apartment buildings | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘apartment buildings’

another day, another demolition

Posted: September 21, 2021 in construction, locations
Tags: apartment buildings, Canadian Dry Cleaners, demolition, Eastern Ave., fence, Lower Coxwell, McDonalds, parking meters, Queen St. East, redevelopment, rubble

McDonalds drive-thru with demolition…. yes, I’ll have fries with that.

The demolition hasn’t really started yet but the buildings are empty and the grounds interiors are being cleared out.

below: Sidewalk along Eastern Avenue, looking east towards Lower Coxwell

below: At Lower Coxwell and Eastern there is a gap in the old fence and overgrown bushes that leads to what once was a parking lot. The building in the background is one the ones being torn down.

below: There are some cool old parking meters still standing

below: The old parking lot is behind a row of businesses on Queen East

below: Looking northeast towards Queen East and Coxwell

circling Don Mills

Posted: January 29, 2021 in general Toronto
Tags: apartment buildings, construction, development, Don Mills, houses, locks, residences, school, the Donway

This post grew out of the last walk that I took with my mother. It fit the criteria of being close to her house, had a route where we didn’t double back, and was somewhere that neither of us had walked recently. Our route was The Donway, the circular road that encompasses the intersection of Don Mills Road & Lawrence Ave. We drive through it or past it frequently but as you know, the world looks different when you get out of your car.

Developed between 1952 and 1965, the suburb of Don Mills was very much a “planned community”. The history of its development is online so I am not going to dwell on that aspect. I was more interested in what it looks like now – what changes are happening there? What looks just like it did 60 years ago?

We started at the library. [As an aside, this where I had my first job. I was 15; I hated it; I lasted two months. My apologies to all librarians. ]

below: Don Mills Library. In 1956 the land was purchased at Lawrence and Donway West for a new library. It was opened in 1961 and renovated in 1994. A few years later it was added to the inventory of North York’s Modernist Architecture. You can download the brochure that lists, with pictures, the more than 200 buildings on this inventory from an ERA Architects website(but be patient!)

below: The old and the new.

below: A new playground in front of construction where the Don Mills Arena once stood.

The original Don Mills plan called for higher density inside the Donway Circle with lower density & single family homes outside the circle. These condos are withing the circle, adjacent to the “Shops at Don Mills”.

below: The old post office (postal station) building is gone too.

These new townhouses sit outside the north east quadrant of the circle.

I don’t think that anyone is going to claim that the original architecture in the area was “pretty” but these grey things are unsightly if not stupendously ugly.

below: Each of the quadrants of The Donway has a church. In the NE is Donway Baptist Church (also in the inventory of NY Modernist Architeture). The new townhouses seem to dwarf the church.

below: Don Mills Covenant United Church in the NW portion of The Donway.

below: The front of Don Mills Secondary school where many small trees have been planted. There’s at least one apple tree and one cherry tree .

below: This style of bungalow must have been very popular as tens of thousands of them were built, not just in Toronto, but in other towns and cities as well.

below: The car port, another Don Mills feature that helped make housing affordable at the time.

below: A family of raccoons has found a home in Don Mills too!

My apologies if the greyness of the photos makes you think that Don Mills is a grey kind of place. Blame the weather – there hasn’t been a lot of sun this January.

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?!

Vic Park

Posted: March 30, 2019 in locations
Tags: apartment buildings, garden, hockey sticks, hydro poles, intersection, railway, redevelopment, residences, stores, street, tracks, Victoria Park Ave., wires

Victoria Park Avenue used to be the boundary between North York and Scarborough back before the boroughs were all amalgamated into the city. As a result, it suffered a bit from being ignored by both. I started my walk at Vic Park and Eglinton in part because I have driven this route a few times but never walked it. In addition, the arrival of the LRT here will probably have an impact on the area so I wanted to see the “before” picture.

below: A blue and white City of Toronto development notice at the NE corner of Eglinton and Victoria Park. This was once the western edge of the “Golden Mile”. In the 1950’s and 1960’s there were numerous factories including a General Motors assembly plant. Commercial developments were attracted to the area such as the Golden Mile Plaza built in 1954 (and visited by Queen Elizabeth II in 1959). This notice pertains to the plans to develop a large piece of land between Victoria Park and Pharmacy Avenues with housing, retail, and parks. The new Crosstown LRT will service the area with two stops, one at Vic Park and one at Pharmacy.

The only snow on the ground when I walked north from Eglinton were the dirty piles where snow plows had dumped the snow over the winter.

below: Looking north from Craigton which is the first street north of Eglinton. There are a lot of lowrise apartment buildings in this area.

below: Community garden on the hydro right of way.

below: Sale only until Dec. 24 so hurry in…. a little late? or too early?

below: Commercial development took the form of strip malls when there was lots of space and density was low.

The first settlers in the area were mostly farmers until the late 1940’s.

below: St. Judes Anglican church was built in 1848 by the Rev William Stewart Darling and the Anglican families of the Wexford area; it is the oldest surviving Anglican church in Scarborough. A more modern church was built behind it (just out of the picture) in the mid 1950’s when the population of the neighbourhood boomed. The cemetery began as a private burial plot for the Parkin family – the infant son of Patrick and Ann, Edward, was buried here in 1932.

below: The intersection of Lawrence and Victoria Park. A bit forlorn.

below: Low rise, flat roofed townhouses. Most of the development on Victoria Park dates from the 1950’s and 1960’s.

below: Some small postwar bungalows line the street, and the side streets on the Scarborough side.

below: A railway corridor passes under Victoria Park north of Lawrence.

below: A wonderful wide W shaped roofline

below: H is for Hockey and Hockey Sticks

below: No trespassing signs on the bus shelter?

Victoria Park continues north to beyond Steeles Avenue but I didn’t get anywhere near that far! North of Ellesmere and York Mills Road it becomes much more suburban and not as interesting. It’s more of a thoroughfare and less of a city street.

scenes from our republic

Posted: March 24, 2017 in doors, graffiti and street art, old buildings, public art, windows and walls
Tags: apartment buildings, architecture, brick, bridge, buildings, carved, diamond ring, doors, mayfair, mural, old clock, patterns, people, republic of rathnelly, stone, street sign, The Avenue Diner, windows

I was out earlier this evening, venturing out to a gallery opening on Avenue Road near Dupont. It wasn’t meant to be a photo taking adventure but it was a sunny evening and rather than wait for a bus on Avenue Road, I started to walk. It didn’t take long before the camera came out (yes, I usually have it with me!). Have I walked here before?

On Avenue Road just south of St. Clair West there are quite a few older apartment buildings and most are in good shape.

below: It’s nice to see that this building is being renovated.

below: Most of the apartment buildings in the area are mid to low rise. If I remember correctly, the building on the right is the tallest (and newest?)

below: You don’t see brickwork or stone details like these on newer buildings.

below: Looking southeast, generally towards downtown, as you come down the hill on Avenue Road. The bright green and red on the left is the De Lasalle College playing field.

below: Mural along the side of the lead up to the railway bridge.
The signature is Leventhal ’96

below: Under the railway tracks. I thought that the blue tiles were a nice feature – are there other tiles like this under any other Toronto bridges?

below: The turret (steeple?) of De Lasalle College

below: One of the entrances to the Mayfair Apartments.

below: Another of the entrances (there was at least one more). The stonework is similar but the old light fixtures are still in place. In the picture above, you can see the holes where the lights once were.

below: Old wood door on Avenue Road.

below: The first signs of a republic… I had heard about the Republic of Rathnelly but I didn’t know anything about it, including its location. Back in 1967 the residents of the officially seceded from the rest of Canada, originally as a form of protest against the proposed Spadina Expressway that would have physically divided the community. The founders named their republic after Rathnelly Avenue which runs parallel to Avenue, one street to the west. Rathnelly Avenue was named after William McMaster’s birthplace of Rathnelly, Ireland. (McMaster Avenue is there too). William McMaster (1811-1887) was a founding president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce between 1867 and 1887. He was also a senator. The special street signs were designed in 2012.

below: A painted sign on the side of The Avenue Diner (at Davenport Road). It was closed when I walked by so I’ve made a note to myself to go back and see if the interior has changed much since 1944.

below: Across the street from The Avenue Diner is the Havana Coffee Bar. The old building still has a ghost ‘Tamblyn’ sign on it. To me, Tamblyns was a drug store but was it something else prior to that? I can’t read the smaller word below ‘Tamblyn’ on the building. …. A quick check and the answer is ‘no’ – Gordon Tamblyn opened his first pharmacy in 1904 and by the time he died in 1933, he had a chain of about 60 stores.

…and then I found myself in Yorkville but that’s a whole different story!

from Castle Frank to Cabbagetown

Posted: March 3, 2017 in alleys, doors, graffiti and street art, history, locations, old buildings, stores, transportation, windows and walls
Tags: angel, apartment buildings, architecture, Bloor St. East, bridge, cabbage, Castle Frank, Christmas wreath, door, flamingos, ghost sign, gothic cottage, graffiti, high rise buildings, Jesus, Mary, mural, rainbow shoelaces, religious, Ryan Dineen, station, statues, stores, street, streetcar, subway, the Daily Herald, trees, TTC, umbrellas, urban, window, winter, words, workers cottage

Another nice day, another ramble.

below: My starting point the other day was Castle Frank subway station (Bloor Street East, close to the top of Parliament Street). This station opened in 1966 although the entrance that you see in the photo was an addition that was added only a few years ago.

below: An interesting round window in the station entrance. You can see part of the window in the picture above, peaking from around the side of the tree trunk.

below: The subway “tunnel” between Sherbourne and Castle Frank stations isn’t really a tunnel at all. This view surprised me – I know that I have driven under this structure on Rosedale Valley Road. I don’t recall knowing that it was for the subway.

below: “It’s never too cold for rainbow shoelaces.” Sage advice for the winter time.

below: Graffiti under the bridge… even though I am drawn to bridges I didn’t go down the hill to investigate. That can be another blog post at another not so muddy time. This spot can be accessed from the Rekai Family Parkette which is at the SE corner of Bloor and Parliament, tucked in between Bloor and St. James Cemetery.

below: More graffiti seen from the parkette.

below: St. James Cemetery was opened in July of 1844 at a time when the population of Toronto was around 18,000 and most of them lived south of Queen Street. The cemetery would have been out in the country but now, more than 150 years later, the cemetery is in the middle of the city. There are 89,000 interments here including two of my great x 2 (or 3?) grandparents and some of their descendants (they’re not shown in the picture though!).

below: A little reminder that Christmas wasn’t all that long ago.

The fastest route from Castle Frank to Cabbagetown is straight down Parliament Street. But of course, the direct route is rarely the one that I take. The area is full of little alleys and lanes and they all call to me.

below: These animals are part of a mural painted in support of Riverdale Farm which is nearby.

below: Reading the news, many newses.

below: In Flos Williams Lane there are a number of stenciled words. “Guilty until proven rich” I first saw here a couple of years ago. I don’t walk this lane very often so I’m not sure how long ago the other sayings appeared.

below: Like most walks, there were interesting windows to be seen.

below: …and doors too. A very bright orange door!

below: But unlike most walks, there was a giant gecko or lizard.

One of the appeals of Cabbagetown is the number of older houses, many of which are heritage buildings.

below: This house was built in 1858 and its first resident was Charles MacKay, a customs official who lived here from 1858 to 1865. The infill line of townhouses behind it are a much more recent development.

below: Cabbagetown has more of these ‘workers cottages’ or ‘gothic cottages’ than anywhere else I’ve walked. This arrangement of three identical houses in a row is especially rare (but not unique, at least not yet).

below: This cottage is in the middle of another threesome but they are not identical. The yellow door on the pale blue house is a wonderful colour combination. A little bit of sunshine.

below: Even though it has been renovated and an addition added to the back, this house still retains some of its historical roots.

below: And more history… I was attracted to this building by the beautiful double doors. Once I was close to the house, I noticed the ghost sign hiding behind the tree branches. The Daily Herald is no longer but it the mark it made here remains. A mysterious mark though because I can find no record of such a publication. In fact, probably “the sign had been part of a play or film that the home’s owner was involved in and he installed the sign on an act of whimsy.” (source, bottom of page) You gotta love whimsy!

below: Whimsy you say? Bright pink flamingo whimsy in a store window. They look like they’re ready for a rainy day.

below: There were also some store windows that were a bit more serious.

below: I think that Carlton and Parliament is one of the most colourful intersections in the city and I always enjoy passing this way. This is the view if you are standing in the middle of Carlton street and looking east towards Parliament.

below: This large colourful mural on the wall of Cabbagetown Corner Convenience, NE corner of Carlton and Parliament, has become a landmark since it was painted by Ryan Dineen in 2005.

below: The 506 Carlton streetcar makes its left turn from Parliament. It’s never a quick and easy turn. In fact, it’s usually frustratingly slow.

And in case you were wondering, yes, you can find cabbages in cabbagetown. This big one is on the Cabbagetown mural on the side of the LCBO building.

And yes, there is a lot more to Cabbagetown than this…
and I will use that as an excuse to return another time!

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.