

below: There were renovated vintage streetcars on display. On the left is a 1921 Peter Witt streetcar and next to it is a PCC streetcar from the early 1950’s.

below: Interior of a refurbished Peter Witt streetcar with its wood trim. The Witt cars were built for the newly formed TTC in 1921. They entered service on Broadview in October of that year. By 1923 they were operating on seven routes. The last Witt streetcar was retired in 1963.

below: Looking out the window of a PCC streetcar built in 1951. PCC stands for Presidents’ Conference Committee, which was a group of operators from the USA and Canada who got together in 1938 to design a new electric railway car. By the late 1950s, the TTC owned the largest fleet of PCC’s in the world. The last one was retired in 1995.

below: Streetcar wire maintenance truck.

#DOT16 | #TTC

37,000 tons

Posted: May 30, 2016 in history, landmarks, locations, waterfront
Tags: beach, history, industry, large, pile, pink umbrellas, processing, queens quay east, raw sugar, Redpath, sugar, sugar beach, waterfront

A sweet post.

This is what 37,000 tons of raw sugar looks like.
The Raw Sugar Shed at Redpath Sugar is 27m high, 155m long, and 43 m wide. It’s a big space!

Raw sugar is brought to the Redpath Sugar facility by ship. When it is off-loaded from the ship it is brought into the warehouse by conveyor belts that run down the middle of the ceiling.

below: There isn’t a ship in the harbour at the moment so the green crane waits.

below: You can see a holes in the foreground of the next photo. This is one of many holes in the floor of the Raw Sugar Shed. The raw sugar is pushed through these holes to another series of conveyor belts below.

below: Photo taken from the entrance to the Raw Sugar Shed, taken at Doors Open. Raw sugar is taken by conveyor belt (upper far right) to the processing plant next door.

below: A lingering remnant, railway crossing signs from when a railway ran here.
A guard sits by the entrance to Redpath Sugar.

The railway serviced the industries that were built along the Toronto waterfront, The LBCO, Loblaws, the ‘Toronto Star’ newspaper, Molson Breweries, Dominion Malting and others, relied on the railways. Completed in 1959, the Redpath refinery was the last industry built along the waterfront. You can just see the railway tracks in the photo below, running between Queens Quay East and the Redpath building where they dead end. Since the tracks only dead ended there in 1985, that helps date the picture. Rail service ended in 2008.

aerial view of the East Wharf portion of the Toronto wateterfront, vintage photo from the 1970's or 1980's

photo credit: Originally from City of Toronto Archives but found online at Old Time Trains.

Today, Redpath Sugar is one of the last industries operating on the waterfront; The area around it is rapidly being redeveloped, including the space right next door that is aptly called Sugar Beach.

from The Esplanade to Union

Posted: May 13, 2016 in events, locations, public art
Tags: art, buildings, city, CN Tower, construction, construction Berczy Park, downtown, Front St., images, Market St., Paul Raff, photography, public art, railway, shoreline, Shoreline Commemorative, THe Esplanade, Toronto, train tracks, Union station, urban, workmen

On Friday morning, my original goal was to find ‘Residents of the Esplanade’, a CONTACT Photography Festival outdoor exhibit at David Crombie Park but it was such a beautiful morning that I didn’t stop there. I found more than just the ‘Residents’.

Forty years ago, May 1976, the site plan for The Esplanade neighbourhood was approved. Since then, it has become home to a very diverse group of people. And it is those people that this installation celebrates on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the neighbourhood.

Crombie Park runs along the south side of The Esplanade between Berkeley street and Lower Jarvis. The installation consists of a number of small white rectangular pillars with the picture and story of person on either side.

People were out enjoying the morning; school kids were playing basketball at recess.

Flowers were blooming.

below: Looking towards Lower Jarvis Street and downtown Toronto.

below: One street beyond Lower Jarvis is Market Street. It dead ends at the railway tracks. The long structure on the right is a parking garage.

below: After a small backtrack up Market Street, I went through Conger Coal Lane to Church Street. I don’t think I have walked this way before. The lane was named in commemoration of the Conger Coal Company whose yard and wharf was nearby. It was one of the many companies that provided Toronto with coal back in the day when coal fueled the city. It was started in 1870 by Mr. P.D. Conger. In 1913, Sterling Coal company bought Conger and the name was changed to Conger Lehigh Coal Co.

below: A very old photo of the Conger Coal Company dock at the foot of Church Street, back when Church street ended at Lake Ontario

below: Tucked into a corner on Church street immediately south of Front Street, is an art installation by Paul Raff called ‘Shoreline Commemorative’. A topography of limestone forms the base of the work. A glass ball representing the line between sky and water sits on top of a tripod that tries to evoke a land surveyor’s tripod. The words on the wall say “For 10,000 years this was the location of Lake Ontario’s shoreline. This brick wall stands where water and land met, with a vista horizon”

below: Continuing the lake theme, a little fish out of water, jumping over the entrance to a condo.

below: From the lake theme to another common theme in the city, construction. Spring is the beginning of construction season and here Berczy Park is being upgraded. In the background a new condo is being built but as we all know condo construction ‘season’ never ends. In fact, the challenge might be to find a place in this city where there isn’t a condo being built.

below: I walked past the never ending Front Street construction. Construction in front of Union station seems to be finished, but this stretch of Front Street just west of the station is still being worked on. There have been fences here so long that I can’t remember a time when they weren’t here.

weaving a trail

Posted: May 4, 2016 in general Toronto, locations, old buildings
Tags: construction, hospital, Inner City Gate, Jimmy Mount Rushmore, Jimmys Coffee, Kosso Eloul, outdoors, Princess Margaret Hospital, redevelopment, sculpture, sidewalk, spring, streets, trees, University Ave., Womens College Hospital

There is no theme to this blog post. I never really had a purpose in mind as I walked yesterday. I walked to enjoy the spring day. I walked wherever my feet took me… and they took me on a route that wove between Bay Street and University Avenue and from Grenville south to Dundas.

below: “Jimmy Mount Rushmore” mural on the side of Jimmy’s Coffee featuring four famous musical Jimmys: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Buffet and Jim Morrison.

below: ‘Inner City Gate’ by Kosso Eloul. 1978. A balancing act of stainless steel boxes on the lawn of the R. Fraser Elliott building (part of the old Toronto General Hospital), Elizabeth Street.

below: A blight on the sidewalk, so-called information pillars that are really just a sell-out to Astral Media. They needlessly obstruct the sidewalk and obstruct the view of cyclists and motorists. Unfortunately they are part of a 20 year contract that the city has with Astral Media which doesn’t expire until 2027.

below: Incised into limestone blocks on the Edward Street side of McClelland House (originally the McLean Hunter building) is half of an artwork by Elizabeth Wynn Wood (1903 – 1966) called “Communication”. The woman is sending a message to a man who is apparently shown on the other side of the building. Sadly, I missed the man so there is no photograph of him here. When the work was completed in 1958, the incised lines were inlayed with gold colour.

below: Across the street from the ‘floating woman’, 480 University Avenue is getting a facelift.

below: This picture shows most of the front of 480 University and you can see the different stages of the recladding process. At the top of the building, the precast concrete grille that was part of the original 1968 Global House office tower is still in place while new glass panels have already been installed on the lower floors. It is interesting to watch the metamorphosis of an 18 storey office building into a 55 storey condo tower. Four levels of underground parking have also been added to the site and a new indoor entrance to St. Patrick subway station is in the works.

below: Abstract in blues and greys

There is a lot of building and redevelopment in the area where I walked.

below: Womens College Hospital is totally new.

below: The corner of College and Bay, looking southeast, is now a wall of glass.

below: The new wing of Sick Kids Hospital dwarfs the older buildings on Elm Street.

below: The old and the new integrated into one building, Princess Margaret Hospital.

below: Even the street is being redone. The center of Bay Street from Dundas to Elm is torn up because of TTC streetcar track replacement.

below: Little quirky details: First, the cross shapes made of contrasting brick on the back of the Red Cross building. Second, the workings (or barrier?) of the compressed gas tanks that have been made to look like ice.

below: Another piece of public art, ‘Liquid Echo’ by Catherine Widgery, 1999, is in front of 750 Bay Street. They look like stiff and lifeless frozen metallic fountains… or maybe just 12 pencils 🙂 . Circular vent shafts for the underground parking have been incorporated into the artwork.

below: A lovebot watches over the people passing through the bus station, unaware that he is there.

below: And last, a colourful collection of squares and rectangles. Blue and green. Red and white.

community and history, St. Clair West

Posted: April 24, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations, public art
Tags: cars, CN Tower, convertible, CPR, Davenport Arts Community, fifa, history, murals, railway, Silverthorn, soccer, west york

There is a railway bridge, just west of Caledonia Rd where the GO line to Aurora passes over St. Clair West.
On the north side of the underpass is a mural in black, white and grey tones.

The theme of the mural is “Ontario’s first railway” as this railway line has been in operation since 1853 when the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron railway was built here.

The first locomotive built in Canada was a steam powered engine built by the Toronto Locomotive Works, a company founded by James Good. Named “Toronto”, it was finished in April 1853 and in mid-May 1853 it pulled a short (4 cars) train from downtown Toronto 30 miles north to Machells Corners (now Aurora). Service on the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron line had begun!

below: “From one age to another. The locomotive was the machine of the future.”

The mural was painted in September 2012 by Marcelo Pinero, Aelwynn Swanson, and Pia Ferrari from the Davenport Arts Community.

There is also a mural on the south side of the underpass; it has a soccer theme.

It too was painted by Davenport Arts Community.

below: Silverthorn Sunrise mural painted late in 2012 by Marcelo Pinero and Aelwynn Swanson. It is painted on the side of Whiteside Pharmacy which is on the NE corner of St. Clair and Silverthorn. Silverthorn was also the name of this neighbourhood prior to 1998 when it was amalgamated into the City of Toronto.

And last, a mural that is actually on the side of business, West York Motors, which is located on St. Clair West between Ford and Osler streets.
It was painted by Splash Murals.

more information about the Davenport Arts Community

from Riverside to Leslieville

Posted: April 22, 2016 in locations
Tags: bench, cafes, Canada Dry, graffiti, history, Leslieville, mountie, mugs, murals, people, Queen Elizabeth, Queen St. East, reflection, rubiks cube, statue of liberty, stores, street scenes, streetcar, tea, troll, windows

A walk along Queen Street East from Broadview to Greenwood.

below: Welcome to Riverside, mural at the corner of Queen and Grant streets featuring the sign on the Queen bridge as it crosses over the Don River.

below: Farther east on Queen Street, at Curzon, there is this ‘Greetings from Leslieville’ mural.

There are many interesting little stores on this stretch of Queen Street.
All the benches have been painted in cheerful colourful stripes.

below: On the 21st of April (yesterday), Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday.
A number of stores and restaurants had displays in her honour.

Queen Street East was developed as long ago as the mid 1800’s and remnants of various decades can be found as one explores the area.
below: … details such as this fading Canada Dry sign. The formula for Canada Dry ginger ale was developed in the early 1900’s by John J. McLaughlin, of the same McLaughlin family whose early automobile factory led to the start of General Motors. This ginger ale was patented in Toronto in 1907. Usually the words ‘Canada Dry’ are written in red, not yellow. Is there a time when Canada Dry used yellow lettering?

below: At the corner of Queen and Coady there is also a ghost sign for Coady Sweets as well as an advertisement for Coca-Cola.

below: Call it luck – even a vintage car drove past while I was there.

below: An old KitKat advertisement on the side of Boston Discount Store. If you look closely, there is also an original Boston Ave street sign at the top right of the KitKat ad.

below: Even older are the buildings in the mural of Queen St. East circa 1926. I am not sure if this an accurate depiction of a particular stretch of Queen Street. It might be interesting to do some research to find out if the picture can be retaken, 90 years later. So far I have been unable to find out anything about a Jackson Brothers store on Queen East.

below: A sign of the new, some of the new TTC streetcars are now running along Queen Street.

below: A mural depicting Frank Zappa along with the words
“Stupidity has a certain charm. Ignorance does not.”

below: Like so many places and streets in Toronto, there are condos going up here too.

below: The railway tracks pass over Queen Street. A number of years ago the underpass was decorated with paintings of different animals and those paintings remain in good shape.

below: Once upon a time trains served this area. There was a railway station here but it is long gone.

transcription:

“In 1896, the Grand Trunk Railway opened its Queen East Station to serve Toronto’s growing east end. Renamed Riverdale Station in 1907, the building stood here on De Grassi Street at Queen Street East. Its dramatic turret, bay window, and a deep overhanging roof were defining features typical of small railway stations of the period.

In 1904, a streetcar collided with a freight train at the level crossing on Queen Street East, killing three people and injuring 18. This and subsequent accidents led to the elevation of the new Union Station railway corridor above city streets and sidewalks. The station was moved in 1927 to accommodate the new embankment for the underpass, the first of nine to be completed. Dwindling passenger numbers during the Great Depression led to the closure of Riverdale Station in 1932 and its demolition in 1974.”

below: Looking west from under the railway bridge.

below: A train themed mural in an alley just off Queen Street.

canary and swan

Posted: April 15, 2016 in locations, public art
Tags: Borins and Marman, Canary district, Cherry St., corktown, DOn River, lamp posts, no shoes, public art, streetcar, swan, Tadashi Kawabata, The Water Guardian, TTC, YMCA

Within the past week or so, the fences around the new Canary District have come down. Toronto’s newest development is now open to the public so I thought I would check it out.

I started my walk from the streetcar stop at King and Sumach. Walking down Sumach Street I passed the metal fence that separates the school property from the street. This stone building was built in 1887 as Sackville Street School and it has been used as a school ever since. At the moment it is home to Inglenook Community School. The fence with it’s double layer of metal – rusted in the back and shiny in the front – is interesting in the daytime but even more so at night when it is lit with a series of lights located between the layers and near the base of the fence.

When I took the above picture I was standing on the new streetcar tracks that run south from King Street. The tracks are ready and the wires have been installed. Streetcars will begin servicing the route in June as part of route 514. No map or schedule appears on the TTC website yet but apparently this route will run between the Dufferin Gate Loop and the new loop on Cherry Street via King Street

below: Looking north from Eastern Avenue at the new streetcar tracks on Sumach Street.

At Eastern Avenue, Sumach Street becomes Cherry Street. The new Cherry Street YMCA is on the east side of the street. The sidewalk is wide but at the moment the branches of the young trees are at face level and you have to be careful where you walk.

below: The bright red detailing on the YMCA building continues over the entry way. Part of the new residences for George Brown College peak out from behind.

Front Street now has wide sidewalks. None of the businesses have moved into the ground level retail spaces yet but the signs in the windows suggest that a number of cafes, restaurants, and food stores will soon be opening. A couple of public art pieces are also on the sidewalk.

below: ‘Lampposts’ by Tadashi Kawabata

below: Looking up from underneath the artwork.

below: ‘The Water Guardians’ stand over a soft squishy playpad.
It was designed by Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins.

below: There are a lot of little design elements that have been incorporated into the this development including what I think is a bench. With a light underneath?

below: The sidewalk around the trees is made from two colours of brick. The opening for the tree is just the right size to collect garbage. Whether or not these traps get cleaned out remains to be seen.

below: The Canary District is not yet finished as this sign clearly states.

below: The sculpture ‘No Shoes’ by Mark di Suvero is now accessible. The artwork was completed in 1967 and originally installed in High Park. In 2013 it was renovated and moved to Corktown Common.

below: The pavillion at Corktown Commons in the distance.

below: The Bala Pedestrian Underpass, aka the south exit from Corktown Commons, goes under the railway tracks and merges with the Don Landing part of the Lower Don Valley trail. The artwork was designed by Rolande Souliere and is part of the StreetARToronto initiative. A yellow Lovebot and a happy orange monster have been added to the scene too!

below: Nature in the city. Birds of a different feather. On the Don River, just south of Corktown Common a pair of swans is nesting. One of the swans was swimming a short distance away while the other was sitting on the nest. Cars pass by on the Don Valley Parkway unaware of the domestic scene below them.

Dominion Coal and Wood

Posted: April 13, 2016 in history, locations
Tags: belt line, changes, condos, development, dominion coal and wood, history, mt pleasant, mural, plaque, street art, urban

The eastern end of the Kay Gardner Belt Line Park crosses over Yonge St and the subway just south of Davisville station. It then runs across the north side of Mt. Pleasant cemetery. It comes to an end at Mt. Pleasant Road where the trail merges into the roads that run through the cemetery.

In 2014 students from Greenwood School painted a mural at this location. The mural has three main elements. A train to represent the Belt Line, the name of the community that it is located in (Mt Pleasant Village), and the words ‘use Dominion Coal and Wood’. The last part is because not long ago, on this site, stood the large concrete silos that the Dominion Coal and Wood company used to store coal and wood. The shape of the black background is very similar to the shape of the silos if viewed from above.

below: Mural, with Mt. Pleasant Road above it.

below: Plaque located on the site of the old silos (now in the bushes beside a condo)

transcription of the Heritage Toronto plaque:

“Dominion Coal and Wood

Originally located on Danforth Avenue, the Dominion Coal and Wood Company was founded in 1912 by William H. Smith. In 1929, the company opened a landmark facility on this site. Its nine adjoining concrete silos were designed by E.P. Muntz Engineering Company. Coal and wood were transported here by rail car along the former Belt Line Railway and then sold as heating fuel to local businesses and home owners.

Originally just one among many similar suppliers in the city, Dominion Coal and Wood outlasted most of its competitors. The company expanded into building supplies as coal sales dwindled, but continued to sell coal here until the site was closed in 1999. Although recognized as an increasingly rare type of industrial architecture, the historic silos were demolished in 2001. “

below: The nine silos, about 1972. The photo is from City of Toronto Archives and was found online at JB’s Warehouse (a good source if you are interested in more information at Dominion Coal and Wood)

below: I tried to replicate the above photo, about 42 years later. The Mt. Pleasant streetcars are long gone as is the gas station on the NW corner of Merton and Mt. Pleasant. A corner of the tall white apartment building on the right can be seen peaking from behind newer condo buildings. Of course, the dominant part of the picture is the condo development that was built on the site of the Dominion silos in 2002.

Sackville Street murals

Posted: April 6, 2016 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: apartment building, Bruno Smoky, children, Elicser, elicsr, flying, hoardings, housing, kids, men, murals, people, Regent Park, Sackville St., Shalak Attack, street art, tchc, Toronto, urban renewal, wall, women

Sackville Street, just south of Dundas, is right in the midst of the Regent Park renewal project. It is also the site of two murals. First, there is bright and colourful mural which is painted on the side of a new apartment building.