construction | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘construction’

intersections – Queen and Spadina

Posted: November 20, 2024 in construction, history, old buildings, people, public art
Tags: buses, construction, hoardings, Metrolinx, Ontario line, people, Stephen Cruise, streetcars, subway

Subtitle: More Ontario Line mess

below: Spadina and Richmond…. A giant thimble (by Stephen Cruise) sits on a stack of buttons. Behind it, a building is shrouded in blue netting.

below: Blue, blue, my world is blue… walking north on Spadina under blue netting that protects the sidewalk from work being done on the southwest corner of Queen and Spadina. The whole block between Richmond and Queen is under wraps. This is a future subway station with the imaginative name of Queen-Spadina.

below: Southwest corner of Queen and Spadina

below: A look at what’s happening behind the hoardings….

below: Mcdonalds on the northwest corner is unaffected by the changes around it.

below: Looking south on Spadina with a good view of the southeast corner of the intersection with Queen West.

below: There is a lot happening in the northeast quadrant, all by Metrolinx. the yellow framework that protects and stabilizes a facade is becoming a common sight in Toronto.

below: In case you can’t remember what was on that corner, this is a photo taken back when they were laying streetcar tracks in 1912. Most recently there was a CIBC bank on the corner.

black and white photo from 1912 of brick building on the northeast corner of Queen and Spadina.

Photo taken from WIkipedia Commons, in public domain. Originally from City of Toronto Archives.

below: A couple of the old houses/stores on Queen beside the old brick building seem remarkably unchanged since 1912. (As a light grey car partially blocks the pedestrian crossing at the intersection).

below: The 510 streetcars are not running during this construction.

below: But because the buses are too wide for the streetcar lanes, the middle of Spadina is very quiet… so I can stand here and take pictures.

below: It also means that the replacement buses are now running… and competing with cars for a limited space.

below: Painting over the graffiti

below: Just north of Queen, there is a large vacant lot on Spadina. So large you can see through to Cameron Street.

below: Cameron House and other houses on Cameron Street and beyond.

above the railway tracks, at CIBC Square

Posted: November 18, 2024 in construction, locations, public art
Tags: CIBC, construction, downtown, park, poppies, railway, Roxy Paine, Royal York hotel, Scotiabank Arena, Steve Driscoll, tracks, Union station

There are so many new buildings in Toronto! One of them is the new CIBC building at 81 Bay Street which is immediately south of the railway tracks and across the street from Union Station. It is also adjacent to the new GO Bus station.

below: If you take the elevator to the 4th floor of the new CIBC building, you can access the new park. This is the view that greets you. The park extends over the railway tracks – a great use of space!

below:Looking east from the park (on a foggy morning, and with a spot of dirt on the glass fence). The trees on the right mark the spot where a strip of land separates the railway tracks from the Gardiner Expressway/Lakeshore combination. Between Yonge and Parliament there are no buildings adjacent to the tracks on the south side. That tall splotchy looking building is the Sugar Wharf Condos which, as the name suggests, are close to the Redpath Sugar property.

below: Looking north across the roof over the railway tracks. The gold building is another bank building, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada). On the right, the building that looks like there are diamond shapes in the glass, is a second CIBC tower but on the north side of the railway tracks.

below: Construction continues on the north side. It too will have a park that extends over the tracks. The two parks should merge into one once construction is completed.

below: Westward

below: In the center of the park is a large shiny metal leafless tree. This is “New Amalgam” by Roxy Paine (2022). It is 72 feet high.

below: Looking over the covered tracks at Union Station and all the ventilation system components on the roof.

below: A closer look at the nearby construction at track level (and lower).

There are also stairs on the exterior of the CIBC building that lead to the elevated park.

below: Looking south on Bay Street where Scotiabank arena takes up most of the street scene. That’s the Gardiner Expressway as it crosses Bay.

below: Through the window to the interior of CIBC where Steve Driscoll’s artwork shines brightly.

below: “A light stolen from the sun” is a collection of 12 digital prints on laminated glass. they can also be viewed from the 4th floor but access is controlled. Also, camera use will get you a nice chat with a security guy. The usual, phones are allowed but even little cameras are a no no.

below: An outpouring of red poppies is the stunning centerpiece in this Remembrance Day tribute (created by Fresh Floral Creations).

With thanks to Nancy and Merle who went exploring with me that day.

a walk around Pape station

Posted: November 6, 2024 in construction, old buildings, stores, transportation
Tags: Addis Kidan church, construction, Danforth, development, Eaton Ave., halloween, houses, Metrolinx, Ontario line, Pape, subway, TTC

Have a seat! It’s a rather warm autumn this year, isn’t it?

below: A Hallowe’en spider caught in a rather thick web. It doesn’t have much to do with Pape subway station although you might feel inclined to put “scary” and “TTC” together.

Anyhow back to the main story…. Pape station is where the existing Bloor-Danforth line is going to meet the new Ontario line.

below: Do you remember when Pape station was being renovated? Now the site is a mess again.

Pape station is a short block north of the Greektown section of Danforth.

below: Looking south on Pape towards Danforth

below: Across the street from the subway station

below: See that bright white building in the picture above? I bet that it’s not white anymore.

below: My idea was to walk around the whole site. …

below: Looking back at the Danforth and Pape intersection, north side. The white stone Royal Bank building stands on the northwest corner. Behind it, the steeple and little green dome of Holy Parish church points upward.

below: Ontario Line construction along the Danforth, northside. Metrolinx seems to have a lot of property here.

below: Any idea what this is? What is happening here?

below: I wasn’t the only one taking pictures!

below: Eaton Avenue runs parallel to Pape, just to the east.

below: Northeast corner of Danforth and Eaton

below: Eaton Ave entrance to Pape station lined with plywood hoardings. This station isn’t that old – the update was completed in 2013. I think that it is being retained but it is hard to tell from the Metrolinx website. A brand new entrance is planned for the Danforth as well (and may be very large and very grand, not quite to scale with the present neighbourhood?).

below: Houses on Eaton Ave with Metrolinx construction behind them.

This area has been serviced by the Bloor Danforth line since 1966. In general, most of the residences are single family houses, often as some form of row housing. Smaller houses with small yards seems the norm… i.e. a fairly typical East York neighbourhood.

Exploring on Pape…..

below: Working on Pape, fixing a porch (or just watching)

below: Addis Kidan Church, Greek Gospel Church..

below: Tzatziki cafe with the painting above the entrance – interior restaurant scene

below: Mixed use – once a line of single family homes, now some are businesses.

below: There is also another construction site at Sammon

below: Looking north on Pape Ave from MacPhail. There is another station under construction at Cosburn, a few more blocks north but that’s for another day. (Updated 22 June 2025 – there is now an Ontario Line – North Pape blog post)

I’ll end instead the way I began – with a little bit of Halloween to distract you from the constant noise of construction.

Good morning, Bloor west from Christie

Posted: November 2, 2024 in general Toronto
Tags: autumn, bike lanes, Bloor, Bloorcourt, Christie Pits, city, colours, construction, halloween, jode roberts, morning, October, payphones, plaques, pumpkins, stores, Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, trees, windows

On a warmer than usual late October morning….

… when the early morning sun played with the autumn leaves in Christie Pits park

Of course, late October means Halloween with pumpkins and other spooky things.

below: This guy hasn’t had his coffee yet!

As I started putting together this post, I learned that Doug Ford wants to tear up Toronto bike lanes starting with those on Bloor, Yonge, and University Ave He has named them in his latest wannabe Toronto mayor action, namely Bill 212, Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024.

Ford claims that bike lanes add to the congestion on our streets (and makes his commute to work difficult). You will note the traffic chaos here this morning! The vans on the far side are (legally) parked. I suspect that Ford once sat in a traffic jam on Bloor and noticed that cyclists were moving faster than he was.

But I don’t want to get bogged down with politics and the antics of politicians, so I will leave you with a few scenes for Bloor West (approximately) between Christie and Lansdowne. There is some Halloween, some stores, some construction, some people, some architecture, some of the usual stuff! Maybe even a few things that will take your mind off politics!

below: Bloorcourt

below: A little bit of history…. small tiles in the doorway of number876

below: Banjara parking lot payphone with its own Heritage Plaque thanks to the Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, aka Jode Roberts.

empty small telephone booth with a plaque on top

In the summer of 2015, a coin-operated telephone was installed here, replacing three long-standing Bell payphones. This payphone served hundreds of residents, offering a vital communication link. To make a call, users had to insert metal coins through a slot. However, the phone mysteriously disappeared sometime in the past year.
The coin-operated payphone was patented by American inventor William Gray in 1891. Its use peaked around 2005, with nearly half of Canadians reporting regular use and over 150,000 payphones across the country. By 2015, more than two-thirds of these payphones had been removed. As of 2021, only a few hundred functioning payphones remained in Toronto. This plaque commemorates the payphones in this parking lot and their gradual disappearance from the urban landscape.
Heritage Plaque courtesy of the Toronto Sign Reimagination Unit, 2024

below: Bloor and Brock

below: Part of a mural by Jimmy Chiale

below: Amazing! He’s a cumin being! Good things!

below: Angel Mary

below: Very large Italian flag by Vito Vesia Upholstery

below: By Dufferin station

below: Bloor & Lansdowne

below: Scrawl on a TTC bus stop pole. At first I thought that it was a biblical reference, but when I checked, I found that Daniel 5:5 is “Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote”. I doubt that has anything to do with gullible Christian hippies, right?

below: “Remember to Love! Go call your mom, say I love you and thanks!”

With thanks to Bill, Jeff, Paul, and Barry who walked with me that morning – and a shout out to the woman who said, “That’s so cute” when she learned that we were walking together. Cute?

When we tried to walk the Betty Sutherland trail

Posted: October 31, 2024 in general Toronto
Tags: construction, DOn River, East Don River, George S. Henry, Henry Mulholland, hwy 401, Lady of the Lake, Leslie Street, North York, path, ravine, redevelopment, Sheppard, trail

The best laid plans….

Tucked away on a dead end suburban street is a little park with a monument in it. A monument to a couple, Henry Mulholland and Jane Armstrong.

stone pillar about 6 feet high, with plaque, memorial for Henry Mulholland

Dedicated to the memory of Henry Mulholland and his wife Jane Armstrong. Pioneers of this district who emigrated from Ulster in 1806 and took out the original grant of four hundred acres from the crown. He fought in the War of 1812 and later returned to Ireland to induce further emigration. While returning was drowned in the wreck of the Lady of the Lake in the Straits of Belle Isle in 1833. Erected by the eight branches of their descendents, 1937.

The ‘Lady of the Lake’ sailed from Belfast on 8 April 1833. She was bound for Quebec with 233 passengers aboard – mostly immigrants. On the morning of 11th May, off the coast of Newfoundland, the ship struck an iceberg. Only a few people survived.

Jane was not with her husband on that trip, instead she was at home with her 10 surviving children, the youngest of whom, Henry Jr. was born in 1829. Two more children later died of smallpox.

Jane and Henry were married in Co. Monaghan Ireland in 1806 so they must have emigrated as newlyweds. Their first child, Mary Ann, was born in 1807.

The 400 acres that the couple were granted were Lots 14 and 15, Con 3 in East York (south of what is now Sheppard and east of what is now Leslie). They built a log house on an island in the East Don River. Fast forward a number of years, after a number of changes of ownership and many changes in the neighbourhood, Henry and Jane’s great grandson, George Stewart Henry bought the farmhouse and property at Lot 14 Con 3 (for $14,500) to bring it back into the family.

The name George S. Henry may be more familiar to some of you. There is a high school named after him, and a whole neighbourhood, Henry Farms.

The reason that I found the Mulholland cairn? It is located close to one of the entrances to the Betty Sutherland Trail, just north of the 401 highway. A few years ago I walked the south end of this trail (you can read about it here: Paths to ruin and a course, 2021). Now I wanted to walk the northern section as well.

below: An ominous sign, construction on the trail!

below: It wasn’t long before the trail ended. There were six signs to warn us. The end was at the 401 highway.

Rather than retracing our steps, we went down to the river’s edge.

The East Don River flows under the 401

We headed back north instead of south. …Over a piece of the path that had washed out in the August flooding.

below: stag horn sumac

below: pear tree

below: swamp bush sumac

below: North York General Hospital in the background.

below: The East Don River flows diagonally under the Leslie Sheppard intersection. The black and white highrise in the distance is farther north up Leslie Street.

below: Looking west along Sheppard towards railway bridge

below: Seen just outside of Leslie subway station (at Sheppard). We didn’t see any wildlife, just a lot of traffic.

Apples on the sidewalk, north side of Sheppard…. Seems to suggest that once upon a time someone lived here and planted apples.

below: Looking east

below: Teasels

below: Chinese Crab Apple tree

Now on the East Don Trail (north of Sheppard) where there is more construction. Also, a large number of new trees have been planted.

below: Strange artwork outside Canadian Tire, just west of Leslie

Getting back to “Best laid plans”….. You may have noticed that these aren’t the most recent pictures (wrong season!)…. This post was written back in early September and I thought that I had uploaded it. Ooops. Forgot.

the waterfalls of Cottage Lane

Posted: September 2, 2024 in alleys, old buildings, public art
Tags: alley, backyards, BC Johnson, construction, Cottage Lane, downtown, heron, ivy, laneway balconies, murals, redevelopment, residential, trees, waterfalls

In downtown Toronto there is a large waterfall mural painted on a brick wall – because of the bricks, the painting looks a bit more like water pouring over a dam. Still nice; still nature.

Another waterfall – a longer drop of water, this time on a door. All the murals here were painted by B. C. Johnson. There are five or six of them on different buildings, some waterfalls, and some landscapes.

below: Here a heron stands on a fallen tree beside the water. A birch trees is also on the shore. A waterfall is on the other side of the lake.

below: This building is overgrown with ivy which adds a nice touch to the scene. The door becomes a very thick tree trunk perched on a rock above the water.

below: Surprisingly, there is no puddle at the bottom of the steps (insert big smiling emoji here).

below: A real tree once grew here. I don’t think that it was a beaver that cut it down.

below: Where do you find Cottage Lane? South of Bloor, west of Yonge, then follow the signs… and the road less traveled.

I was not sure why it was named Cottage Lane since, to me, there isn’t much that is cottage-y here. The answer – there are 10 rowhouses on St. Nicholas Street that were built in 1883 and although the architectural style is ‘bay and gable’, they are referred to as the cottages of St. Nicholas Street. As you may have guesses, St. Nicholas Street backs onto this lane.

below: Looking north towards Bloor. Buildings that face Yonge Street are on the right and those on St. Nicholas Street are on the left.

Back in 2021, I posted some pictures from Sandown Lane (Cliffside, near Midland and Kingston Road) where there are many more paintings by B. C. Johnson.

Uptown Yonge as the sun goes down

Posted: June 27, 2024 in construction, locations, old buildings, people, stores
Tags: buildings, concrete, construction, Eglinton, LRT, stores, Yonge

Were you an Edmonton Oilers fan? Did you jump on that bandwagon? On the night of the 7th game of the Stanley Cup playoffs were you glued to the TV? Or are you wondering what I’m talking about?!

I usually watch hockey games now and again, especially during the playoffs but I found that watching the Edmonton-Florida series was just too stressful. Instead, these long June evenings are great for walking! A little bit of Yonge Street, Uptown Yonge, was my stomping grounds the evening of the last game.

A few scenes from Yonge between Eglinton and Sherwood, in no particular order…

below: Old and new. I like the way the evening light catches the architectural details along the rooflines.

below: Playing peek-a-boo. The new pushes from behind.

below: Seating!

below: Northwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton, Yonge- Eglinton Centre with its updated glass facade.

When the Yonge Eglinton Centre was built in 1968, Eglinton was the last station on the TTC subway line. The Y-E Centre was a large development, and was the tallest building in the neighbourhood. There was a shopping centre, a cinema, an office tower, two tall residential towers, most of which still remain. Eglinton is no longer a gateway to suburbia; it is Midtown. The Y-E Centre is just another tall building in a sea of them.

below: The new entrance to the Eglinton LRT (unopened of course) with the Canadian Tire headquarters behind. Southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton.

Lament for the Eglinton LRT. Metal fences and torn cloth. In tatters and disarray. Still not opened.

Maybe one day I will be able to walk somewhere in this city and not run into another hole in the ground. Note the usual – facades being saved, single houses that stubbornly remain.

Bus stop all tied up in knots.

below: With some paparazzi stalker vibes I’m afraid.

… Back home in time for most of the third period…. Sad to see Edmonton lose, but why is there hockey this late in June?

booming Bessarion

Posted: June 23, 2024 in construction, locations, public art
Tags: apartments, condos, construction, Demakersvan, development, Ethennonnhawahstihnen, Inges Idee, Jax, Joep and Jeroen Verhoeven, Leaping Lamp, park, Pierre Poussin, subway, TTC

Bessarion subway station has always had the reputation of being one of the least used stations in Toronto. I haven’t seen any recent numbers, but I suspect that a lot more people are now using the station. There are a lot of development changes happening in the area so the numbers will only increase in the future.

below: South entrance to Bessarion station

below: A Stop sign sits in the middle of one of the entrances to the new development on Sheppard Ave East beside Bessarion subway station. If you follow the left fork in the road, you will end up in the parking lot of the Canadian Tire store. This store is all that is left from the original 50 acre site that was home to a Canadian Tire warehouse and distribution centre. In 2000 Canadian Tire filed a plan to re-develop the whole site, including a new head office tower for the company. Although the plan was approved, it never came to be. Instead, most of the land was sold to Concord who is now in the process of redeveloping it.

below: Concord has filled this community with a lot of public art including these colourful creations, “Jax” (2021) by Pierre Poussin

below: A few maple leaves forming a canopy – “Maple Leaf Trellis” by Demakersvan (aka brothers Joep and Jeroen Verhoeven)

below: Leaping Lamp by Inges Idee (a German artist collective)

below: There is also a rabbit (title: “Rabbit”), another artwork by Inges Idee. It’s made to look like a folded ribbon of highway; it sits next to the 401 highway.

below: Birds hanging out together between Bessarion station and the new community centre. They won’t be flying anywhere any time soon!

below: A small bird, a continuation of the tree full of birds, sits outside Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Centre (it’s pronounced Etta-nonna wasti-nuh and it means ‘where they had a good, beautiful life”)

below: Real trees ready to plant.

below: A line of towers with row houses on the lower level marks the south side. The 401 highway is behind. A new park, also Ethennonnhawahstihnen’, lies in front of the new residences.

below: Water feature in the summer, outdoor skating rink in the winter

below: The view from the southeast corner of the property – the back of IKEA and the 401!

below: At least there have been a lot of trees planted back here and some thought has been put into using the landscaping to mitigate the noise from the 401. But the fact that thousands of cars and trucks pass her every day can never be downplayed. I hope that the units are well sound proofed. Having stood on balconies on other buildings that overlook a major road, I can imagine how noisy it is here too.

below: Looking southeast from Burbank

below: South side of Sheppard

below: The north side of Sheppard Ave looks like this – a row of lowrise apartment buildings from the 1960s or 1970s.

below: There are 2 major redevelopments proposed along here, 680-688 Sheppard and 690-720 Sheppard. Both involve condo towers.

Just west of Bessarion station is Greenbriar Road. There was a small community of single family homes, duplexes, and small apartment buildings back here. Almost all of it is gone or on the way out

below: A single, lonely, holdout surrounded by newer residences.

below: No sign?!

below: Southeast corner of Sheppard and Greenbriar (12 storeys, 145 residences)

below: There is a development notice sign on the front yard of 25 Greenbriar (23, 25, 27 and 29 to be replaced with 10 storeys, 169 residences).

below: A little farther south on Greenbriar the fences are already up (22-36 Greenbriar, 24 storeys, 351 residences).

Extra note: The northeast corner of the old Canadian Tire acreage, at 1181 Sheppard Ave East, remains undeveloped. It is the last piece once owned by Canadian Tire. It is adjacent to the Metrolinx rail corridor, about 100 m from the new Oriole GO station. [ed note: Prime real estate by the sound of it!]. Two towers will probably get built here, once the heights are finalized.

another bridge is open – Port Lands again

Posted: June 17, 2024 in construction, locations, public art, transportation, waterfront
Tags: beach, bridges, Cherry Street, Commissioners Street, construction, Leslie Lookout Park, Munition Street, parks, photography, Port Lands, Port of Toronto, redevelopment, Ship Channel, Toronto Harbour, Toronto skyline, Vid Ingelevics, waterfront

Welcome back! Bienvenuti! A colourful sign to welcome you and visitors to Toronto. I’m not sure how many visitors get to see this banner!

The Port of Toronto has almost become an obscure corner of the city. It’s certainly not where most tourists arrive in the city! Nor is it a place where residents venture.

below: Once there was a ferry between Toronto and Rochester that docked here but it didn’t last long. Now there are a few cruise ships that stop here. The building would be almost deserted if Netflix hadn’t taken over some of the space.

below: The fragments of railway track are reminders of the industrial past.

below: There are bits of track scattered all over the Port Lands

below: The Port is much quieter but there is still activity. These long metal bars that are neatly stacked on shore were probably recently offloaded.

below: Boats in the Ship Channel. The redevelopment plan for the Port Lands has always included the retention of the Ship Channel. The sand and salt for Toronto’s roads is delivered here.

below: At the east end of the Ship Channel, a new park is being developed – Leslie Lookout Park. The concrete cylindrical structure is a lookout tower so there will be views over a man-made beach (that appears white in the photo). The beach is larger in real life than it looks like in the photo.

below: Can you see the little sliver of blue water? That is the Ship Channel.

below: Looking south on Munitions Street

below: Toronto Firehall, Station 30, built in 1928 still stands. It is a heritage building and if the plans are followed, it will be repurposed.

below: The redevelopment of the Port Lands has involved a lot of infrastructure changes. Roads have been changed, rivers have been diverted, bike lanes and better sidewalks have been created. At times it has been confusing to navigate through.

below: The new Commissioners Street bridge is in, and there is water running under it. There is now a river on land that was once industrial. On the north side of the bridge there is a bike lane and a wide sidewalk.

below: The bridge offers new vistas of the city. Many new trees have been planted.

below: Lakeshore Blvd crosses the Don River on a very low bridge (like before) while the ramps between the Gardiner and the DVP curve above it.

below: Just be careful because there is no sidewalk on the south side (why not?? for the sake of saving money on 4 extra feet??)

below: The same sleek curvy design seen in the previous bridges is repeated here.

below: Another series of photographs of the work being done here, by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker

below: One photograph is mounted on the roll-up door of one of the ESSROC cement plant silos

below: Like the previous series of images, most of the photographs are displayed down the center of what remains of Villiers Street, on top of the remains of the old railway line.

below: One more photograph on what remains of Villiers Street – and in the background, what remains of the eastern end of the Gardiner Expressway.

below: Southeast corner of Villiers and Cherry

below: One original bridge remains, the one with the long name – Cherry Street Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge.

below: The first of the new bridges that was actually operational is the south Cherry Street bridge, the yellow one.

below: The second new bridge on Cherry Street is now in use. For months we’ve been able to take pictures of the side of it as we stood on the old Cherry Street bridge. (see The New Cherry Street Bridge from Nov 2020). Maybe one day in the future there will be a streetcar on the east part of the bridge. As you can see, the rain came and we bailed. Better pictures of the bridge will have to wait for a future post!

below: The old Cherry Street bridge is gone and the road has been rerouted. The old jog in Cherry at Lakeshore is gone.

below: Misdirection.

below: Trying to see the new bridge from the site of the old bridge but there seems to be a construction site in the way.

below: Continuing north on the now straight Cherry Street. Any ideas what that white structure is ahead? It runs parallel to the railway line at track level and crosses Cherry Street just south of the railway underpass.

We now exit the Port Lands and finish today’s explorations…. with the exception of one quick note…. I noticed that the old Canary Diner on Cherry is now painted a reddish orange colour. It looks like it is being renovated. A story for another day!

to Bloor and west on Bathurst

Posted: May 18, 2024 in construction, intersections, locations
Tags: Alternative Thinking, bathurst, Bloor, construction, dragon, hot dogs, houses, infill housing, Iran freedom mural, Korean restaurants, Koreatown, lilacs, Markham Street, Mirvish village, murals, redevelopment, residential, spring, workmen

below: Medallion embedded in the sidewalk outside Bathurst subway station entrance showing the way – South to Bloor and west to Bathurst is first on list for today. … Or maybe round and round in circles?

below: Looking south on Bathurst towards Bloor. The southwest corner of Bloor and Bathurst is now a solid block of condos.

below: Same collection of buildings but from a slightly different angle. Giant concrete pillars in front of ground level glass wall. Argh. Unoriginal Toronto architecture.

below: Working at heights. It looks like road access from Bathurst towards Markham Street. More concrete pillars!

below: Alternative Thinking and its neighbour directly to the south remained the holdouts and are now completely surrounded by new development.

below: Around the corner on Bloor near Markham. The sidewalk in this stretch has been widened with benches and planters added.

below: Honest Eds is long gone.

below: Work continues on the re-making of Markham Street.

below: Ed’s Mercantile Store & Studio. Vintage and Handmade Goods – it’s not exactly Honest Ed’s but it was at least worth a smile and a chuckle (and a photo!)

below: Stop. Stop building.

below: From Palmerston, the new condos rise up behind.

below: Spring! Lilacs in abundance in front of an old brick house with fabulous balcony space.

below: One block south of Bloor is Lennox

below: There is a lane that runs north from Lennox that ends behind the stores on Bloor. The old buildings are dwarfed by the newer condos.

below: Same alley, new infill housing

below: This isn’t the exact view from that lovely infill house, but it’s close.

below: Still in the alley trying to get a good view of what’s happening on the site… Some of the old houses on Markham have been kept (or at least their facades).

below: Bloor Street from Markham Street west to just beyond Christie is part of the Koreatown BIA which suggests a preponderance of Korean businesses.

below: Businesses like Seoul Hot Dog, Mummy Korean Restaurant, and Mapo Korean BBQ.

below: Korean Village Restaurant

below: Imagine Your Korea mural (in 2 photos)

below: A green dragon breathes fire outside Chung Chun Rice Hot Dog in a mural by Allan Render, John Norbrega, and Stacey Kinder (Blinc Studios), 2019.