Posts Tagged ‘bus bays’

a walk on Eglinton

Posted: November 23, 2015 in general Toronto, history, locations, transportation
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The plan was to start walking westward from Eglinton subway station.

below:  The first photo I took was right after I got off a bus at the station.   With the ongoing reconstruction at Eglinton, there is now easy access to the old bus bays.  There is still a fence around them, but at least they can be seen and photographed.  These bays have not been used since 2004 and the area has been fenced off and unused since then.  Now they sit empty in the shadow of the ever increasing tall buildings around them.

abandoned bus bays at Eglinton subway station in the foreground and the newer taller buildings in the area in the background

abandoned part of Eglinton subway station, behind chain link fence

below: Looking west along Eglinton Avenue after the completion of Eglinton station in 1954.  The street running north-south just beyond the bus bays is Duplex Avenue.  There is now a police station on the SE corner of that intersection.   On the NW corner you can see the brick Toronto Hydro-Electric Building with its large front ‘door’.  It is still there.

historical black and white photo, aerial, from Yonge Street looking west along Eglinton Ave showing the bus bays at Eglinton subway station, up to Duplex Ave is shown clearly.

source: City of Toronto Archives, online

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below: (taken later in the afternoon, on the way home) The intersection of Eglinton and Duplex from west side with the brick Toronto Hydro-Electric building now between glass buildings.

looking east along Eglinton Avenue towards Yonge street with Duplex Ave in the foreground. The old Toronto Hydro-Electric building is in the picture, with a newer structure with a glass front beside it. New buildings between Duplex and Yonge on the north side of Eglinton are also in the picture.

below: After leaving Eglinton station, this caught my eye.  The glass cube-like building on the NE corner of Eglinton and Duplex reflects the afternoon sun onto the walls of the Toronto Hydro-Electric building across the street.

brick building with wavy shadows on it cast by the sun being reflected off the glass building across the street

brick building with wavy shadows on it cast by the sun being reflected off the glass building across the street

below: On Duplex, right behind this brick building is an intriguing building.  The highly textured concrete exterior and the 3D patterned wall are suggestive of the 1960s although I could be wrong.  It’s ugly yet fascinating at the same time.   Now that the leaves have fallen from the trees in front of it, the pattern of trapezoids, diamonds and rectangles is revealed…. as is the dirt and grime on the concrete.  The fact that there are no windows and doors facing the street provides a clue that this is yet another Toronto Hydro building.

Three tree with no leaves are in front of a concrete wall that is built in 3D pattern of trapezoids and rectangles. There are no windows or doors.

Somethings old

below: A sign with an old Toronto HU (Hudson) exchange phone number.  HU1 would be 481.  This number is probably from the late 1950s.  In the early days, Toronto phone numbers had only 6 digits.  In the mid 1950s a seventh digit was added and then between 1961 and 1966 the letter prefixes were phased out, replaced by numbers.

old sign on the side of an small apartment building, the Latimer Apartments, with an old Toronto phone number starting with the letters HU

below:  The Eglinton Grand, art deco building from 1936; National Historic site since 2003.

The Eglinton Grand, a cinema theatre built in art deco style in 1936.

 Somethings new

many curved and disjointed reflections of buildings in a tall glass building. Afternoon sun so there's a yellowish tint to the reflections

 And some window ‘shopping’ to do

below: Marbles wedged between glass make an excellent decorative touch.

a layer of marbles wedged into a window to look a bit like stained glass

A line of toy figurines on a window sill in the window of a restaurant

below: little Japanese wooden dolls in the window of the Sake Bar

three little Japanese wooden dolls with white hair and white kimonos standing inside a window. Reflections of the stores across the street are behind them.

below:  And even a lovebot hangs out here

a 3D concrete lovebot stands on the sidewalk beside a store as people walk by

below:  A little chuckle at this sign….

I small sign hanging over a doorway of a hot dog restaurant called Bite Me

below:  And then later I saw this.

A sign on the wall outside a store that says Bite Me More

sticker on a pole on a sidewalk. One man is kicking another, pixelated picture, with the letters X G G L on it.

Rather than wait for a bus I decided to keep walking home but unfortunately it’s that time of year when the daylight hours are just too short.   One last look at where I had just been before putting my camera away and heading home.

very late afternoon sun, as it disappears behind buildings, looking down a street, sun is reflecting off some windows, a large part of the street is in shadow, a TTC is there, with its lights on, some construction on the street, some cars,