as I walk Toronto

old friends

Posted: December 15, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alfred hitchcock, alley, animals, blob, butterfly, dog, Dundas West, goalie, graffiti, graffiti animals, graffiti people, keele, king kong, lane, laser, monkey, monster, mural, psycho, raccoon, street art, streetcar, subway, TTC, wall, what's all the noise about

In the world of graffiti and street art, change is usually inevitable and sometimes interesting. One exception seems to be the alley that you can see from subway between Keele and Dundas West stations. The building on the corner of Bloor West and Indian Road is new, but otherwise little is changed. Even though most of the street art is the same as before, I don’t think that I have posted it in the past. Here is documentation of most of it.

below: King Midas still looks over the TTC parking lot at Keele station. Well, I’ve always assumed that it was King Midas although he was the guy whose touch turned everything to gold, not grey.

below: And this monkey is still asking what the noise is all about.

below: ‘Sink or Swim’ by elicser

below: A lovebot shares wall space with an Uber5000 birdie….

below: … because Everybody’s a Winner

below: Laser, not loser. Now with laser vision.

below: Ghostbusters in a hard to reach place

below: Zooks is still on her wall.

below: This turtle has seen better days

below: Guard dog at the bottom of the stairs

below: She seems to turn when the door opens, a mural by EGR art

below: He (she?) still keeps goal on the back porch.

below: This mural also has a painting of Marilyn Monroe in it along with Bruce Lee and Alfred Hitchcock. There were too many cars parked in front of it when I walked past the other day.

below: King Kong dominates this wall.

below: We Rise Up

below: War and Peace

community, transit, and transitions

Posted: December 13, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
Tags: butterflies, Coxwell, Earl Haig school, East York, fairy door, future, George Elliott Clarke, history, Hollinger bus lines, murals, owls, past, poem, Sean Martindale, subway, transit, transitions mural, TTC, Young Artists in Transit

Along a short stretch of Coxwell Avenue

Upgrades to Coxwell subway station include work on the north side of Strathmore Blvd. Two murals were created to brighten the hoardings around the construction site. Both murals are the work of a program called ‘City on the Move – Young Artists in Transit’. If you use Coxwell subway station you can’t help but see these murals as they are right across the street from the entrance.

below: ‘Today Reassembling Yesterday’ shows people standing within a miniature old East York. On both sides of the mural is a replica of a Hollinger Bus line ticket. This bus company was founded in 1921 by John Hollinger and it serviced the growing neighbourhood of East York. By the time the TTC took it over in 1954, Hollinger had 96 employees and a fleet of 56 buses that traveled twelve routes on such streets as Woodbine, O’Connor and Coxwell.

below: In this mural, five panels are covered with wallpaper of pictures of the past. Residents, the present day, peel back the layers of the past to reveal their visions and hopes for the future. On the left, red barns and hay stacks make way for solar panels over fields with bird filled skies. The next panel is also inspired by agriculture – healthy corn fields and other crops under a layer with horses and stables. The middle panel puzzles me. I’m note sure what the pictures on the brown paper represent but birds in a tree are under it. The fourth panel suggests accessible public transit. Lastly, cars and trucks make way for rivers to fish in.

‘New Revelation, at Coxwell’

a poem by George Elliott Clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto 2012-15
to accompany the mural at Coxwell station

As wallpaper peels to windowpanes, spy
Grass, insurgent, urging all our future
Is Spring: Sunlight sparks sweat and dream; wind drives
Machines. Thrilled, birds wing and sing so sprightly,
Everyone delights. Blossoms float perfumes.
Branches brandish emerald bouquets. Our lungs
Flood with surging airs, clean as chlorophyll,
Mint-new, mint-tangy, so song is born,
Just by breathing. Wheels become our earthly
Wings, so infant and elder, builder and
Dreamer, can flit – transit – through the city
As public millions that public millions
Uphold, so that the lame, too, can take
The air and wheel down to creek, stream, and lake.
Suddenly glittering, afresh with fish.

The TTC also owns property on the southeast corner of Coxwell and Danforth. Back in 1915 this facility was built as the Danforth carhouse for the streetcars that ran along the Danforth. When the Bloor Danforth subway line opened in 1966, these streetcars were retired and the carhouse was converted to handle TTC buses instead. In 2002 the Danforth carhouse (or Coxwell Barns) was shut down. Some of the property has been sold off but the TTC still has a presence there.

below: Along Coxwell Avenue, south of the Danforth, there is a fence that separates TTC property from the street. It was a typically drab TTC concrete barrier. Recently it was painted by a group of volunteers. The word ‘transition’ now pops out at passersby from a colourful mural designed by Sean Martindale.

If you walk a few more blocks south on Coxwell, you will come to a fence where many butterflies have stopped to rest.

They share a fence with a few creative owls wisely made out of recycled materials. Tin cans, CDs, buttons, bottle tops, corks, paper clips, sunglass lenses, clothes pegs, foil plates, and bits of plastic repurposed.

below: A little red fairy door, home of the Earl Haig gardener. This past summer there was a project called Danny’s Urban Fairies. Fairy doors that were hand crafted by local artists started appearing in stores and parks along Danforth East (from Jones to Westlake). Some of the fairy doors remain but many were auctioned off in November to raise money to support the non-profit East End Music Project.

below: No bows and arrows allowed!

be inspired and unique

Posted: December 11, 2015 in graffiti and street art
Tags: apartment buildings, beloved, blackburn, box, butterflies, community, essencia, faces, Finch Ave., fiya bruxa, hearts, high rise, Jane St., Jeff Blackburn, lil bruxas, men, North York, people, rooted, shalak, unique, united freedom, women

Today’s blog post comes from slightly farther afield than I usually venture. I went northwest to the Jane and Finch area. As I drove north on Jane street, I spotted some eye-catching paintings on the walls of the Driftwood Community and Recreation Centre.

below: ‘Unique’, a vibrant heart painted by Girls Club

below: ‘Rooted’ trees by Lil Bruxas and part of ‘United Freedom’ on the back wall

below: ‘United Freedom’ by Essencia

below: A blackburn traffic signal box sits on that corner. Straight from the jungle.

A little father south there are a couple of high rise apartment buildings on the northeast corner of Jane and Finch. Each has a mural painted around one of the entrances to the building.

below: ‘Be Inspired, Love Yourself, Educate Others’ by the BeLovEd movement,
painted by Shalak Attack and Fiya Bruxas, 2011.

***

below: ‘Strong Women, Strong Community’ also by the BeLovEd Movement surrounds a doorway. Although there is a sidewalk that leads directly to the corner of Jane and Finch, no one was using this entrance. I was alone when I walked around this building from the parking lot by the main door.

new houses on Keele

Posted: December 10, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
Tags: #torontomural, Bloor by the Park, Bloor st. west, keele, mural, Rob Marejka, subway, Tommy Marejka, TTC

There’s another new mural in town.

This one is on Keele street, just north of Bloor.

It is under the subway bridge, directly across the street from the Keele subway station.

It was painted by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka.

The mural was a collaboration between StreetARToronto, Bloor by the Park BIA, and the City of Toronto.

intersections – St. Clair and Vaughan

Posted: December 9, 2015 in graffiti and street art, history, intersections
Tags: apartments, art, brick, brick patterns, buildings, canvas, details, doors, Dutch Dreams, fence, fish, ice cream cone, Kenwood Lane, Laneway Project, little, Maple Villa, Maplewood, murals, paint, paintings, pink fish, public art, residences, say hello, St. Clair West, Vaughan Rd, Wychwood

This post is the result of a very wobbly and random circular walk around part of the Wychwood Heights neighbourhood last weekend. A hodge podge of this and that.

below: The intersection of St. Clair West and Vaughan Road circa 1912

below: I didn’t quite recreate the picture above but it is still obvious that the brick building is still standing after just over 100 years but that every thing around it has changed.

below: Just to the north, 78 Vaughan Road…. didn’t this store used to be an ice cream place?

below: Ah yes, there is still remnants of ice cream cones above the window so my memory is correct.
I wonder what happened to it?

There are a number of alleys to the north and west of the intersection of St. Clair and Vaughan Road. Most of them are quite tidy and well looked after. They were also full of surprises, bright little things that put on a smile on your face on a December afternoon.

below: Like little pictures painted on canvas….

below: and painted on wood

below: or painted directly on poles.

below: There was a fence made of old wood doors

below: There was a great creature with googly eyes and a rectangular orange nose.

below: And of course there were some painted garage doors.

below: These garage doors are a sample of the more than 40 doors that have been painted as part of the Kenwood Lanway Art Initiative.

While walking on the streets in the neighbourhood I saw a couple of little houses

as well as larger buildings with intricate architectural details.

below: A checkerboard effect with the bricks on the La Salle Apartments. As an aside, the small bush in front of the building was in the picture no matter what angle I tried. It was a lilac bush and I am sure that there were buds on it.

below: A little fake balcony with a white post railing on a low rise apartment building.

below: A line of little arches across the roofline is echoed in the larger arch patterns over the windows. There is a small relief sculpture near the top corner of the building (slightly behind the tree) but I can’t tell what’s on it. A coat of arms maybe?

below: There were quite a few four storey brick apartment buildings that looked like they were built in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Perhaps there was a little ‘condo boom’ at the time?

below: Like the condos of today, many of the buildings had names such as Maple Villa

and Maplewood

below: The backs of all those apartment complexes are nearly as interesting as the fronts.
This is one of the only construction sites I saw although….

… this Presbyterian church looks like it is about to be redeveloped. It is one of three churches at the corner of St. Clair and Wychwood. The church was built in 1926. There is a brief description of the property on the Stanton Renaissance website but very little information is given beyond a “transformation” of the church and the creation of “high end residential boutique”.

below: Mural for Sea With Fish and Chips on St. Clair West

below: As I circled back the intersection of Vaughan Road and St. Clair West, I spotted a large doubledecker strawberry and vanilla ice cream cone on the side of Dutch Dreams. Hey! The answer to my question. The ice cream place from 78 Vaughan Road has moved a couple of blocks south, complete with it’s collection painted old fashioned milk cans.

below: One last picture. As I waited for the Bathurst bus, I found myself standing across the street from this building. The curve of the roofline is interesting, but even more interesting is the the fact that there is an occult store in Toronto. Candles, herbs, incense, jewelry, I’m now wishing that I had crossed the street to investigate further! And, smile, the store next to it is Pandora’s salon. Pandora, the one who in ancient times opened a box and unleashed all sorts of evil on the world.

I spy, we spy

Posted: December 7, 2015 in graffiti and street art
Tags: alley, animals, bathtub, eclairs, faces, fake, flowers, gardens, graffiti, Halloween decorations, happy face, lane, laneway, leprechaun, lovebot, make art not war, mannequin, miniature eclairs, pictures, pink car, pinwheel, Queen St. West, stencils, street art, vacuum, video camera

There is so much to see in this city, big and small, mundane and interesting, bland and colourful, old and new; we’ve got it all. It’s not uncommon to walk a route many times and still see something new each time. The little details are easy to overlook. Yesterday I walked parallel to Queen Street West from Roncesvalles eastward. There are lots of little alleys in the area and the streets are interesting too. I wasn’t alone. Penny (from Walking Woman blog) provided a second set of eyes as we went looking for whatever there was to find. Four eyes really can be better than two! Although we saw many things (of course!) I’ve chosen to concentrate on the “little things” that we spied.

below: Happy. Faces at our feet. Happy to see you walk by.

below: Faces above our heads. A one way sign as a canvas.

below: And faces at the end of the path.

below: Yesterday’s lovebot sighting

below: It’s December, but this house is still ready for Halloween.

below: A little leprechaun in a tree. Perhaps he’s been here since St. Patricks Day? And how many leprechauns have crossed here? We weren’t lucky enough to see any yesterday.

below: One use for a bathtub! Dirty, not clean.

below: A different approach to keeping the flowers blooming well into December… they’re looking a little faded, but they are still pink and growing in abundance.

below: But even a single flower adds to a picture.

below: Pictures on walls can delight, even ones as simple as this little pinwheel.

below: Make art not war….

below: … or make money. The money shot.

below: She was hiding in the back corner of a store.

below: Miniature eclairs for sale at The Tempered Room. We didn’t try them but they looked fabulous.

below: Dean’s pink ride was parked for the afternoon.

below: A mystery message. Google tells me that pav is a type of Indian bread but I don’t think that that’s what the writer was referring to here. Belongins (belongings?) here probably means possessions but I like to play with words and so I wonder if it is the other meaning of belonging, i.e. as in “a sense of belonging”. Or maybe, he be longing all his life to be under a palm tree?!

below: The sign for Cattlemens Meat Market is looking a little worn,
and not because it’s been here since 1538!

below: And last, three stencils that were close together in an alley, three animals, an old fashioned upright vacuum cleaner and an old video camera.

danger, open edges

Posted: December 2, 2015 in locations, old buildings
Tags: Alexander Street, Breadalbane, College Street, condos, construction, demolition, development, development proposal, digging, downtown, fences, Grenville St., holes, John Irwin House, Oddfellows Hall, urban, Wellesley street, Yonge Street

Sometimes when I walk I find a view or a photo that suggests a theme for the day; something that summarizes the area that I’ve been walking through. On Saturday, this was the photo, a construction site on Wellesley Street -a massive hole in the ground amongst a growing number of high rise buildings.

This piece of property, between Wellesley and Breadalbane streets, had been vacant for a number of years. It was once owned by the province; back in the 1980s there were plans to build a ballet and opera house there. Those plans fell through and the land remained vacant while community groups lobbied for a park to be developed there.

When I first walked the area in April 2013, there was a blue fence around the site.

The blue fence is gone. According to the development proposal sign, two towers are being built here with a combined height of 99 floors. A nine or ten storey L-shaped podium will run along St. Luke Lane and Wellesley Street to join the towers. The plan also allows for park land on Breadalbane. When I checked the website for the development, 11 Wellesley aka Wellesley on the Park, there is only one tower pictured and it doesn’t look like the description on the sign.

Ah, a little light bulb goes on. The sign describes the developers’ original plan. A change in the plan doesn’t mean a change in the sign. So… this seems to be the future home of one 60 storey condo tower on one third of the land and a 1.6 acre park on the remainder.

My Saturday walk had actually started close to Yonge and College. I was drawn to the nondescript block of stores that are now boarded up in preparation to be demolished.

I’m wishing that I had taken pictures previously of these stores just to document the history of that part of Yonge Street. I had many chances to do so, but the building never seemed interesting enough.

Whether or not you think that two 58 storey towers with a shared 7 storey podium is an improvement is an entirely different question. It will contain 960 condo units and 5 storeys of above grade parking (because the subway runs underneath) with 320 parking spots. Lobby access for the buildings will be from Maitland and Alexander Streets on the north and south sides of the property. Or at least that’s what’s on the sign. But fool me once, so I checked the website for the condo (TeaHouse Condos in this case) and once again the information doesn’t match. According to the website there will be two towers but the north one will be 25 storeys and the south one will be 53 storeys. Whatever the end result, it will be different from what’s there now!

At least one person had an objection.

A walk around the back of the building shows that we aren’t losing much there either.

The next site that I explored is just to the south where a hole is already in progress on the SW corner of Yonge and Grenville.

A hole in the ground on Yonge Street for construction of a building.

Photo taken from St. Lukes Lane

below: This hole has exposed the north wall of the brown brick Oddfellows’ Hall as this view shows. This is looking south, with College Park in the background (built by the T. Eaton Co. and opened as a 6 storey Eatons store on 30 October 1930). Behind the chain link fence is St. Luke Lane.

Now you see it… soon you won’t. The condo tower here will be 66 storeys high.

Oddfellow’s Hall was built in 1891 and 1892 by architects Norman B. Dick and Frank W. Wickson for the Independent Order of Oddfellows. It has two octagonal turrets and is a playful mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles. The building had a 20’ x 46’ long grand hall for IOOF private meetings as well as offices and storefronts.

below: Looking north up Yonge Street at College Street, about 1970. The Bank of Commerce (later Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and now CIBC) was an early tenant of the building. Also in the picture is the old fire hall tower but more about that later.

old photo from about 1970 looking north up Yonge Street from College Street. Oddfellows Hall is on one corner with main tenant as Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Old fire hall tower is in the distance.

Photo found online, original source was City of Toronto Archives

below: Most people will recognize the building as Starbucks.

Back to Grenville Street where there is yet another development. On the west side of St. Luke Lane is a partially completed condo that has incorporated the facade of what is known as the John Irwin house. It is one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the area; in 1873 it was recorded as being owned by a John Irwin.

This house wasn’t always in this location though. It was moved a few metres east along Grenville, from one side of the condo development to the other. I found a photo that I took in April 2013, just after the house had been moved. Here you can see the back of the house as well as St. Luke Lane to the right.

Does your head hurt yet? Because there is more…..
But first, a break. A few other pictures from the area.

below: No Parking in St. Luke Lane, twice.

below: And a man (Van Gogh? someone else?) with a red umbrella but more remarkably, a white picket fence almost hidden under vines by Wellesley Street.

below: Also in St. Luke Lane, a mural commemorating the Highway of Heroes.

And back to the program….

So far we have two holes in the ground, a partially finished condo, and a block that has just begun to be demolished. The last development that I saw in the area was one that is still in the planning stages. The development proposal sign posted beside Currys Art Supplies (the blue awning) is a clue that changes are imminent at 480-494 Yonge Street. This building is on the SW corner of Yonge and Grosvenor. The sign says one 45 storey tower but by now I don’t believe the signs!

480 Yonge Street is a heritage building as is the old fire hall (1872). The top corner of 480 Yonge is just visible in the bottom left of this picture. It is to be incorporated into the new development if it goes ahead. The fire hall tower is going to be preserved but the building in front of it will be removed. The sidewalk will also be widened as a result. That’s the opening act of this story; there may be changes before the final curtain. The developers applied for a zoning amendment (increased height and density) earlier this year but I do not know the results of that.

below: On the NW corner of Yonge and Grosvenor is this building. I don’t know if there are any plans in the works to redo this stretch of Yonge Street but after seeing all the new developments, I’m starting to get a bit sentimental about the old buildings. So here is documentation of what remains, starting with A & W Home of the Burger Family at 496 Yonge.

below: between Grosvenor and Breadalbane – Cuban cigars and Persian food

below: SW corner of Yonge & Breadalbane – old and new, short and tall

below: SW corner of Yonge & Wellesley – tattoos, massages, and payday loans.

below: NW corner of Yonge & Wellesley – Not just noodles

elicser people in Scarborough

Posted: December 1, 2015 in graffiti and street art
Tags: couple, Elicser, elicsr, men, mural, paint, people, Scarborough, Sheppard Ave., sheppard east village, street art, students, underpass, women

If you are driving or walking west on Sheppard Avenue, just past Midland Avenue, you will notice a new mural on one corner of a railway underpass. This mural was recently painted by street artist Elicser.

Monica, and others, on the Danforth

Posted: December 1, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
Tags: airways, alley, black line drawing, Danforth, Danforth Mosaic BIA, Emilia Jajus, fish, graffiti, Great Wave, Hokusai, lane, laneway, Monica on the moon, mural, painting, rat, sticker

A short walk earlier this month along the laneways south of the Danforth near Woodbine Ave.

below: A mural by Monica on the Moon, styled after Katsushika Hokusai’s ‘Great Wave off Kanagawa’ picture. This is only part of it – the mural wraps around the back of the building.

below: Just throwing a little bit of fun into the mix. The ‘Great Wave’ has inspired many other great works of art over the years including this Cookie Monster one:

below: Leaving the Danforth area briefly, there is also this mural by skam near Bloor and Bathurst. You can find it in Loretto Lane on the side wall of Kinka Restaurant.

below: A little path leads onto a mural on Amroth Ave just south of the Danforth that was painted by Airways Airbrushing and Sign Co. It was funded by the City of Toronto and the Danforth Mosaic BIA.

below: Historical mural on a Bell box, ‘Danforth’ 1912 by Emilia Jajus 2012.

below: Another Monica on the Moon mural

below: Alley ratz and company

below: A red fish swimming in bright blue by an unknown artist.

Bloordale to Brockton

Posted: November 29, 2015 in general Toronto, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, altered signs, architecture, Bike Pirates, CN Tower, dragonfly, fake leg, fences, garages, graffiti, Haven Espresso Bar, houses, lane, laneway, love yourself, mural, park, poppies, protest posters, residential, skyline, spudbomb, stickers, Susan Tibaldi parkette, tracks, Union Pearson Express, UP Express, walls

A walk down Brock Ave, well sort of. I don’t think I’m capable of walking in a straight line.

Brock Avenue, just north of Bloor, the Haven Espresso Bar, a tiny little place with good coffee. I don’t usually start my walk with a cup of coffee but I was intrigued by the smallness of the space.

below: This is the mural on the wall beside the coffee bar. It’s just the word Haven but there are some interesting details in the letters.

below: The local park is called Susan Tibaldi Parkette, named for a woman who was active in the community. This cheerful toucan overlooks the park.

There are a few painted walls and garages in the area around the park.

below: Including this spud bomb covered garage door.

below: On a wall, ‘Building with the Gods, James Massey R.I.P’

below: I spotted this on a pole just before I headed south. A little bit of sparkle to brighten the day.

The area south of Bloor was once the village of Brockton. Back in 1812, one hundred acres of land from what is now Queen Street, north to Bloor Street, and west of Dufferin Avenue was granted to James Brock (yes, a relative of Sir Isaac). After James died, his widow Lucy had a road built that run down the center of the property. This road was Brock Avenue. She subdivided the property and sold the lots to smaller land holders. This settlement became Brockton. In 1884 it was annexed by the city of Toronto.

below: Colourful cat and mouse games on a wall just south of Dundas. I couldn’t find any ‘signature’ on the wall and I haven’t been able to find out who painted this. I’d love to know.

below: Malabar Ltd. It looks unkempt and I thought it was abandoned. The gate to the parking lot was open and there were a couple of cars parked behind the wall. A quick search online and I discovered that this site is still operational, but only serves the professional opera and theaters industry.

After passing under one of the greyest, dingiest railway bridges, I came to a street – not sure what it was!

A Toronto street sign in blue and white that is covered with a vine

I checked a map – it’s Cunningham Ave.

.
But it afforded me an unobstructed view.

I looked around a bit but there wasn’t much of interest on my side of the tracks and I wasn’t about to cross over! I did notice that there is graffiti on the track side of the wall around the Malabar parking lot. Something to explore another time… when I don’t have to dodge trains!

As the leaves fall off the trees, the houses are hidden less. I like looking for older and/or unique architectural details that are now easier to spot (and take pictures of!)

below: The first time I saw one of these “half houses” I was quite surprised (it’s behind the large tree). I now realize that there are a number of them in the city but it was still a fun find.

below: Brick and wood trim details being preserved and restored on an old house.

below: There are a number of old square houses in the neighbourhood.

an older square brick house on a corner of a residential street in Toronto.

below: A house with an old second storey wooden structure. I don’t think it can be called an oriel window but I don’t know any other architectural term to describe it.

below: Although it’s not as easy to see in this picture, this house also has an old window and wood structure. The fence around the neighbour’s yard is probably not as old as the porch, but it to is from a bygone era. Is it from the 1960’s? I suspect that they were very trendy at one time although I have seen this sort of design more as balcony railings than as fences.