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Posts Tagged ‘bridge’

opened! – the first new Port Lands bridge

Posted: October 7, 2022 in construction, locations, transportation, waterfront
Tags: bridge, Cherry Street, CN Tower, Commissioners Street, construction, Lake Ontario, Port Lands, redevelopment, reflections, streets, traffic, traffic lights, trucks, water

The middle of three new bridges built for the Port Lands redevelopment has just been opened to traffic.

The bridge may be open to traffic, but the area is still a construction zone!

Eventually Cherry Street will be realigned so that there is no jog in it at Lakeshore. At this point in time, the south part of the realignment is closer to completion. This is where the new bridge is.

Commissioners Street has been extended westward to join the new segment of Cherry Street.

below: This is the east intersection of Commissioners and Cherry (looking east). Yes, it’s a mess! There are traffic signals even though only two of the four approaches are open. If you are traveling south on Cherry, you have to turn right onto Commissioners.

below: Same intersection, looking west.

below: New part of Commissioners Street

below: The west part of Commissioners ends here

below: If you stand in the same place as the above photo but turn to your right, this is the view that you see. This is the new part of Cherry Street being realigned to match the section north of Lakeshore Blvd. The new bridges over the Keating Channel are in place but there is still a lot to be done before this part of Cherry Street can be opened.

below: Looking south… It is the middle bridge that has been opened to traffic first. It is located approximately where the T ‘n T grocery store used to be. An interesting line of large boulders!

below: This is the view from the new bridge looking west. The large white crane structure predates the construction. The channel has always been here as it provides water/ship access to the Lafarge cement site on the south side of the waterway. What is new is that the channel is being extended eastward to join the mouth of the Don River.

below: Traveling northbound

below: Looking east from the bridge. Pinewood studios in the background on the right.

below: Another view to the east but slightly more south. This time Pinewood Studios is more to the left in the photo. A pedestrian bridge is already built to span the new water channel that is under construction.

below: Looking north up Cherry Street towards the Distillery District. The old, and now closed part, of the street is being torn up. The new street and bridge are to the left in this photo.

below: To the south, the lift bridge on Cherry Street is being refurbished but not replaced. This part of Cherry Street is not being moved.

Spirit Stories under Old Mill

Posted: July 15, 2022 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: animals, Anishnaabe, bridge, First Nations, fish, Humber River, Jarus, kwest, murals, Nodjmowin Miskogayaashk, Old Mill subway station, origin story, Philip Cote, Spirit, Underworld, universe

The TTC subway tracks cross above the Humber River at Old Mill station. The concrete pillars that support the subway bridge have been covered with many watery blue First Nations themed murals.

below: The artist, Philip Cote, described the story behind this image on the ArtworxTO website (see link); like all cultures, the Anishinaabe have an origin story. In the beginning there was just Spirit. “And that spirit decided to send signals out into the universe and waited for a response. And when no response happened that spirit called the signals back and said, “As you come back to me, create light in the universe”. And at that moment they had light and dark in the universe. And that is the beginning of the Anishinaabe cosmology. Everything for Anishinaabe is made of light and dark. Everything we look at has a spirit, everything, the ground, the rocks, the sand, the trees, the birds, the plants, everything is… and even our sun and our Mother Earth and the moon, they all have a spirit.”

connecting with the spirit, beginning of the universe, philip cote mural, old mill subway station bridge

connecting with thousands of galaxies in the universe

The blues of the water, the Humber River, were painted by Kwest. Water is the Underworld in Ahishinaabe cosmology and the Guardians of this Underworld are the fish. Another artist, Jarus aka (Emmanuel Jarus), painted the fish.

Most of the paintings have a well defined circle. This is the boundary between water and earth, between the spirit world and the physical world. But there are connections between the two worlds – all living things are connected and we are all connected to the Spirit World.

These pictures also appear on another blog, Eyes on the Streets

those big teeth…

Posted: March 5, 2022 in locations, nature, public art
Tags: big teeth, bridge, canoes, DVP, elevated sculptures, Forks of the Don, Labspace Studio, Lower Don Trail, Noel Harding, Passage, Taylor Massey Creek, water filtration, wetlands

…at the Forks of the Don

If you’ve driven on the Don Valley Parkway you’ve probably seen them, the big grey structures that look like teeth. They are just south of Don Mills Road, on both sides of the DVP. Over the years, the trees and shrubs have been growing around them so they don’t stand out as much as they did when they were first installed in 1998.

below: On the west side of the Parkway

The structures were designed by Noel Harding (1945-2016) and are constructed out of recycled polystyrene and acrylic. Financing was provided by a group from the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.

Their purpose is to help purify polluted water from the Don River watershed.

below: On the west side, the third planter stands alone, looking a bit like the back end of an elephant.

below: The three concrete structures form a line on the east side of the DVP.

They can be accessed by following the trail that goes under the highway and follows Taylor Massey Creek. If you follow this route, you end up walking generally east and you can walk for miles through the ravine system that runs under O’Connor Drive, through Taylor Creek Park and on to Warden Woods Park.

Forks of the Don – where rivers come together, trails go in all directions, and even the railway passes through.

below: Stairs up to Don Mills Road and Gateway Blvd,

below: Or take the ramp that passes under Don Mills Road beside the tracks.

below: Looking southbound towards Union Station.

below: From here the tracks follow the Don Valley east and then north. They pass under Don Mills Road once more, just south of York Mills Road, before heading to Oriole GO station.

below: This part of the Lower Don Trail really is a nexus, or hub, in the ravine path system. Trails also lead northwest to the Science Center and Wilket Creek Park.

below: Choose kindness

below: “Passage”, an art installation by Labspace Studio under the Don Mills Bridge – part of the PanAm Path project.

below: Southward on the Lower Don Trail where you can walk all the way to Lake Ontario.

below: If you are interested, this is a map of the PanAm Path, one of the projects from when the PanAm games were hosted here in Toronto in 2015. The Forks of the Don is in the center by the pink X. Something to consider exploring in the spring!?

*****

“The elevated wetlands are functional sculptures, symbols of the integration of the plastics industry, art and environmental stewardship. The sculptures were developed through a partnership between the City of Toronto, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, and artist Noel Harding.”

“The sculptures draw attention to the importance of wetlands as an ecosystem. A solar powered pump lifts water from the Don River into a series of raised “planters” where native wetland plants and trees naturally remove pollutants from the water. Recycled plastics are used as soil substitute to promote vegetative growth. From the smallest container, water is emptied into a natural land based wetland, and flows back in to the Don River. The surrounding area has been naturalized through volunteer tree plantings to create a natural buffer between the sculptures and the Don Valley Parkway. “

Commissioners to the Gardiner

Posted: September 24, 2021 in construction, locations
Tags: bridge, Commissioners Road, construction, cranes, DOn River, fence, Gardiner, Gardiner Expressway, Port Lands, skyline, trucks

more changes, more demolition

From Leslie to Cherry, Commissioners Street runs through the middle of the Port Lands, or at least it used to. The re-making of the mouth of the Don River involves a new waterway that cuts Commissioners into two sections. This blog post is a quick look at the east side.

below: TTC streetcar leaving Leslie Barns at Leslie and Commissioners- celebrating 100 years.

below: There are a lot of cement mixers in the area!

below: Canada Post has a large presence in the area too. A series of images of stamps featuring Canadian birds, such as this black-capped chickadee, decorate the exterior wall of one of their buildings.

below: Portlands Energy Center on the other side of the Shipping Channel. This is natural gas powered electricity generating facility. It also has a steam turbine generator that allows it to make electricity using steam from waste heat.

below: Commissioners Street now ends at Saulter

below: The new bridge has been delivered and sits at the western end of Commissioners, on the other side of the gap. Soon(?) that gap will be part of the new route of the Don River.

below: Looking north on Saulter Street towards Villiers Street. Metal beams from the Gardiner are being lowered to the ground.

below: New utility poles on Saulter, with another view of the Gardiner demolition.

below: Saturday traffic on Villiers. The Lakeshore is closed on the weekends to facilitate the dismantling of the Gardiner. Yes, it does cause traffic issues and confusion!

below: Looking north on Don Roadway from Villiers

below: Some of the concrete bents from the Gardiner still stand as does the curved elevated ramp from the Gardiner to the DVP.

below: An abrupt end

below: Crane demolishing a concrete bent beside the Keating Channel.

below: An older photo from 2015 showing the Gardiner Expressway on the north shore of the Keating Channel with the Lakeshore below. The yellow crane in the image above is close to where the blue barge is in this picture (but on the shore side!). The supports for the Gardiner over the mouth of the Don River are metal (the greenish coloured two on the right side of this photo), not concrete like the others. These metal supports is at the right edge of the photo above.

from 2015, photo of Gardiner along the north shore of the Keating channel

photo taken in 2015

below: When the steel beams are removed, they are first trimmed and cut in half.

below: They are then hauled away to another site where they are cut down even more.

below: Standing in the middle of Lakeshore Blvd and looking west. Remains of the Gardiner.

below: Side view, Lakeshore with remnants of the Gardiner rising up beside. Soon to be gone.

Nordheimer ravine – paint and paper

Posted: July 10, 2021 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: ACAB, black lives matter, BLM, bridge, Bruho, graffiti, I can't breathe, life_inthestreets, mural, names, No Justice, Nordheimer Ravine, path, question, ravine, Spadina Road, trp613, Winston Churchill Park, woman, words

below: M is for Mural and probably more. One of the pieces of street art and graffiti seed under Spadina Road as it crosses Nordheimer Ravine.

below: A closer view with God & Love and many little hearts.

below: A little black and white dog stands beside another part of the bridge

below: Black Lives Matter mural under the bridge with the now iconic phrases of “I can’t breathe” and “No Justice, No Peace”.

below: A closer view showing some of the names that are painted on the wall.

below: Home to someone, surrounded by graffiti – including “You are what you give others”

below: Some of the stickers seen in the area – an S333 red ring pop and Lucha graffiti. Life© takes first place with trp613 in second, and Bruho coming in third. Another Bruho character tries to escape the computer monitor with red and blue Kizmet32 faces right below. Every Knows Us as a man in a gas mask.

below: A mouse and a lost creature

below: Black and white photos with Chinese lettering make up this paper paste-up

below: Pink and white text

Bloor over Rosedale Valley

Posted: May 26, 2021 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: Bloor East, bridge, concrete, girders, path, Rosedale Valley Road, trash, trees

Bloor Street East passes high above Rosedale Valley Road. There is access from the southeast corner of Bloor and Parliament to a path that leads down into the valley but it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t connect to any other ravine trails. These photos were taken early in April before there were leaves on the trees, and before anyone cleaned it up.

below: St. James cemetery

below: The covered bridge for the subway (built 1966) runs parallel.

below: No vaccine passports

Gerrard underpass – hands and water

Posted: May 17, 2021 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: bridge, Bridges to Art, Carlaw, Elicser, faucet, Gerrard East, hands, intersection, murals, octopus, railway, Ryan Smeeton, tap, water, windmill

In many places in Toronto, railway lines run diagonally through the city’s grid of streets and avenues. Often, they cross the streets near intersections including at Carlaw and Gerrard East. The result is an intersection with two underpasses.

The mural on Gerrard East was updated and added to recently that I remarked on that I noted in a previous post, East on the 506. Kirsten McCrea was the artist.

below: The southeast corner of Gerrard and Carlaw is angled. In “East on the 506” I described the art on this wall as: “In the center of the newly painted rectangles are two grey shapes, these are originals. They are part of a 1996 installation by Dereck Revington called ‘Blue Fire’. There is still a plaque that describes these aluminum pieces as “a constellation of five paired aluminum fragments etched with traces of a poem by Robin Blaser and suspended from the entrances to the underpass”.

The overpass on the Carlaw side has now been painted too. The following pictures were taken back in November.

below: Hands beckon and point the way under the railway tracks on the west side of Carlaw, from the north

below: And from the south

below: Under the bridge

below: A blue octopus in the water

At the southeast corner of Gerrard and Carlaw there is a small park. The retaining wall of the railway tracks marks one of the boundaries of the park and is continuous with the walls of the underpasses. It too was painted by Ryan Smeeton but with the help of Elicsr, Smug, Tenser, and Steam.

the new Cherry Street bridge

Posted: November 13, 2020 in construction, locations, public art
Tags: bridge, Cherry Street bridge, Commissioners Street, construction, CONTACT, demolition, dirt, ESSROC, Framework, photography, Port Lands, Ryan Walker, silos, soil, spike, tbonez, urban ninja squadron, Vid Ingelevis

The latest attraction is the new Cherry Street bridge pictured here just after its arrival by barge from Nova Scotia where it was manufactured by Cherubini Group. It’s a shiny white steel bridge with a red racing stripe. It is 57 metres long and wide enough to carry LRT tracks and a pedestrian walkway. Another identical bridge to go beside it for road traffic comes later.

below: Digging up the city. Sometimes it seems like we are living in one big construction zone.

The bridge is not the only “sight” at the Port Lands. There is also a photography exhibit of pictures taken of the buildings before they were demolished. ‘Framework’ by Vid Ingelevis and Ryan Walker. This is part of the CONTACT Photography Festival that was originally scheduled for May.

below: Interior, 130 Commissioners Street (Coopers Iron and Metal, an old metal recycling facility). The photograph is mounted on the roll-up door of one of the ESSROC cement plant silos – now a heritage site.

below: Cleaning the streets. The ESSROC silos dominate the streetscape here on Cherry Street (looking north towards the condos in the Distillery District).

below: The back of one of the few remaining buildings as seen from Cherry Street. It fronts onto Munitions Street.

below: Cherry Street bascule bridge in the upright position. Most of the Framework exhibit is down the center of Villiers Street on top of the remains of the old railway line. There are five panels like this one, each with a picture on both sides.

below: Most of the Port Lands redevelopment is occurring behind fences.

below: A very large spike!

below: 130 Commissioners Street, September 2019

below: Abandoned gas station with its rusting gas pump.

below: 99 Commissioners Street, July 2019

below: 97 Commissioners Street, August 2019

below: Commissioners Street closed to traffic.

below: Control room, Cherry Street bridge, July 2019

below: 130 Commissioners Street, September 2019

below: An old Urban ninja squadron sticker on a TTC bus stop sign

below: Dump truck on Villiers Street

Later: Just before sunset, the new bridge in the Keating Channel. It has since been rotated ninety degrees into the proper alignment for the new segment of Cherry Street. This job was made it easy by the fact that the bridge was mounted on a large turntable on the barge. It now has to be welded into place. The old bastule (lift) bridge now in place is slated for demolition in late 2021.

‘Framework’ will be on display until August 2021.

Finch and Morningside

Posted: November 7, 2020 in graffiti and street art, intersections, locations
Tags: bear, bridge, bus, Canadian Pacific, engine, Finch Ave., Interoh Gale, kids, Lacey and Layla, Lacey Jane, Layla Folkmann, Malvern, Malvern Family Resource Centre, maple leaf, Mediah, MFRC, Morningside Heights, mural, mural routes, Scarborough, skate board, train, TTC, underpass

I heard that there was a new mural near Finch and Morningside which of course means that I have to try and find it. In doing so, I found three murals. This is their story.

This is Morningside Heights at the far eastern side of Scarborough. The Rouge River, the border between Scarborough and Pickering, is not far away. The Toronto Zoo is also nearby.

below: Bus 133, Neilson Road, waits at a stop on Finch just west of Morningside. The houses that you see in the background are on Morningside.

The Canadian Pacific railway tracks run on a diagonal at this intersection. They cross Morningside south of Finch and they also cross Finch just west of Morningside. The bridges, and underpasses, are very close to each other. In this photo, the train is on the bridge over Finch. Do people often stand outside the front of a train?

In the above picture, the wall of the underpass on the left is unpainted. The wall on the right, the one that you can’t see has a mural by Mediah.

It is called “Interoh Gale” and Mural Routes was a partner in its development last year.

below: west end

below: east end

below: Construction has begun on the southwest corner of this intersection. The site plan, approved last year, shows a Shell gas station with retail on three sides of it. Leases are available! (you’ll have to google it).

below: There is a pond with a walking trail around it almost directly across Morningside from the above construction site.

below: Two people, after being on the trail around the pond, walk south on Morningside via an underpass that has murals on both sides. This is mural on the east side. It is older than the others but it is in reasonably good shape.

below: A boy on a skate board and a girl doing what? The two green signs say Love and Malvern. I don’t know Scarborough well enough to know if the buildings in the mural represent real ones. Malvern is just to the west.

below: MFRC is Malvern Family Resource Centre and there is a picture on their website of the unveiling of this mural in September 2015.

below: This is the newest mural. It is called “Colour Outside the Lines” and it is the work of Lacey and Layla Art (aka Lacey Jane and Layla Folkmann)

below: Looking north on Morningside from Finch.

On the northwest corner of this intersection, there is a large piece of vacant land. The railway tracks run along the west side of it. I can’t find any information about it online. There isn’t the usual blue and white Notice of Development sign. The website on the billboard shows some of the houses that they have built/remodeled but there is nothing about this particular project.

Once it was fenced in by the looks of it. Not much of the black cloth remains. It looks a bit creepy, as nature undoes man’s work.

But now it’s for sale maybe? LOL. A cliff hanger ending for this post!

From Charles Sauriol southward

Posted: October 27, 2020 in history, nature, old buildings
Tags: arch, Arnaud Boutle, autumn, bridge, Charles Sauriol, chickadee, colours, construction, creek, East Don, fish, High Water Mark, Milne Hollow, park, path, railway bridge, ravine, river, Robert Sprachman, trees, tunnels

Back in the early spring of 2019, I wrote about accessing the East Don path from Moccasin Trail.

below: Last week, the view from the east side of the tunnel under the DVP leading to Moccasin Trail Park.

Now, in a different year and a different season, I have explored more of that trail starting at the north end, near Lawrence Avenue and the Don Valley Parkway (DVP). Originally, Lawrence Avenue curved south down the east side of the ravine before it crossed the Don River. The remains of part of that road provide access to the East Don path at Charles Sauriol Conservation Area. Sauriol (1904-1995) was a Canadian naturalist who played a leading role in conserving many natural areas in the province including the Don Valley.

Here, the Alexander Milne family first settled in 1832. Over time, a woolen mill and a sawmill were built, other families moved in, and the village of Milneford Mills was born; it thrived until the early 1900’s. The old woolen mill remained derelict until it was demolished in 1946. Between Hurricane Hazel floods in 1954, and the expropriation of land to make way for the DVP construction, most traces of the village have disappeared.

below: All that remains is one house. It’s been behind chainlink and “under renovation” for MANY years. When I went searching for any kind of story about this house, I discovered a blog post from 2011 about Charles Sauriol Park and the house was fenced in then. Apparently it was covered in graffiti back in 2008/9. I’m not sure that Mr. Sauriol would be impressed.

below: The Rainbow Bridge from the north side.

below: The trail passes underneath the Canadian Pacific (CP) tracks.

below: Footings for the CP bridge

below: As the trail crosses land owned by CP Rail, it is covered by a metal frame canopy. It’s difficult to see in this photo but there is a series of small laser-cut metal artworks between the grey railings. The whole structure is “A Walk in the Woods” and it is the creation of both Robert Sprachman and Arnaud Boutle.

below: Farther down the trail is another railway bridge. This is the same line that goes north to Oriole GO station and beyond. The scaffolding under the bridge is for the construction of another canopy similar to one under the CP bridge (above) as well as an art installation.

below: Part of art installation “High Water Mark” by Robert Sprachman that is almost complete. There are 15 rocks each with a year on them. The height of the rock on a metal pole represents the height of the flood water on the Don River that year (but is not an exact height). There are four rocks in this picture and from left to right are 1926, 1934, 1942, and obscured (the last is behind the wood. Ooops).

below: Oak leaves

below: Backs of houses overlooking the park

below: A chickadee holding onto a dead flower as it eats the seeds.

below: Fish. Yes there are fish in the Don River, about 21 species apparently. This one, salmon?, although large is unfortunately also dead. Over the past 30 years the Don River has received a lot of TLC which has helped to reduce the level of industrial pollution as well as the amount of litter and trash found along the banks.

below: We were told “It’s not the best time” when we asked if we could continue on the trail. South of here the trail is a construction zone. Eventually (soon? I may have visited a little too soon?) the path will join with those farther south so that there will be a continuous trail from Lawrence to the lake. In the meantime, this is Wynford. You can exit here, or retrace your steps back to Lawrence. Next time!

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