Cliffside is an area around Kingston Road in the west side of the city and the ‘cliff’ in the name refers to the Scarborough Bluffs. The murals in this post are all on Kingston Road just west of Midland Ave. They are the result of work of Mural Routes, an organization “dedicated to the creation, development and promotion of public wall art” since 1990.
below: ‘Spooners Garage’ by Phillip Woolf, 1992. Art Spooner’s garage in Cliffside was built in 1926 (and rebuilt in 1947). The mural has two parts, each showing a different time period. They face each other.
below: … and the later version
below: ‘H.M. Schooner, Onondaga c. 1793’ by Jeff Jackson 1992. The Onondaga was built near Kingston in 1790 and it served with the Provincial Marine until 1797. It was the ship in which John Graves Simcoe and his wife Elizabeth sailed across Lake Ontario to York (now Toronto) to establish the capital of Upper Canada.
below: ‘Let’s Take a Walk on the Wildside’ by B.C. Johnson, 2016. Canadian plants and animals cover all four sides of Ikki Sushi – herons, bears, moose, beaver, and fox among the pine trees. Creeks, swamp, and waterfalls can also be seen. More of Johnson’s work can be seen at Sandown Lane Cliffside blog post
below: ‘Cliffside Golf Course’ by Dan Sawatzky, 1991. Founded by George McCordick in 1931, the Cliffside Golfcourse was south of Kingston Road and overlooked Lake Ontario. It closed in 1950. The mural is faded and partially obscured by two trees.
below: The words on the mural tell the story of the golf course.
The last two murals have appeared in a previous blog post that I wrote once upon a time when I didn’t know how many Scarborough murals there were. Even now I’ve hardly scratched the surface.
below: ‘The Half Way House’ by John Hood, 1990. The mural is at the corner of Midland Avenue & Kingston Road which is where the inn and stage coach stop was located. The building was moved to Black Creek Pioneer Village in 1965.
below: ‘The Bluffs as Viewed by Elizabeth Simcoe c. 1793’ by Risto Turunen, 1992. The story is that Elizabeth Simcoe was so impressed by the view of the cliffs she persuaded her husband, John Graves Simcoe, to name the area after Scarborough England where there are similar cliffs.
There are more murals on old Kingston Road both to the east and west of these, but that will be a story for another day.
as I walk Toronto 