as I walk Toronto

great fire of 1904

Posted: November 9, 2013 in history, locations
Tags: 1904, April 1904, Bay St., brick, buildings, Croft St., downtown, facade, fire, history, John Croft, memorial, mud, mural, old photographs, Toronto, wholesale district

On the 19th of April, 1904, a large section of downtown Toronto burned for nine hours.

street map of downtown Toronto showing the buildings that were affected by the fire of 1904.

Map showing the area of Toronto affected by the fire of 1904. Bay Street from the Esplanade to Miranda Street (just south of King Street) was the hardest hit. At the time, this was called the Wholesale District of the city.

Historical photo of Bay street after the 1904 fire in Toronto. There are people on the street. The street is all mud. There are many burned out buildings on both sides of the streets. Brick facing of two to four storey buildings is all that remains.

Aftermath, Bay street, April 1904.

In part, because the fire started in the evening, there were no fatalities. As a result of the fire, 5000 people were left without a job. In 1904, the population of Toronto was about 200,000 so the loss of employment on this scale had an impact on the city.

a very bright and colourful mural on the back of a brick building, It shows, in reds, yellows ans oranges the burning of a couple of brick buildings, with flames coming out of the windows.

Mural painted on the back of the building on the northwest corner of College St. and Croft St. (398 College St.), commemorating the fire of 1904.

Demolition of the ruins left by the fire took many weeks. On the 4th of May, John Croft died while using dynomite to bring down the remains of the W.J. Gage building on Front Street. His was the only known death associated with the fire. What is now Croft Street was renamed in his honour.

The east side of 398 College St., at the south end of Croft St., is painted with a mural as a memorial to John Croft.

corner of a building showing parts of two murals. On the back wall is the mural depicting the fire itself. On the side wall is a memorial to John Croft.

northeast corner of the building

Burned out brick buildings. All that remains is part of the front facade of these two to six storey buildings.

Burned out buildings, April 1904

The images of the fire’s aftermath are available online. The originals are kept at the City of Toronto Archives, located on Spadina Road., just north of Dupont Street.

Posr on Croft Street

Posted: November 5, 2013 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: brick wall, hidden doors, mailboxes, mural, photos, posr, rabbits, red and white, street art, Toronto

This post is a continuation of the previous post, titled Croft Street.

There is a red, white and blue mural at the south end of Croft Street. It covers the side of a three story brick building.

flat black apartments at 396

Croft Street

Posted: November 5, 2013 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, Always, brick wall, cat, colours, Croft St., face, garage door, garages, graffiti, head, lane, Monty, MUHA, murals, photographs, photos, poetry, rain, rust, stencils, street art, Toronto, wood, words

Croft Street is not a street, but it’s more than a lane.

It runs between Harbord Street and College Street, just west of Bathurst Street. Although there are many different interesting things to be seen when you walk along this street, I have chosen to focus on the street art for this blog post. The following is a selection of what I saw.

large piece of street art on a couple of garage doors.

surveying the scene

a large piece of street art on a garage door.

a closer look

large piece of street art on a garage door, in purples and greys. Above the garage door is a rusted metal wall.

paint and rust

can’t sleep so I write

mural showing two red brick houses, a small grey apartment building and a green street sign that says Harbord St.

Harbord street sign

Did you know our Monty the cat?
King of Croft and all that
(Ask your dog. Ask your cat)
Did you give him a pet
Once you had met?
Or tickle his soft silken tum tum?
Did he tell you his tale in articulate meow
And share his affection with a rub of his brow?
His loss here has left us really quite blue
But remembering all of those of YOU
Who knew how to share a sweet kindness true
Who would pause on the way,
In midst of each day,
To offer wee beastie
affectionate feastie
In Memory of Monty
Thank you!

Mural painted on the side of a garage. It has been painted to look like a red brick wall. In the wall is a yellow window and a black cat is standing on the window sill.

painted cat on painted window sill on painted brick wall

Mural on a garage door showing a large group of people of many different races. There is a TTC street car in the center of the crowd. Some people are waving flags - a Canadian flag, a German flag, and a Union Jack

on the streets of Toronto

An old wood door and wall with faded graffiti on it.

hidden doorway

Street art on a garage door showing large stylized fruit with faces on them. A yellow banana, an orangish pink pear and apple and two other pieces of yellow fruit.

tutti frutti

A graffiti picture of a boy who is wearing a black and white striped sweater. Shown from the hips up. His hands are on his hips. It is on a white garage door.

with hands on hips and with added words

brown garage door, brown front door and rusty brown mail box. On the garage door is a piece of street art with orange and blue blobs. The front door is decorated with a grid made of metal strips.

art at the front door

greenery

A stencil graffiti of a stylized face in black and white. It is on a very red wall.

black and white and red all over

Here I stand in silence
but the patter of the rain
who I was, you’ll never know;
my triumph

A stencil graffiti of a woman's head. She has shoulder length hair and she is staring straight ahead with a stunned look on her face.

staring eyes

graffiti of a man's face. The mouth is actually a mail slot in a door.

mail man

At the south end of the street, there is a large red, white and blue mural by posr. I have not included it in this blog post because it warrants a post of its own. It’s the next blog post, or the URL is https://mcfcrandall.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/posr-on-croft-street/

red umbrella day

Posted: November 4, 2013 in abstract, general Toronto
Tags: alley, autumn, brick, brighten, city, damp, fence, gate, homeless Jesus, humour, lane, leaves, purple wall, rainy, red umbrella, stone, Timothy Schmalz, Toronto, urban, wet, whatsoever, whatsoever you do, wood, yellow wall

umbrella, parapluie, paraguas

red, rouge, rojo,

Grey, damp days always need a touch of colour.

Yesterday, as I walked from Dupont subway station to Kensington I made use of my red umbrella. It kept me dry. It brightened up a few photos!

A red umbrella is open and sitting on the wet pavement beside a grey painted wall.

Every rainy day needs a splash of colour.

A red umbrella is wedged between two poles beside a purplish brown garage door in an alley

caught in the alley

A mural on a garage door shows a girl reaching out her hand. The umbrella is placed by her hand.

When this mural was first painted, there was a downspout for the eavestrough running down the side of the wall. Her hand was painted to look like it was reaching for, or holding onto, the downspout. Because that downspout is no longer there, I decided that she needed something else to hold on to.

A red umbrella is lying on a wet sidewalk beside a large puddle. There are lots of leaves on the sidewalk as well.

left in a puddle

‘Whatsoever you do’, a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz. It is also referred to as ‘Homeless Jesus’. This installation is outside of St. Stephen-in-the Fields church on College Street. It was installed on 14 September and was originally scheduled to remain there until 6 October. According to the description of the sculpture, it is a fiberglass cast of a silent, huddled panhandler. A person that people walk by and ignore. But if you look at the outstretched hand, you will see the stigmata (the wounds of Christ).
When we first placed the umbrella over her, we worried about the appropriateness of such an action but as I took the photo, a passerby commented on how people have been known to place cheeseburgers and other food in her hand.
The statue was stolen at the end of November. More information

A close up photo of the red umbrella's reflection on the roof of a black car. There are lots of rain drops on the roof as well.

car roof reflections

A red umbrella is beside a stone and brick wall that was once painted yellow. The yellow paint has started to wear off.

red and yellow

A white line drawing of a man with a top hat (upper body only) on a dark grey wall. On the ground beside the wall is a red umbrella

top hat, umbrella…. where are my dancing shoes?

A man is crouching beside a brick wall that has been painted purple and grey. He is holding a red umbrella over his head.

Toronto siesta

A red umbrella on the ground beside a gate made of weathered wood

something old, something new

The red umbrella is wedged between the top of a chainlink gate and a wood door.

The End

Special thanks to Sasha and David who played along and made the day even better!

Also to Michael for crouching against a purple wall!

zombie for a day

Posted: October 27, 2013 in events
Tags: blood, bloody faces, chains, gore, men, people, Pokemon, rat, Rob Ford, scary, stitches, teeth, wild, women, zombie walk, zombies

Toronto Zombie Walk, Nathan Phillips Square,

26 October, 2013

The rain stopped just before the Zombie walk started but there was a very chilly wind blowing. The weather didn’t stop the zombies! It didn’t stop the fun either.

close up of a girl's face. She has a fake mouth tied together with red embroidery thread

I met a zombie, and it was fun.

a mother and daughter dressed up as zombies. Frizzy hair, grey skin and lots of fake blood dripping from their mouths.

keeping it in the family – like mother, like daughter

A woman with make up on her face to make her look like a zombie.

zombie repose, by the archer

A man with white makeup on his face, a chain around his neck and a plastic rat on his shoulder.

A rat’s best friend.

two girls with big bows around their necks, fake teeth and lots of blood

cute but bloodied

Two men. The one on the right is wearing a hoodie that says smoke meth and hail satan.

They humoured me.

A zombie holding a large yellow Pokemon zombie. He is screaming at a photographer

even Pokemon was not spared.

two woman dressed up like zombies. The woman in the foreground has blood dripping off her chin and down her neck. The woman in the background has a large ugly facial wound

dripping blood, and the eyes…….great zombie eyes!

a man made up to look like he has a pencil shoved into his eye

an eye for an eye, oh wait, a pencil for an eye

a girl with red frizzy hair who has white makeup on her face and a bloody mouth

bulletproof

A man with very long hair, a moustache and a beard with blood running down his face. A fake leg is attached to his shoulder. and he has chains around his neck

screaming, blood curdling screams……

Three people - two grey zombies and a young Asian woman who is pretending to be scared of the zombies

one of the many great interactions between the zombies and their audience

Two girls wearing woolly hats and very ugly fake teeth. THey have lots of blood on their chinslots of b

so much for the orthodontics

three zombies dressed in white coveralls, sitting by The Archer sculpture in Nathan Phillips Square

even zombies need a break

Mayor Rob Ford poses for a photo op with a zombie

Rob Ford meets zombie

paper people

Posted: October 25, 2013 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, big ears, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Murray, black and white, broom, deadboy, drawings, everything made him happy, graffiti, Graffiti Alley, lane, Leonard Cohen, paper, people, photos, Rob Ford, stencils, street art, Toronto, woman

paper people of Graffiti Alley

a paper graffiti of Bill Gates, Bill Murray and Bill Clinton on a graffiti covered door

Three Bills
This is now a recurring theme in stencil/paper graffiti. Originally, the Bills were used in response to ‘post no bills’ signs on fences surrounding construction sites.
The Bills here, from left to right, are Bill Gates, Bill Murray and Bill Clinton

paper graffiti of ROb Ford, from the shoulders up, giving the finger.

In the fall of 2011, many of these Rob Ford stencils appeared in Graffiti Alley, amongst other places. They were the work of Toronto street artist, Deadboy. This might be the only one that remains in this alley.

a poster with a black and white line drawing of a man's head. He has a beard. Beside him are words.

Leonard Cohen: “only one thing made him happy and now that it was gone everything made him happy”

a black and white paper poster/stencil of a woman throwing her arms in the air and walking away. It is on a grey door in a lane. There is a broom beside the door.

“I don’t do floors”
“Clean it up yourself”

a brown and black set of posters/stencils of three heads. Two are the same - they look like heads with big ears and they are wearing very big sunglasses. The third looks like a woman in a helmet like the kind an astronaut might wear.

big ears and the astronaut

I have not included all the stencils in Graffiti Alley as some have appeared in prior posts. See https://mcfcrandall.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/walking-graffiti-alley-again/

a stencil of large headed, no armed, creature.

alien in the alley

With thanks to:

Georgette for her help with the three Bills

and Sally who recognized Leonard Cohen.

Adelaide abstracted

Posted: October 13, 2013 in abstract, general Toronto
Tags: abstract, brick, city, door, fire hydrant, glass, grate, green wall, Hyatt hotel, metal, orange, orange wall, photos, pink wall, reflections, shadows, Toronto, urban, windows

Today was a beautiful, sunny and warm October day. The warmer than usual weather that we’ve been having continued today, the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. The nice thing about walking in downtown on a Saturday, especially the Saturday of a long weekend, is that there aren’t many people around. Nobody to give me strange looks as I take pictures of things that most people just walk past.

Today I walked Adelaide Street between Spadina and University and back again. I also took a detour along Pearl Street which runs parallel to Adelaide, but one street south.

a pinkish coloured wall with a yellow fire hydrant in front of it. There is also a door and some grey steps on the right side of the picture

fire hydrant in the middle

blue sky and a yellow brick bulding are reflected in the many windows of a hotel

reflections in the windows of the Hyatt Hotel

in the washroom, Ravi Soup restaurant. If you have never eated here, the food is fabulous, the restaurant smells wonderful and the staff are very friendly.

in the washroom, Ravi Soup restaurant, 322 Adelaide West. If you have never eaten here, the food is fabulous, the restaurant smells wonderful and the staff are very friendly. I highly recommend it.

A couple of tall buildings are reflected in the windows of the building across the street

reflections

close up photo of metal bars on a window and the shadows that they cast on a sunny day

criss crossed window

A wall where part is painted dark green and the other part is off-white. There are three windows, each window has a metal grate over it.

green and white divided

piles

Posted: October 13, 2013 in events
Tags: ai weiwei, art, bell trinity square, bicycles, chairs, city hall, metropolitan united church, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, Pascale Marthine Tayou, plastic bags, squirrel, Tadashi Kawamata, Toronto

Piles of chairs, piles of bicycles and piles of plastic bags. That is the best way to summarize three of the Nuit Blanche installations that remained on display for a week or so after the 5th of October.

…

First, the pile of chairs

Garden Tower, by Tadashi Kawamata of Hokkaido Japan

in front of Metropolitan United Church

“As if each person who sat on these chairs left a piece of himself, the work evokes the beautiful and utopian spects of the myth of the Babel Tower, a humanity speaking with one voice and engaged, with solidarity, in the building of a better future.” (from the sign accompanying the installation)

a large pile of chairs sits in front of a church

Garden Tower chairs in front of Metropolitan United Church on Queen Street East.

A hollow pile of chairs about thirty feet high. The photo is taken from inside the pile. The sky can be seen in the photo.

Looking upward from inside the pile of chairs. There was a pathway that ran through the base of the tower.

A squirrel sits on the bottom of a red and white striped chair that is upside down.

new found habitat for one of Toronto’s four legged residents

…

Then the pile of bicycles:

Forever Bicycles by Ai Weiwei at Nathan Phillips Square

Part of the curved walls of city hall are in the background and part of a number of bicycles is in the foreground.

bicycles in front of city hall

A woman wearing a green sweater and a bicycle helmet is standing in the middle of a pile of more than 3000 bicycles. She also has her own bike with her.

one bike amongst many

Nathan Phillips Square on a grey and foggy morning. There are a few people in the square who are looking at the large art installation that involves a structure made from more than 3000 bicycles

Nathan Phillips Square on the wet and foggy morning after Nuit Blanche.

…

Last, the pile of plastic bags:

Plastic Bags by Pascale Marthine Tayou of Cameroon

interior, Bell Trinity Square

The interior of a large office building. A group of men are standing and talking under a large collection of red, white, green and yellow plastic bags.

The plastic bags hang from the ceiling like a big blob. Like confetti, or bits of coloured paper, ready to be dropped on the people below.

Nuit Blanche 2013

Posted: October 9, 2013 in events
Tags: 401 Richmond St., ai weiwei, bikes, bones, city hall, CN Tower, crowds, George Walker, graffiti, honey, installations, leg, lights, nathan phillips square, nuit blanche, painting, people, phones, photography, pics, posters, prints, spheres, street art, Toronto

Saturday, 5th October

downtown Toronto

This is only a small selection of the art installations and exhibitions that were on display that night.

part of an art installation where there are small bones hanging from the ceiling, A man's leg is in the background

Bones, leg bones? Part of the ‘Indicator’ installation at Gareth Bate Art Projects, 401 Richmond St.
“Birds, bats, bees. Indicator species tell us when ecosystems are in peril. Bones, sugar, dripping honey – a meditation on catastrophe and connection.” The bones hung from the ceiling and the honey dripped down the walls.
Artists: Karen Abel, Jessica Marion Barr, Gareth Bate

A man looking at a series of small black & white prints in an art gallery

A timeline of the life of Conrad Black in black & white woodcut prints as shown at a gallery at 401 Richmond Street. Artist, George Walker

silhouettes of some people, on glowing pink and blue spheres

silhouettes
at Much Music, Queen Street West

The CN tower, with pink and blue lights, is in the background. In the foreground are people taking pictures with their phones. In the middle ground are a number of pink and blue lit spheres

phones lifted skyward

A woman is taking a picture of an art installation that is flat on a table. Twelve black & white framed prints are on the wall behind her.

Black & white art made using electric currents & little wires that spun in circles.
401 Richmond Street

An art installation featuring pictures of bicylces. Multicoloured.

bkies, bikes, bikes

A man is spray painting a piece of street art using aerosol cans of paint

spraying in the spotlight
On Dundas West near Beverley Street

Crowds, at night. Light is provided by fluorescent lights that spell out a short poem.

‘The rose is without why’ by Boris Achour.
This is a short poem written by Johannes Scheffler aka Angelus Silesius, in the 17th century. The words are written with fluorescent lights and is more than 300 feet long. It was bright enough to light up the square.

crowds at Nathan Phillips Square on the night of Nuit Blanche. Some people are standing on the upper level watching the crowds below.

upper level, Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square

Nathan Phillips Square
On the left – ‘Forever Bicycles’ sculpture by Ai Weiwei lit in pink and purple. There are 3144 bicycles.
On the right – ‘Crash Cars’ by Alain Declercq consists of two driverless cars.

posing
These metallic figures were not part of Nuit Blanche. They are part of a sculpture close to the Court House on University Ave., just north of Queen St. West.

St. Andrews Bendale

Posted: October 4, 2013 in history
Tags: cemetery, church, history, McCowan, memorials, old, photographs, photos, Presbyterian, Scarborough, St. Andrews, Thomson, tombstones, Toronto, West Highland Creek

St. Andrews Bendale, Presbyterian church and cemetery, are located in a quiet corner of Scarborough, east of McCowan Avenue and north of Lawrence Avenue. The property backs onto Thomson Memorial Park which in turn follows the West Highland Creek.

The acre of land for the church was donated by David Thomson and the original wood church was built here in 1818. It was the first Presbyterian church built in what is now Toronto. David Thomson had arrived in the area from Scotland in 1796 at which time he was granted 400 acres of land. David was soon followed by his brothers Andrew Thomson and Archibald Thomson who settled nearby. The area became known as the Thomson Settlement.

A large memorial in a cemetery. The memorial consists of three tombstones that have been attached to a large concrete structure that looks like a tombstone

Thomson burial plot. The inscription across the top reads “1796 – To their honor who redeemed this township from the wilderness – 1921”
The three plaques (stones) are for David Thomson, Mary Thomson and Hellen Thomson.On the left: “In Memory of David Thomas of Westerkirk Dumfries-shire Scotland who was the First Settler in Scarborough where his was the first land cleared. He had arrived in Upper Canada in 1796 and died on the 22nd June 1834, aged ?, leaving his wife, eleven children and 53 grandchildren.”
Center: “In Memory of Mary Thomson, Mother of Scarborough, who died the 8th of Nov 18–? aged 80 years….”
On the right is the stone for Hellen Thomson. It is very worn and is difficult to read.

Robert Rae and Agnes Hamilton "natives of Lesmahago Scotland who came to Scarboro in 1832. Three weeks after their arrival, in his 29th year, he was killed by a falling tree :: his wife survived him 46 years, dying in 1878 - in her (86?)th year."

Robert Rae and his wife Agnes Hamilton
“natives of Lesmahago Scotland who came to Scarboro in 1832. Three weeks after their arrival, in his 29th year, he was killed by a falling tree :: his wife survived him 46 years, dying in 1878 – in her (86?)th year.”To the left of the Rae/Hamilton memorial is a smaller tombstone for Margaret Rae (d. 1860), wife of Amos Thomson.

To the right of the Rae/Hamilton memorial is a tombstone for James McCowan and Margaret Porteous. This couple also came from Lesmahago Lanarkshire Scotland and they too were one of the pioneering families of Scarborough.

There are a large number of other old Scarborough families represented in this cemetery – Gibson, Muir, Young and Stobo to name a few.

as I walk Toronto

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