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signs of Covid-19

Posted: May 18, 2020 in events, reflections, stores, windows and walls
Tags: 6 feet apart, advice, be well, CEBA, covid-19, fence, homes, hope, houses, keep your rent, life is tough, nurses, posters, rainbow, signs, social distancing, stay safe, stores, sweatshirt, theatre, wash your hands, we're all in this together, windows

Signs, signs, everywhere there are signs

below: Signs for hand sanitizer, masks, and gloves

below: Signs of thanks to essential workers

below: Life is tough but so are you. I wish I could get a better view of the dancing figures in the window!

below: This too shall pass on a rainbow of colours.

below: Rainbow because it doesn’t rain forever.

below: Please Practice Social Distancing – keep those 2 metres apart!

below: Marking those 2m (6 feet) on the sidewalk

below: CEBA (Canada Emergency Business Account) won’t save us sign in the store window.

below: Keep Your Rent poster for The Annex, outside Bathurst subway station

below: Similar signs appeared in Little India (Gerrard St East)

below: But in Little India the signs were multilingual (8 languages? or more?)

below: And then a poster for what happens after you’ve kept your rent. But below that is another small notice to (exclamation marks !!) your mask is weakening your immune system. Reader beware.

below: Two posters on construction hoardings. By mistake I cut off the lowest part of the posters and in doing so, I missed line of text on the poster on the right. It says: “We’re closer now having been through this together – Love.”

below: We’re no longer holding hands, we’re now 6 feet apart. Peace.

below: At Bathurst subway station, wash your hands. It was one of many in a series of “Staying safe on public transit”

below: Eglinton Theatre, stay positive

below: Lower Ossington Theatre

downtown in the time of Covid-19

Posted: April 29, 2020 in construction, locations, old buildings, stores
Tags: 3D sign, cars, construction, covid-19 alert, facade, Justus Becker, mural, people, pictures, pigeons, playground, reflections, sidewalks, sitting, social distancing, StART, stores, streetcar, subway, Yonge St.

below: A lonely ladybug and bumblebee await the return of the kids. Playgrounds still closed because of Covid-19.

below: Barriers around the pool in front of the Toronto 3D sign at Nathan Phillips Square. A perfect spot for a quiet picnic.

below: New mural on Charles Street – painted September 2019, by Justus Becker (from Frankfurt Germany) as part of the 2019 StART mural exchange program. One lens of the glasses is reflecting Toronto while the other lens mirrors Frankfurt.

below: Behind College Park (777 Bay Street)

below: If plants die on city property and no one is there to notice, does it really matter?

below: Two big rats anthropomorphized into a cute little Chinese couple on a Canada Post box. They appear on some of the stamps issued by the post office in honour of the Year of the Rat. The rat is the first of the 12 animals in the 12 year cycle of the old Chinese calendar. The rat also represents the hours of 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., in other words, both midnight and the beginning of a new day. Perhaps we are approaching midnight and our new day is just around the corner?

below: Is this seat taken?

below: Who can resist Unicorn Beauty?

Social distancing can be challenge even when most people are staying home. The way that the city and construction sites manage the sidewalks downtown barely worked before. Now, the confinement of the sidewalk space makes it impossible for two people to pass and still comply with safety guidelines. With some awareness, along with the ability to walk on the streets, it is possible to give everyone ample room. There is a debate going on about whether or not to close some streets, or at least close some lanes to traffic, to provide more space for walkers. Those on the “no” side such as the Toronto Public Health, claim that it just encourages more people to be out when they should be at home; it undermines “directives against people congregating in groups”.

More recently, a program called CurbTO has begun whereby some curb lanes are opened to either pedestrians or to parking for curbside pickup from stores. But even here, it’s not necessarily for walkers, but for people lining up to get into stores. It’s going to be a very different situation once pedestrian and traffic levels start to return to what they were in the old days and there are going to have been some infrastructure adaptations.

below: Navigating the sidewalks while still complying with what governments and health officials are suggesting. Note the poster on the wall “We are all in this together”.

below: It’s not often that traffic stops on Yonge Street for pedestrians and their pets.

below: On the southeast corner of Yonge and Gerrard, the facade of an old building is being preserved.

below: Brick and roofline details.

below: I was impressed by the engineering that is involved in keeping these old facades intact while the interior is gutted.

below: Talking to the polaroid guy.

below: No standing takes on a new meaning

below: Looking south on Bay Street from Queen.

below: Richmond Street construction, west of University Avenue.

This was my first time on the subway since mid-March. There were very few people there so it was easy avoiding them but once again, safely re-opening a city is not going to be easy. The packed buses and subways are going to be problematic.

below: Only some subway seats can be occupied.

Broadview & Danforth

Posted: April 27, 2020 in alleys, construction, graffiti and street art, locations, stores, transportation, windows and walls
Tags: alley, Broadview, cars, construction, Danforth Music Hall, frontyard, garage, graffiti, houses, lane, mugs, porch, posters, red truck, rotary telephone, salt and pepper shakers, subway station

Most people are still staying home or at least close to home. You’re still not going to see many people in my photos because I am still avoiding them, still walking in quieter places. Sometimes those places happen to be streets that once upon a time (only a month ago?) were busy.

below: An empty parking lot.

below: A very quiet Broadview subway station.

below: A very tall and lanky animal on a pole. It’s missing a leg or two.

below: The TTC streetcar tracks in the middle of being replaced, on Broadview just south of Danforth.

below: More TTC construction, this time another access to Chester station is being built.

below: After a month of no shopping except for food and even no window shopping, this bright red telephone caught me eye as I walked past. Salt and pepper shakers in a store window: Flamingoes, pink swans, penguins, cats, monkeys, and little yellow chicks – cute ones and funny ones like the hot dogs, as well as political ones like Trump and his North Korean counterpart.

below: Inspired to do stuff? I think I identify more with the mug beside these days.

below: A Covid-19 message from the Danforth Music Hall – “Please take care of each other”.

below: Posters reminding people to share smiles and kindness

below: An electric sign outside Eastend United Church invites people to join their Sunday services on Facebook.

below: The mannequins had the most stylish face masks.

below: Beware of rabbit.

below: A hummingbird is painted on the pillar.

below: Takeout with distancing – a story that is repeated all over the city as restaurants try to stay afloat.

below: Social distancing leads to line ups outside Tims

below: “See you after the curve flattens”

the new normal?

Posted: March 18, 2020 in graffiti and street art, stores, windows and walls
Tags: closed, hand sanitizer, keep calm, King St., mannequins, paste up, posters, purell, Rex, stickers, words

I went walking on Monday, keeping my distance from others, to “collect” bits and pieces of evidence of what we’re doing and how we’re coping with this virus thing. Some of this is a bit ghoulish (and has nothing to do with the virus) but hopefully some with make you smile. Also, I hope that in the days and weeks ahead we can look back on this as just a little blip in our lives.

below: A little sticker from sketch nate has been edited to say that only all of Toronto can judge me. There were quite a few “don’t worry” stickers.

below: The Princess of Wales Theatre has shut down like all theatres in the city, no shows happening. Keep Calm and Carry On – we’ll see how all this pans out.

below: Another “stay safe” wish for the city.

below: They have no reason to panic.

below: “Don’t argue with it” could pertain to many things including this social distancing that we’re all becoming experts at.

below: Bugs is ready to fight the good fight.

Wash your hands.

Stay healthy!

go east … East York

Posted: March 9, 2020 in history, locations, stores
Tags: apartment buildings, Bethany Baptist, bungalow, church, construction, convenience stores, development, Don Mills United, Donlands, gas station, Holy Cross, intersections, Logan convenience, memorial, O'Connor, Pape, people, plaque, restaurants, soldier, stores

Another blog post constructed from the wanderings around a neighbourhood.

below: A bronze plaque erected by the East York Historical Society is mounted on the stone fence of the Taylor Cemetery which is adjacent to Don Mills United Church. The plaque mentions the Methodist Church – the Methodists became part of the United Church in 1925.

bronze plaque on a stone wall, Taylor cemetery, erected by the East York historical society gives rough outline of the history of the Taylor family here

The Taylor Cemetery – John Taylor (1773-1868), his wife Margaret Hawthorne and seven children emigrated from Uttoxeter Staffordshire in 1821. In 1839, three sons, John, Thomas, and George, purchased this land from Samuel Sinclair (1767-1852) except for a portion Sinclair gave to the Primitive Methodist Connexion in 1851. The Taylors gave the Connexion a brick church in 1859. The family operated three paper mills and a brick mill in the Don Valley, where they had considerable landholdings and were responsible for much of the development of East York in the nineteenth century.

below: The present church building dates from 1950 when a smaller building was demolished. This church was registered in 1819 and has been on this site since 1839 (as mentioned above, originally Methodist).

below: Close by is Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church. Established in 1928, it was the first Catholic parish in the Township of East York. This church, built in 1948, is the second one on the site.

below: Bethany Baptist Church has been on the corner of Pape and Cosburn since 1920. Obviously this building is not that old! This is the addition, built in 1958, to the older church that you can just see on the right side of the picture.

below: A metal sculpture of a soldier mounted on the wall of The Royal Canadian Legion, hall #10, a memorial to the Soliders of Suicide – those soldiers who have taken their own lives, usually as the result of PTSD.

below: The southeast corner of Pape and O’Connor still sits empty. There used to be a gas station here and that probably meant contaminated soil that had to be dealt with. The development proposal sign dates from 2014 and was for a 2 storey commercial building. I am not sure why the delay or what the status of the proposal is.

below: Donlands Convenience with its rounded corner is similar to a few others in the city.

below: Do not block the entrance. …. or are the apples for the teachers?

below: A sample of some of the restaurants in the area. There are also quite a few Greek restaurants as the Danforth (and the original Greektown) is just to the south.

below: Golden Pizza Restaurant in an old brick building with a square facade at the roofline.

below: Another square roofline, Logan Convenience

Like most parts of the city, the houses are of various architectural styles.

Whether I am correct or not, I don’t know but I have always associated East York with small post-war bungalows.

A few are being “renovated”

below: What was surprising to me was how many multi-family buildings there are in the area – Both lowrise…

and apartment buildings

below: I am beginning to think that there should be at least one old car picture in every blog post! I certainly encounter enough of them! Today’s car – a yellow Oldsmobile (from the 1970’s?). Sounds like a challenge doesn’t it?!

Rambling Leslieville

Posted: March 6, 2020 in alleys, graffiti and street art, intersections, old buildings, public art, stores
Tags: alley, architecture, Bruce Jr Public School, Carlaw, dolls, Dundas, Elicser, Elicser Elliot, Evond Blake, fence, flags, graffiti, houses, J. Chiale, Leslieville, lovebot, Mediah, murals, old cars, Pierre Poussin, Queen St. East, residential, streets, think, trees, urban ninja squadron

below: Think! or rather Stop and think. Above that, tbonez with The Forge Fury in another urban ninja squadron sticker.

below: There is a new public art installation nearing completion at the corner of Carlaw and Dundas. When the project is done, the obelisk shaped sculpture by Pierre Poussin will be in the middle of a small park. It is made of laser cut rusted metal and will feature internal LED lighting.

below: Shadows of the trees along a winding trail.

below: There really aren’t enough fairies in the world. The ones that are supposed to clean my home haven’t shown up yet either.

below: This looks like it was once an artwork pasted to a wall. An eagle’s head is still visible at the very top. Are those its feathers at the bottom by the shoes – one dark blue and one red stiletto.

below: The northwest corner of Pape and Dundas. The “This is Toronto” mural by J. Chiale is still there.

below: An old and worn sign

below: A not so old sign with three lovebot stickers on it.

below: Old cars seen in an alley. Any ideas on what model and year the brown car is?

below: Santa Claus hasn’t returned to the North Pole yet! This front yard looks quite barren

below: … compared to this one! I am happy to report that the “doll house” still exists. There is at least one Santa Claus in there!

below: Not quite every inch (centimeter!) is covered. Christopher Robin and Tigger, Ernie and a Picachu. Tweety bird in a blue jacket and a white horse, Dora the Explorer is eating an apple.

below: These stickers still exist! A Star Wars family with a dirty back window.

below: Usually if a couch is waiting for the garbage man it’s sitting closer to the edge of the street!

below: Symmetry at the back of Bruce Junior Public School built in 1923.

below: And then there is the asymmetry created when one side of a semi-divided house explodes upwards.

below: Leslieville has two murals. This one covers the side of the building plus the back in pink, red, and orange stripes. This Guidant Bikeshare mural was painted by Mediah, aka Evond Blake, in 2017.

below: Nearby at the intersection of Queen and Jones is this mural by Elicser Elliot (2016).

below: The Coca-Cola Coady Sweets ghost sign is still there but the convenience store under it has been replaced by a Spanish restaurant.

below: Queen Street East

below: This is on the wall beside a vacant lot on Queen Street East that has been empty for years.

below: Another vacant lot but more recently so.

below: An alley view, behind Queen Street East

below: Waiting for spring?

below: Dundas Street East

And how can we end without re-visiting the doll house?!

from Korean to Italian

Posted: December 1, 2019 in alleys, construction, graffiti and street art, locations, old buildings, public art, stores
Tags: Al Runt, alley, astronauts, blood and bandages barber shop, cat, Central tech, cheese tea, construction, crane, development, dragon, fence, garage door, garages, graffiti, hoardings, hole, Honest Eds, houses, Italian movies, Jessica Thalmann, Koreatown, lane, lovebot, Markham St., mural, murals, no fun, owl, posters, redevelopment, signs, Stanislav Jurkovic, stencil, stickers, the blue room, words, workers

I like the camera part but I’m willing to prove the “no fun” part wrong. The other day I went meandering with a friend. We started near Christie station (at a coffee shop of course) with no particular destination in mind. Generally south was the consensus… and with a pinch of playfulness (forget that no fun nonsense!) and a dash of distraction that’s more or less what we did.

below: As you may know, Bloor Street east of Christie is Koreatown with lots of Korean restauants and tea shops.

below: … including cheese tea. This seems to be a new trend, or at least new to me! Apparently it is black or green tea with a foamy topping made from cream cheese, sugar, and whipping cream (or variations thereof). Next time I may indulge.

below: “Imagine your Korea” mural on the side of P.A.T. Central, a large Korean store.

below: A fire breathing dragon and many scared people trying to run away. It’s a pity about the garbage though.

below: By Bathurst street the Korean restaurants have disappeared. Once upon a time (it seems so long ago!) Honest Ed’s dominated the SW corner of Bloor and Bathurst. Now there is just hole there, and a very big hole at that.

below: This picture is just a small part of “Utopic Isles, Neon Nights, a Flowery Future”, which consists of three panels of images by grade 11 and 12 visual arts students from Central Tech high school. They are part of the hoardings around the construction site here.

below: Another section of hoardings feature collages of old pictures of Honest Eds – a project by Jessica Thalmann called “To Dwell is to Leave Traces”

below: To try gluing pictures on hoardings is also to leave traces! Its’ another “no fun” find. All rather cool until you learn that no fun is a branding thingy. Stickers as promos for businesses are now very common, posters like this on, not so much.

below: Construction makes room for the two buildings on Bathurst that refused to sell to the developers. You can still see the ghost sign on one of the buildings – baby carriages repaired

below: Looking west from Bathurst Street across the big hole to the backs of the houses on Markham Street that are empty and boarded up. Some of them will be retained in the new development.

below: A concrete lovebot hides in the corner. He’s missing an arm and has three bricks instead of a leg.

below: Near lovebot is another ghost sign – Coca Cola, sold everywhere (Bathurst Street)

below: This frog has four points on his crown and lips made of plaster. Looks like he’s found a home on top of the garbage pin.

below: ‘Keep hustlin!” Don’t linger and watch out for cars. I was going to make some comment about Toronto becoming increasingly dangerous for pedestrians but I decided that I needed some documentation to back me up. I learned the acronym KSI (killed or seriously injured). Toronto has the research on the KSI stats for 2005-2018 as part of their Vision Zero plan and the results are “mixed”, i.e. the trend isn’t upwards. In fact, I don’t think there is a trend of any sort.

below: [Can we stand two social issues in a row? LOL.] What I didn’t realize was there was a “worldwide “Nobody Pays” call to action on November 29 for fare evasions” (source). Chile in the poster is a reference to Chilean high school students protesting transit fare increases with a series of mass evasions starting on the 7th of October. I don’t recommend burning your Presto card just yet.

below: The very small print at the bottom of the poster gives references to two documents (from 2012 and 2014) that outline the funding of the TTC and where the money comes from.

below: Well it is December after all…..

below: Conversation on a garage door.

below: Sometimes Mother Nature endures. There was no stopping this tree and it seems to have thrived even with the metal of the fence embedded in it.

below: The omnipotent metal fence strikes again. This time flamingos in love and an Al Runt mural are in danger.

below: Continuation of the mural by Al Runt around the corner of the building

below: This mural has suffered a different fate, that of the creeping billboard posters. As much fun as “procaffeinating” is fun to read about, I’ve seen more than enough of them around the city. I’m not sure that it was someone’s sense of humour that resulted in Holt Renfrew posters being displayed beside those for Pathways to Education that play on poverty and lack of education.

below: But…. [one day I will do a post where only the words in the photos do the talking. There are some great stories out there]

below: I especially like this one, Just Keep Going.

below: A white horse in an alley

below: As well as two little astronauts.

below: Blood and bandages barber shop. Wonderful name!

When you walk across College Street in this area you can’t help but notice that you’re in Little Italy.

below: As we walked westward along College Street, we saw three of these blue areas painted on the NW corners (of Roxton, Ossington & Dovercourt)

These are the Blue Room, by Stanislav Jurkovic and they were supported by the College Promenade BIA. From the website: “Similar to a 3 dimensional ‘green screen’ in film production, the space becomes stage and canvas.” It has also won a Toronto Urban Design Award. Some photos that people have taken of these spaces can be seen on instagram by searching on #blueroomcollege (although the same photos are fed to the Blue Room website that I linked to in the first sentence).

below: In the entrance way to a store that sells a lot of things including DVD’s in Little Italy. The 4 moschettieri – the 4 muskateers! A film from 1962 with Georges Riviere as d’Artagnan (the wonder of Google!). At the bottom of the photo is the name Salvatore Samperi; I am not sure which film it is for but Samperi (1943-2009) was an Italian film director & writer. I find it intriguing that these old posters are still on this wall, torn and discoloured as they are.

below: Same store. Italian movies on DVD’s for sale. ‘Maruzzella’ (in English, ‘The Mermaid of Naples’) came out in 1956. If you are an aficionado of old Italian movies, be quick, as I think this store is having a going out of business sale.

I’ll leave you with an image that I found online, a full copy of the poster that is partially covered up above – for the R rated film Malicious/Malizia in 1973. (photo source) That’s 40+ years ago. You see, when you start wandering you start finding all kinds of strange and fascinating things – no fun? indeed not.

a rainy September day

Posted: September 9, 2019 in construction, events, general Toronto, graffiti and street art, public art, reflections, stores
Tags: birdo, Born and Raised, bricks, crowds, dragon, dragon festival, hot dog, hot dog vendor, King Street, mural, nathan phillips square, octopus, Olexander Wlasenko, paste up, potato spiral, public art, reflections, sculpture, snowman, streets, TIFF, umbrella, wall, Yonge Street

A grey day. The kind of day that when it starts to rain you head to a subway station, only to have the rain stop before you get there. So you walk more. Then it rains again so you buy an umbrella and minutes later the rain stops. So you walk more.

below: Southwest corner of Yonge & Wellesley

below: Northwest corner of Yonge & Wellesley

below: Marks left behind, traces of lives once lived there.

below: Do you think that there will ever be a time when we can walk downtown without encountering construction zones?

below: If it’s a gaggle of geese or a parliament of owls, what’s a group of cement trucks?

below: A new large mural by birdo at Dundas & McCaul

below: Same mural, different angle

below: “Keep going” at the Children’s Healing Garden outside Sick Kids Hospital on University Avenue.

below: You can do anything

below: A large hole on University Ave

below: There was a Dragon Festival at Nathan Phillips Square this past weekend.

below: Friday was a rather quiet day at the festival, probably because of the weather.

below: But there was lots of different food available including skewers of octopus

below: There were also these fried potato spirals on sticks that are available at every festival and street function.

below: Hot dog vendor on Queen Street

below: Snowmen? This is “Born and Raised” designed by Studio How-to-See.

below: The tallest snowman is 5 “snowballs” high, or 17 feet tall. Oh no! The snowman in the middle has lost its head. What would Olaf say?

below: Of course early September means TIFF. King Street West closed and many people were walking or hanging out there trying their hand at celebrity spotting. We are all groupies during TIFF.

below: I wouldn’t know a famous actor or director, or anything like that, if they came up to talk to me. My attempts to follow the crowd to get celebrity pics weren’t very successful. This is the kind of photo that I ended up with – The eye belongs someone called Jason who is taking a selfie with a father and daughter. I didn’t linger long on King Street.

below: Having King Street closed didn’t help the traffic on nearby streets. Mind you, this is normal for Toronto especially around rush hour. Stand at any intersection downtown and you’ll find many instances where cars block traffic when the traffic lights change.

below: The driver knew I was there taking pictures. It didn’t make much difference.

below: Paste ups on Richmond Street. I find these mesmerizing. I love the positioning of the eye and the way that it is staring at you .

below: And my last stop that day, a quiet charcoal drawing by Olexander Wlasenko at the Arbozzo Gallery at 410 Richmond Street.

Now, all that’s left is the pink umbrella that I bought, still unused.

north from the beach

Posted: February 21, 2019 in alleys, doors, history, old buildings, stores, windows and walls
Tags: alley, architecture, blue sky, bus shelter, Danforth station, East Toronto, GO, history, houses, Kingston Rd., lane, laneway, Lyall Ave., Main st., old, residential, snow, stores, streets, trees, turret, Woodbine, York station

It was a beautiful day on Monday when I visited the “Winter Stations” (scroll down to next blog post), cold but sunny. I decided to walk north on Woodbine since I haven’t done that for a while.

below: Playing with mirrors while waiting for the washroom at Woodbine Beach because there is only one women’s washroom (why is there only one?)

below: From portholes to demolition holes – I made it as far as Queen and Woodbine where there is a large hole in the ground

… because just north of there I discovered alleys and small streets that I don’t remember walking. Who can resist the allure of a red door?

below: I went to Norway

below: And I passed the North Pole

below: I even walked past this No Trespassing sign. The old cars parked the house behind caught my eye but this was as far as I ventured.

When there is no planned route and you’re only following your nose or sticking to the sunny side of the street, you can run into some surprises. There were a lot of older houses – here are a few of them:

below: There are still some of these Victorian rowhouses closer to downtown but I wasn’t expecting to find any here. As it turns out, this was part of the village/town of East Toronto. In 1888 it was a village with about 800 residents. It became part of the City of Toronto twenty years later (and with 4200 more people).

As it turns out, one of the streets that I walked on, Lyall Avenue, is a Heritage Conservation District. The street was surveyed in 1884 and by 1888 a few houses were built on some of the fifty yard lots. Most of the development occurred between 1909 and 1924. It was definitely a middle class neighbourhood. The full report published in 2006 appears on the City of Toronto planning department website.

below: This house stands alone. A very typical older Toronto house.

below: This tidy well-kept workers cottage can only be accessed from the lane.

below: A white picket fence and wicker furniture waiting for spring.

All of the above houses were north of Kingston Road where the lots sizes were fairly big. South of Kingston Road, the houses are narrower and close together. (or joined together).

below: This square, substantial sized brick building is on Kingston Road. Between Woodbine Avenue and Main Street, Kingston Road runs along the crest of a ridge.

below: Newer residential buildings on Kingston Road.

below: 1922, looking west along Kingston Road from Main street. That’s almost 100 years ago, and there were streetcars running here even then. No cars, just a horse and wagon.

old black and white picture from 1922 of a dirt street with a street car track, hydro poles beside the road and a house

Photo credit: City of Toronto Archives. Found online in a ‘Beach Metro’ article where you’ll find more history of the area.

The next three photos are some of the typical two storey, flat roofed, brick, all in a row, stores and businesses that were built in Toronto in the early 1900’s and later. If I remember correctly, these were all on Kingston Road.

below: A warm and colourful summer scene painting behind a chainlink fence that surrounds the playground at Kimberley Junior Public School.

below: Mural at Gerrard and Main.

below: The last architecture picture – this building with a turret at Kingston Road. Here Main Street becomes Southwood Drive.

below: Looking north on Main Street from Gerrard. Here the streetcar turns towards Main subway station. The bus shelter in the middle of the street is definitely old style – one of the few remaining in the city. From here Main street is a bridge over the railway tracks.

below: From the bridge, looking southeast over Danforth GO station. Prior to 1940, this was the location of York Station as well as the Grand Trunk Railway’s main freight yard. The yard stretched along Gerrard Street and employed several hundred people. At that time, Gerrard Street was called Lake View Avenue (could you see Lake Ontario from there?).

below: York station in 1890. It was renamed Danforth in 1922 and demolished in 1974 to make way for the GO station. The freight yard is to the right.

york railway station in 1890. train is letting off passengers

Photo credit: Toronto Public Library. The picture was found online in an article on Danforth station that appears on the Toronto Railway Historical Association website

below: Hanging out on the Danforth

But I didn’t hang out for long. From here to Main Street subway station is only a few steps and that was enough walking.
My writing can be almost erratic as my walking! I hope that I didn’t lose you along the way.

window shooting

Posted: October 25, 2018 in reflections, stores, windows and walls
Tags: abandoned, chicken, clothes, cowboy, doll, empty, heart, laundry, mannequin, meat, newspaper, people, sewing machine, stores, windows

Sort of like window shopping but different….

below: Peering through the window at the remains of Yuk Wing cleaners on Gerrard St. East

below: Sometimes you can’t look in the window – something is in the way! It wasn’t until I was looking at the picture on my computer that I noticed that the newspaper is in a language that I don’t understand. I typed the headline to the left of the heart into google translate, “Niemiecka chemia zapanuje nad swiatem” and it told me that the words were Polish and translate to “German chemistry will dominate the world”. The article is about the purchase of Monsanto by Bayer.