While walking under the Gardiner Expressway a few days ago, I came across the debris left behind by those who once camped here. Or maybe it was trash that was thrown here.
Whatever the source, I found it rather fascinating to see what there was. Detritus as subject matter whether for photography or sociology or as anthropology in centuries to come.
Until a few years ago this was part of Parkhurst Knitwear but today it sits empty. Today when I passed by the lighting was good for taking pictures of the south exterior wall. There is a fence between the street and the building but there is ample room for photography. I am now on many surveillance videos (if the warning signs were for real).
This building started its life as Radio Stores Building No. 16. It was constructed in 1942 and the chimney was added in 1946. Building No. 16 was part of a complex of buildings occupying 55 acres of land east of Laird Drive and south of Eglinton that was owned by Research Enterprises Ltd. (REL). During WW1 this land was an aerodrome.
In 1940 REL was incorporated in response to the outbreak of World War II; it was a Crown Corporation created through the Munitions and Supply Act of Parliament in September 1939.
REL’s mandate was the production of technology equipment such as optical instruments and radio and radar equipment to assist with pilots with night flight. During its 6 years of operation, REL employed 7,500 people.
After the war, this building was sold to Dorothea Knitting Mills (1947). Dorothea ultimately became part of Parkhurst Knitwear.
This building is part of a larger story – the slow disappearance of industries in Leaside as commercial and residential developments proliferate. Prior to 2010, the area was zoned industrial but developers fought for, and won, changes to the zoning in the area.
I can’t remember how long this building has been empty. If was still a functioning knitting mill in 2013. In 2019 the city of Toronto moved to have the building listed as a Heritage site. Last year there was a large sign on the building advertising the fact that it was soon to be a self-storage facility. Is that still its fate?
Palimpsest. I had to look up the word too. No, it’s not the superlative form of palimps. As it turns out, palimsest has to do with surfaces that have been reused or altered while still retaining traces of its earlier form.
What does it have to do with this blog post? It is the name of an exhibit of photos by a Poland-based collective, Sputnik Photos. Between 2008 and 2016 this group compiled their ‘Lost Territories Archive‘; this is a project that documents the “physical, political, and sociocultural” aspects of the former Soviet republics. Some of the thousands of images that they collected are on display in the Allan Lambert Galleria at Brookfield Place as part of this year’s CONTACT Photography Festival. It is on view for the month of May.
below: “A sculptural model in a student atelier, Spitak Armenia, 2014”.
below: “Cafeteria at the Heydar Aliev Centre, Gobustan Azerbijan, 2016”. In 2013, to mark the 10th anniversary of the former president of Azerbijan, Heydar Aliyev, his son and successor, Ilham Aliyev, ordered the country’s 70 district capitals to each build a monumental centre named after his father.
below: “Semipalatynsk Nuclear Test Site, Kazakhstan, 2016”. The Soviet Union conducted over 400 nuclear tests at this site in northeast Kazakhstan between 1949 and 1989. The impact of radiation exposure was hidden by Soviet authorities and didn’t become known until the site closed in 1991.
below: ‘Homemade construction for growing grapes, Yerevan Armenia, 2013’. Urban farming was popular during the post-Soviet crisis in the 1990’s. Today grapes are grown in every neighbourhood using homemade constructions for supporting the vines.
below: “Anaklia Georgia, 2013” Anaklia is a village on the Black Sea. In 2011, Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, announced a program to transform the village into a luxury resort. Construction began in 2012. Saakashvili’s party lost the parliamentary elections in 2013 and he fled the country. Work on this project was discontinued.
below: “Slutsk Belarus, 2013”. This image is of ‘Cultural Space’, an installation in the sugar factory Saharny Zavod. The factory was given an award for best ideological work in a contest organized by a regional committee for ‘admiration structures’.
Members of Sputnik Photos: Andrej Balco, Jan Brykczynski, Andrei Liankevich, Michal Luczak, Rafal Milach, Adam Panczuk, and Agnieszka Rayss.
***
More about the word palimpsest:
In Ancient Greek, it was παλίμψηστος (palímpsēstos) and in Latin it was palimpsestus meaning “scraped clean and ready to be used again”. It was originally applied to wax covered tablets that the ancient Greeks and Romans used to “write” on by scratching out the letters with a stylus. Smoothing the wax would erase the words. Around the 6th century vellum, or parchment prepared from animal skins, became more commonly used. It was expensive. Early on, writing on parchment could be washed away using milk and oat bran but over time it would come back, but faintly. In the later Middle Ages, writing was removed with powdered pumice which was more permanent.
Along with the historical definition, palimpsest has a more modern definition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives this newer meaning as, “something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface” while the Cambridge English Dictionary uses these words, “something such as work of art that has many levels of meaning, types of style, etc. that build on each other.”
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.
below: A portion of the black cowboy silhouette remains in the now empty Tortilla Flats restaurant.
below: The effects of morning light shining into the Thai Luna restaurant.
below: More morning sunlight, this time it leaves traces of fried chicken.
below: Strutting in the window with miniature camels
below: Laundry day, with 24 hour surveillance
below: The chicken, and its head, really was that colour.
below: What little remains.
Another story of changes underway;
more documentation of buildings about to disappear.
On a leafy stretch of Bayview Avenue, there are some buildings that now sit empty. The weeds have taken over the yards, as have large signs advertising the townhouse development that will be built there. Actually the signs are only on one yard, this one:
below: There are curtains in the window but some shingles are missing and the frontyard is overgrown with weeds – 2716 Bayview Avenue, sitting empty. If you drive past it on Bayview you’d probably miss it because of the large trees between the house and the street.
below: Nature takes over very quickly if you let it. The lilies haven’t lost to the thistles yet though.
below: The backyard was very overgrown too. The side door was open but I didn’t go in. The basement appears to be in good shape.
If you go to their website, only 7 townhouses are shown in the drawings while the properties on either side of it (4 in total) are included in the plans as “future development”. If you look at the original application on the City of Toronto website, the whole plan called for 20 townhouses facing Bayview Ave and a single family dwelling facing the street behind. Each townhouse is 4 storeys (including basement level which is half garage and driveway) and 18’9″ wide. The above ground levels are 47′ deep. The site drawings and architectural plans were from June 2017. I am not sure why the discrepancy. It’s not uncommon for changes to occur between the planning stage and the final product… So take the measurements that I just gave you with a grain of salt.
below: One house to the south, 2710 Bayview. A newer style house than its neighbour with part of its front yard hidden behind a glass block wall. It too is set back a large distance from the street. Once upon a time, someone put some love and care into this house. I hoped that it was well used in its time.
below: Moving north, this is 2720 Bayview. There is evidence that large trees have already been cut down. At the moment all the evidence is well hidden from passers-by. A year ago, farther south on Bayview a developer cut down 30+ large trees without permits from the city because they were building townhouses on the site The outcry was big but the penalty is small.
below: But…. if you have permission to build townhouses, there is no way the trees can stay. Any plan that involves creating 20 new townhouses in less space than four single houses doesn’t leave room for large trees. Those will be a thing of the past on this stretch of Bayview. The one below was so big that I couldn’t reach around the trunk of the tree.
below: The fourth building, 2722 Bayview, was originally built as a residence, but it has been a medical clinic for decades. If you peer in the window, there are still posters on the wall (Is It Flu?) and even reading material on the table ([something] Task Force). There is a sign on the front door that says that 2 June 2017 was the last day the clinic was open.
Lastly, I took a picture of this house too as it is beside the ones above. The “Notice” sign on the fence was a bit of a surprise considering how new the house was. My original assumption was that the house was going to be demolished. In fact, the planning application says that the house will be moved to the back of the property and three townhouses will be built in front. One driveway down the north side of the property will access both the new townhouses and the moved house.
Apparently the application was submitted in December 2016 – However, I noticed that the original application called for three 3 storey townhouses (and is on the City of Toronto website as such). The sign says three 4 storey townhouses and a three storey single family dwelling. The house in the photo is only 2 storeys.
What I’ve also learned while researching these properties, is that there is an official document called, “Bayview Townhouse Design Guidelines” that covers Bayview Avenue from the 401 south to Lawrence Avenue East. It was adopted by City Council late in 2015. In fact, large portions of the city have design guidelines and you can find them online.
I was curious to find out how many ongoing development proposals/applications there are in the city. There is an interactive searchable map online that I used. When I searched on ward 25 (where the above sites are), it showed 52 locations. When I tried searching on the whole city, there were too many results. If you’re interested in development, you can play with the website too!
A trip to Toronto Islands on a sunny spring day.
Photos and stories – an eclectic mix of history and nature that resulted from wandering around the eastern portion of the islands.
below: From the ferry, looking toward the glass and steel of the city.
Toronto Islands is a collection of at least 12 small islands. In the early years the island archipelago was really a peninsula of sandbars and ponds; it was connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of sandy shoreline. This landform was created over centuries by the action of waves, winds and lake currents – washing away portions of the Scarborough Bluffs and depositing this material to the west in a five-mile-long hooked shape. This process of natural “landscaping” continued until the spring of 1858, when a particularly powerful hurricane created a channel four to five feet deep through the peninsula. By June of that year, the Eastern Gap was a waterway, and the Toronto Islands came into being.
below: On the ferry between the city and Centre Island.
The first buildings on the islands were the Blockhouse Bay garrison built in the 1794 by the British at Gibraltar Point – it included a blockhouse and storage structures. A second blockhouse and a guard house were built soon after, only to be destroyed by the Americans in the Battle of York in April 1813. The lighthouse at Gibraltar Point built in 1809 still stands (sorry, no photo).
In 1833 Michael O’Connor built a hotel on one the islands. He used a horse-drawn boat to ferry customers across from the mainland to his hotel. At that time, there was still access by road but it was a toll road. In 1836 it cost sixpence for every four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses. Smaller ‘vehicles’ paid less. In 1858 the hotel (now Quinns Hotel) was destroyed during the same hurricane that turned the peninsula into an island. The hotels were destroyed but the islands remained popular. With no road access, ferries were needed and many people ran private ferry services until they were bought out or amalgamated into the Toronto Ferry Company in 1892. It was privately owned until 1926 when it was purchased by the City of Toronto for $337,500.
Many houses and businesses, (hotels, restaurants, bowling alley, laundry, theatre etc) were established over the years from Hanlon’s Point in the west to Wards Island in the east. Today, residences are only in the eastern section of Wards Island and on Algonquin Island.
The Ward’s Island community began in the 1880s as a settlement of tents. Up until then, that eastern end of the islands was mostly wetlands. The first summer colony on Ward’s in 1899 consisted of just eight tenants, each of whom had paid a fee of $10 rent for the season. The number of tents grew each year. In 1913, the city felt it necessary to organize the community into streets. The evolution from tents to cottage structures progressed in stages with the building of floors, the addition of kitchens and then porches, resulting in the creation of the homes.
In 1953 the municipal government changed their policy toward the Toronto Islands landscape and its residents. Businesses were removed and the systematic demolition and burning of homes began. More of the islands became parkland. There are 262 houses on Wards and Algonquin Islands today, down from about 630 residences on all the islands. The last of the Lakeshore houses was removed in 1968 but traces of them still remain.
below: The pier on the Lake Ontario side.
below: Sandbags along the shore. Last spring there was a lot of flooding here and the island was closed to visitors – sort of. Ferries didn’t run and the park facilities were closed. The islands are very flat and low so it doesn’t take much extra water to flood.
below: There is a small amusement park, Centreville, on Centre Island.
below: Island transport that can be rented if you don’t want to walk.
below: Boats moored QCYC (Queen City Yacht Club), one of the three yacht clubs on the islands.
below: Sakura trees in bloom. The trees were donated by the Sakura Project. The aim of this project was to strengthen Japanese Canadian relations by planting cherry trees in visible locations across Ontario. Between 2000 and 2012, 3,082 trees were planted at 58 locations. The trees on Centre Island were planted in 2011.
below: Catkins from a red alder tree. They almost look like raspberries packed tight together.
below: An early family of Canada geese.
below: The pier at the eastern end of Wards Island is bad need of repair. To the right is the entry into the Eastern Channel (or Eastern Gap).
below: Looking over to Algonquin Island. Once upon a time this island was just a sandbar.
and back to the mainland.
This is the story of one building at one intersection, Yonge and Belsize (just south of Eglinton) but it’s also a story that is being repeated over and over again in the city. The story of demolition and rebuilding. The story of loss of the older wood and brick structures as they are replaced by glass and steel.
By December 2016 all of the businesses had closed down.
below: The back of the building
Just over a year later demolition began in earnest.
A walk along the Don River.
The Don Valley Brick Works (or Evergreen Brickworks) is an old clay quarry and brick factory that operated between 1889 and 1984. Today the site consists of 16 heritage buildings and an adjacent 16-hectare public park known as Weston Family Quarry Garden that includes wetlands, hiking trails, and wildflower meadows.
below: Interior of the kiln building. Some of the kilns have been removed to create a larger open area and year round event space.
below: anser faces on the exterior yellow brick wall.
below: The Brickworks “living map” of Toronto is looking very healthy. It is “Watershed Consciousness” by Ferruccio Sardella and it depicts the rivers and ravines in the city. Some of the greens are looking a little tall (like they don’t belong there? a few strays?).
below: Bullrushes growing in the wetland area around the pond.
below: Ideas! I’ve been meaning to find the end of this bridge and walk at least part of it – if I do, I’ll let you know! It’s the bridge that you see beside the Brickworks. It was built in 1928 and is 335m long. It is part of the Don Branch of the CPR and it ran from Leaside Junction to the downtown core until the line was closed in 2007.
After a short visit at the Brickworks, including a quick bite to eat at the Farmers Market, we headed south. The first part of the walk was back along Bayview to Pottery Road since Brickworks is on the west side of the Don River and the trail is on the east side. I didn’t take any pictures – walking along a major road that doesn’t have a sidewalk needs all of your attention. There is a bike path that parallels Bayview on the east side but getting to it was either a long detour or a dash across the road and over a barrier. We made the decision to stay on the west side and cross with the lights at Pottery Road.
below: Although the path is through the ravine and it runs beside the Don River, it also runs adjacent to the Don Valley Parkway. There are only a few places on the trail where you can see the highway but there is a constant rumbling noise from the cars passing by.
below: This is the same railway line as the bridge shown above but farther down the valley. A very makeshift bike crossing.
below: Standing at the same spot as the above photo, but turned around 180 degrees… You can see how overgrown the old tracks are.
below: Two different railway lines run down the Don River Valley. The line shown here, the CN Bala subdivision line, is very active including use by GO trains that service the Oriole, Richmond Hill, and Newmarket route. The Bala subdivision tracks continue all the way to Sudbury.
below: A quiet spot by the abandoned tracks.
below: There are a few spots along the trail where there was damage from the high water levels in the spring. Most if the problems are with the banks od the river. The trail itself is in good shape.
below: Kayaking on the river.
below: Keeping an eye on the water level.
below: Does anyone know what the 6 drum shaped things are?
below: Standing on the old metal bridge across the Don River at Eastern Avenue, looking south. When the Don Valley Parkway was built, it cut through Eastern Avenue. Eastern was rerouted, swinging north a bit before crossing over the DVP and splitting into Richmond, Adelaide, and Eastern. (depending in which direction you’re travelling). If you stand on the bridge and look directly east, there is still a road there that dead ends at the highway. It is now Sunlight Park Road and it is provides access to the BMW dealership that you can see as you drive past on the DVP.
I couldn’t see any park in that area so I decided that if there is a Sunlight Park it’s teensy tiny. Luckily I didn’t stop there – I did some research and discovered that Sunlight Park was actually the first baseball stadium built in Toronto. It was built in 1886 and was first known as the Toronto Baseball Grounds – four storeys, wood, and the home of the Toronto baseball team from 1886 to 1897. And where is Sunlight in all this? The stadium became known as Sunlight Park after the Sunlight Soap factory that was built by the Lever Brothers in 1900/01 in the same area. The stadium was demolished in 1913.
below: The building in the background was the Lever Brothers (the Unilever) soap factory. There is now a sign on the building that says firstgulf.com – they are the development company that owns the site. NOW magazine published an interesting story about the building as it looks at the moment (with lots of great pictures!). The path through the striped underpass joins the Don River Trail to Corktown Commons.
Stay safe. Protect the plants (and the humans!)
Relentless
Ubiquitous
These are two apt words to describe construction in Toronto, or to be more precise, the tearing down of older houses and building smaller condo units or townhouses in their place. We are experiencing the downsizing of living space as land values continue climbing upwards.
I drove past this Bayview Avenue house on the weekend and was intrigued by the look of it – a pale yellow, once grand older house now sitting empty. Many of the mature trees that were in its front yard have been cut down so the house is now easily visible from the street. I went back to that section of Bayview Avenue with my camera yesterday morning.
There wasn’t much of a chain across the front yard so it was easy to walk up to the house. It looks like the front door hasn’t been used in quite some time. The window appears to have an old fashioned storm window on the outside although the shutters look more modern. I’d love to know the history of the house (How old is it? I suspect that it was built when this section of Bayview was still on the fringes of the city and before Bayview became 5 lanes wide but I don’t know for sure.)
Right next door is this large bungalow:
Originally built as a family home, this became the Bayview Hebrew School of the Arts in 2008. The school is relocating and the building now sits empty.
Just up the street was this house. It looks empty but there was a recycling bin beside the garage and some curtains in the windows so I didn’t wander up to the front door…. even though I really like that red door! There was no chain across the driveway, nor were there any “keep out” signs. Neither of those things would stop me, but they are good indicators that no one lives there anymore. Google street view of this address is from August 2015 and at that time there was a for sale sign on the property.
The above are the “going” half of the title of this blog post. The “coming” are these doors under construction; they too are on this part of Bayview Avenue. Side by side front doors with a concrete layer between them – two of a row of five townhouses. One day (soon?) someone will be able to walk in their front door and go up a level or two, to floors that haven’t yet been built.
This is the development that caused an uproar a year ago when they illegally clear cut two lots – cutting down about 30 large trees including a linden tree that was close to 150 years old in the process. According to the City of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 813, Article III, conviction for cutting down a mature tree results in a “minimum fine of $500.00 and a maximum fine of $100,000.00 per tree involved in an offense; a special supplementary fine of $100,000.00 is also possible.” (source).
In October 2016, Format Group (the developers involved) paid a fine of $155,064. This amount includes $657.30 per tree to cover city inspection costs and $116,600 for the planting of 200 new trees — mostly at other sites.
The two lots will be developed into 11 3-storey townhouses and 4 single family houses. All units have already sold.
Before I leave the area, there is something similar going on across the street.
First – there is this empty house sitting on a corner lot at Bayview and Wilket. This one property is the future home of seven 3-storey townhouses as well as one single detached house. Does anyone want to do the math on the potential profit – one house for 8 units in a time where even a townhouse sells for more than a million.
Second – this sign has also appeared nearby. When I checked their website I found this description: “Located in north Toronto, The Bridle Path is synonymous with prestige and exclusive luxury. Known for its spectacular homes and refined neighbourhood character, it’s no wonder that this is the place that Toronto’s discerning elite prefer to call home. Now, on Bayview Ave. in the heart of the Bridle Path neighbourhood, Kingsmen Group is excited to introduce a new luxury townhome community that embodies the very essence of refined prestige living. Register today for more information coming soon.”
There is so much wrong with that paragraph. I wouldn’t call this part of Bayview a part of the Bridle Path neighbourhood; you might be able to make an argument that it’s on the fringes of said neighbourhood but that would be stretching it. “Prestige” and “luxury” are words that are so overused that they are almost meaningless with respect to Toronto real estate. It seems silly to compare a townhouse on Bayview with the homes on the Bridle Path but I guess that’s what sells. Actually, you could probably sell them without such a comparison!
Oh dear, I want to call this a Thursday Doors post so I’d best call it quits here. I’ve probably already strayed too far off topic! For more information on the Thursday Doors project see here.
‘The Death of a Journey V’ by Zineb Sedira,
at the Power Plant, Harbourfront,
south exterior wall facing the waterfront.
19 ft x 31 ft
This is a photograph that appears in Sedira’s ‘Shipwrecks’ series, a picture of the ‘United Malika’ that ran aground enroute to a shipping graveyard near Nouadhibou Mauritania in 2003.
Although it is part of the CONTACT photography festival, it is scheduled to remain until September.
as I walk Toronto 