houses | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘houses’

Changes at Broadview and Eastern

Posted: May 27, 2023 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: abandoned, animals, colours, coyote, empty, houses, luvs, Moises, mural, Nick Sweetman, pigeon, raccoon, redevelopment, spray paint, street art, vacant

This row of old two storey row houses has been vacant for years. Recently the developer that owns the properties provided a couple of Toronto artists the opportunity paint the exterior. This is the result.

If you look carefully, you can see that Nick Sweetman and Luvs (aka Moises) have painted the word CHANGE across the front of the buildings. As a theme for a mural on a redevelopment site in a city bursting at the seams with such sites, change seems very appropriate.

below: I’ve played with the colours a bit to highlight some of the letters. You should be able to see C, H, and A across this image.

But the mural is more than colour and letters. There are three animals featured here – pigeon, raccoon, and coyote – all of which have adapted to changes and now thrive in urban environments.

below: A blue pigeon

below: A pinkish marroonish reddish raccoon

below: A coyote with a dead leaf and new buds.

Funding provided by Streetcar Developments

below: The houses to the north….

Photos taken 25 May 2023

a little piece of Weston

Posted: February 5, 2023 in graffiti and street art, history, locations, old buildings, public art, stores
Tags: bicycle paintings, Bryan Bermudez, Elicser Elliott, houses, Jim Bravo, Johnny Bower, Mario Noviello, mural, Niel Yee, Pantelis Kalamaris Gardens, pedestrian bridge, Peters Barber Shop, railway tracks, residential, Rowena Kizito, sidewalk boxes, stores, Valentines, Weston Road, Weston Streetscape

This blog post is the result of a walk around the vicinity of Lawrence Avenue East and Weston Road. The latter was once Main Street in the village of Weston.

below: Approach to the Weston pedestrian bridge over the railway tracks. The Grand Trunk Railway was built here in 1856 (now Canadian National Railway, CNR).

below: Elicser Elliott’s paintings of cyclists over the years line the ramp to the bridge.

below: Looking back to the west

below: Looking south towards Weston UP station (Union Pearson Express) at Lawrence Ave.

below: A young girl outside on a sunny day in a bright and cheerful painting on a lone house. Next door is an Islamic Association and Masjid. Like so many other places in the city now, a larger and taller building fills the background.

below: Street scene and evolution – The oldest buildings are in the row of two storey commercial establishments that line Weston Road (by the traffic lights). Behind them are apartments that are a few decade old. Last, the most recent development is in the immediate foreground, right hand side.

below: Jerk Hut, Desserts, Juices, and Candy Cakes all squeezed into a little building beside (behind?) CashWay. And while you’re there, you can get your palm read upstairs.

below: Southeast corner of Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue East.

below: For all your vegan leather and faux fur needs – Honeyy dripp (I had to look it up!)

below: There is a series of pictures on these windows that was painted by Bryan Bermudez, Jim Bravo, Niel Yee, and Rowena Kizito in 2014. It depicts young people from three different eras.

below: ‘Weston Streetscape circa 1900’ by Mario Noviello, 1997-1998. Original concept by Eric Lee. A streetcar passes in front of Weston City Hall. On the right is the Central Hotel with the brick steeple of Central United Church just visible behind it.

below: Another bike

below: I think that someone is a Maple Leaf fan!

below: Peter’s Barber Shop is now on Pantelis Kalamaris Gardens. In fact, the street was named after Peter back in 2012, just after the 50th anniversary of the shop opening (which was in 1961).

below: And nearby is Johnny Bower Blvd. Bower (1924-2017) was a Toronto Maple Leaf goalie in the 1960s, a great decade for the Leafs as they won the Stanley Cup four times…. 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1967. Bower and his family lived on this street at the time.

I also saw many wonderful older brick houses, the kind that we aren’t building any more. Some of the styles were common to Toronto while some were more unique.

below: All decorated for Valentines Day.

The next blog post, ‘Out and About in Weston’, features a mural in Weston that was painted by Christiano De Araujo.

And after that is, Que Rock and Bacon in Weston, with even more murals on Lawrence Avenue East

farther west on Gerrard

Posted: February 4, 2023 in alleys, construction, graffiti and street art, locations, old buildings, reflections
Tags: alleys, cheese, Chris Perez, construction, garages, Gerrard St., graffiti, Homer Simpson, houses, laneway, murals, paste ups, redevelopment, residential building styles, row houses, slaps, stores, urban ninja squadron, vegetables, wheatpaste

A short while ago, I posted some pictures from Little India which is centered on Gerrard Street. If you travel farther west on Gerrard you come to what has become known as Chinatown East (as you approach Broadview).

below: Nappa, Chinese cabbage, and White radish,

below: Scenic Aqualium Co., Exotic Fish and Bonsai (yes it has an ‘L’).

below: Shoes, boots, and umbrellas.

below: Carrots and tomatoes

below: Pomegranates in boxes and forks on the wall

below: Aging price list

below: Old Lumberking ghost sign on the southwest corner of Logan and Gerrard

below: Broadview and Gerrard – looking east along Gerrard

below: Streetcar stop on the southwest corner of Broadview and Gerrard

below: Square and orange on top.

below: More stores – Jiahua Trading Company with its assortment of goods beside the Dai Kuang Wah Herb Market.

below: One Plus One Hair Salon, Tung Hing Bakery, and Sing Sing BBQ House – all adding to the eclectic mix of store fronts in the area.

below: House reflections

below: No more ‘Epoch Times’ in front of this store.

below: A get together of paper characters – The Incredible Raffa, Las Mujeres Vampiro, Life (that’s the one-eyed daisy), T-bonez got knifed in the back.

below: Peace, in red

below: White roses to heal with

below: Homer Simpson with 64 slices of cheese!

below: Santa Claus and a skeleton – covering more than one holiday at a time.

‘

below: Old mural street art painting in the alley (from 2016)

below: Infill – new housing being constructed in the alley

Dundas Street runs parallel to Gerrard, just a bit to the south…. and that is where you’ll find this dog sitting outside in rain or shine.

below: The Dundas Street Public School class of 2022 left their mark on the fence with their messages of love and peace.

below: As did the the class of 2021

This blog post may be getting too long so I will start to end it here with a brief survey of the older residential architecture on Gerrard and Dundas and the streets in between (for those of you who are interested in such things).

below: A semi with a shared central peak.

below: Little diamond windows

below: Details made with contrasting colours of bricks

below: Another semi detached house with a shared central peak.

below: Flat roofed houses with blues and reds.

below: Shapes – rectangles on top, rounded windows,

below: Cameras on the corner…. and a megaphone too?

And lastly, a shout out to Lamoon Thai Cafe where I stopped for a hot drink (great Thai tea!) and to get out of the rain for a few minutes.

Bayview intensification

Posted: January 21, 2023 in construction, locations, old buildings
Tags: Bayview Ave., bungalows, demolition, development notices, fence, houses, North York, residential, vacant lots

The temperatures this January have been warmer than usual but that means more grey skies and dreary weather days. I spent one of those grey afternoons in the fog on a stretch of Bayview Avenue near York Mills Road. It seemed like an appropriate time to see how many abandoned houses I could find.

Once upon a time, and not that long ago, Bayview Avenue in this part of the city was lined with large houses on big lots, often hidden behind trees. Slowly, each house is being replaced with 4 to 6 townhouses in line with a revised city plan. Toronto has many housing issues including a shortage of family homes.

below: Five years ago I posted a photo of this house in a post about empty Bayview houses. It was empty at the time too.

below: This house appeared in the same 2017 post. At that time it still had a red front door.

below: Development is rarely a quick process and things can often get convoluted – the sign on this property is for one of the newest plans – it was filed in 2022. There are websites advertising the 4 townhouses at 2621 Bayview for sale preconstruction. There is also a website that claims that 2621 Bayview is included in a block, 2617-21 Bayview that is/was for sale for $14,800,000. (MLS number C5438385).

below: This is 2019 Bayview, included in the 2017-21 block. At 14.8 million just for the land to get 11 units….. Toronto may have a shortage of units but it also has a shortage of affordable housing. What price is affordable these days? A quick search of properties for sale on Bayview shows that a vacant lot is priced above $4,000,000 (1/2 an acre) and that a newly built townhouse with 3000+ square feet is above $2,000,000.

below: Another house that has sat empty.

below: With an application filed in 2017. Five years. Is the process that slow? The city wants this intensification to happen and there doesn’t seem to be a lack of potential developers circling like vultures. Does a backlog of files that are 5, 6, or more years in the making suggest a flaw in the system somewhere?

below: Preparations for a new access road/driveway have begun where 2673 and 2675 Bayview once stood.

from Highland Creek Village to West Hill

Posted: November 20, 2022 in graffiti and street art, history, locations
Tags: Alexandra Hood, Baitul Afiyat Mosque, Highland Creek, houses, John Hood, Melville Presbyterian Church, mosque, murals, Old Kingston Road, redevelopment, Scarborough, street art, streets, Wesleyan Church, West Hill

Going east to Scarborough again…. You can find Highland Creek village at the east end of Old Kingston Road while the West Hill neighbourhood is at the other end of Old Kingston Road. This short stretch of road winds down to the Highland Creek and then back up the hill on the other side. It was bypassed when a new wider and higher bridge was built over the river.

Although this area was one of the first parts of the city that was settled, there are still lots of signs of the rural nature of the area.

There are plenty of signs of changes too…. but there are no glass and steel highrise condos being built out here (in Highland Creek) where the developments are just as likely to be single family homes.

There is a mural on the side of one of the stores, it also happens to be beside the cemetery. This is Mural 8 in the Heritage Trail by Mural Routes. “Community Spirit in Early Highland Creek, Winter 1867” the building of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It was painted in the summer of 1994 by John Hood, Alexandra Hood, and Zeb Salmaniw. For more information, see a previous blog post from 2017 Heritage Trail, mural 8

The tombstone in front of the mural is for Nelson Hawkins and his wife Susan Cornell who were married in 1877. Nelson was a farmer and he and Susan raised 6 children in the area (not all lived to adulthood).

Also in the cemetery is a plaque to commemorate the life of Cpl. Michael William Simpson (1948-1974) who died in Syria while on a UN peacekeeping mission – all nine Canadians on UN Flight 51 died that day.

below: Deer by the creek in “Creekside” designed by Emily Harrison and painted by a group of youth and local volunteers in 2014.

The Scarborough Historical Society website tells the story of William Knowles who purchased land in Highland Creek in October 1802 and moved his family from New Jersey. … “Knowles was a blacksmith and built the Township’s first smithy, making the nails for the first frame barn in Scarborough and planting one of the first orchards. His son, Daniel, kept the first store in Highland Creek, was a Commissioner for the straightening of Kingston Road in 1837 and was a prominent member of the Scarborough, Markham and Pickering Wharf Company which did an excellent business in shipping grain, timber and cord wood from Port Union to Oswego, New York and other Lake Ontario ports.”

below: Shadows on the door of St. Josephs Church. This Roman Catholic church first served the influx of Irish immigrants who started arriving at the time of potato famine in 1847. It was the first RC community in Scarborough.

The early history of these communities is dominated by families with roots in England, Scotland, and Ireland but like the rest of Toronto, it has become much more multicultural.

below: On a quiet corner in Highland Creek, Baitul Afiyat Mosque

below: And another mosque under construction in West Hill

below: A short walk through St. Margarets (Anglican) cemetery reveals a more multi-cultural side of the neighbourhood. This is just a small sample of the diversity of surnames found there.

below: Another Highland Creek mural.

below: Centennial Community Scarborough consists of the southeast corner of Scarborough and includes both Port Union and Highland Creek Village neighbourhoods.

below: This is the intersection of Kingston Road with Military Trail and Morrish Road, looking southwest towards a wide bridge over the Highland Creek. There is an entrance to Colonel Danforth Park on the other side of Kingston Road (off the left side of the photo) but getting there is very difficult. In the background, right side of photo, are hoardings. Construction has begun on two 8 storey buildings, Highland Commons.

Military Trail is a remnant of Scarborough’s first “highway built in Scarborough in 1799 by American Colonel Asa Danforth Jr. It was a highway to connect the new town of York (i.e. Toronto) to Kingston. The story is that the finished road was considered substandard and Danforth didn’t get fully paid. Or maybe it was a backlash against American entrepreneurs trying to make a quick profit in Upper Canada. Whatever the truth was, Danforth returned to the USA shortly after.

Kingston Road became Hwy 2 and was the main route to Kingston until the 401 was completed in the 1960s.

below: High And Plaza. Strip malls or strip plazas are still plentiful. There is talk of an Eglinton East LRT and many TTC express buses serve the area but cars still rule.

below: Proposal for a 9 storey building with 143 residential units plus retail at street level. City infill on major routes…. and no Greenbelt is affected.

below: Sign in the window: “This store is operated by Sovereign People on Sovereign Land. We are exercising our constitutional and inherent rights.”

below: Wine and yoga! Note the poster in the window about Metrolinx LRT plans on Ellesmere (just to the north).

below: Morningside Ave with its red bus lanes. Looking north towards Ellesmere

below: Another stretch of Morningside, closer to Kingston Road. Certainly not designed with pedestrians in mind. It’s scene like this that give credence to Scarborough’s nickname Scarberia.

below: Looking northeast at Galloway Road and Lawrence

below: Melville Presbyterian Church on Old Kingston Road. It was built in 1852.

below: Very few traces of old West Hill remain. The village got its own post office in 1879 (prior to that it was part of Highland Creek).

below: West Hill suburbia. There must be thousands of houses like these 1960s bungalows in Toronto and the GTA. This street could be in Richmond Hill, Willowdale, or Rexdale. West Hill must have had a major growth spurt in the 1960s and 1970s.

below: On the southeast corner of Morningside and Lawrence is a mural painted in 2018 by BEHIND the Lines in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Club of East Scarborough.

below: Northwest corner of Morningside and Lawrence

below: garbage overflowing. In the recent municipal elections there was a lot of talk about how something as simple as garbage collection was messed up in the city. Although it is outsourced, it has always been problematic. Bins get broken and never repaired. Bins get filled and never emptied. Now when I walk around I see how much of an issue this is.

below: Mayday SOS alert for a love emergency. Whoever scrawled this message probably had a more personal reason but I will use this image as my little prayer to the city. Do better. We can be more. The potential is there if we are willing to reach for it.

Annex alleys

Posted: October 26, 2022 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, Annex, backyards, Bagpipe Lane, Barbara Barrett Lane, bus, C Mazzulla, Christina Mazzulla, David French Lane, dog, dudeman, Elicser Elliott, emily may rose, faces, fence, garage, Harbord village, houses, lane, Leslie Phelan, magnolia, murals, raccoons, spray paint, tomo, TTC, you are here

This past Saturday’s walk started on a familiar corner, Bloor and Bathurst, but at a new place, Mallo Coffee. I don’t always mention my coffee starts and stops but not all of them have wonderfully eccentric washrooms! The wiggly strands of light were blue which gave the room an eerie blue glow.

Pre-COVID there was a proliferation of small independent coffee shops in the city. It’s nice to see that many have survived and many new ones are opening up. It’s not so nice to see the remains of those that didn’t make it.

From Bloor and Bathurst I walked generally east with a little south thrown in. Is this The Annex? or Harbord Village? Technically the quadrant to the southeast of Bloor and Bathurst is Harbord Village but I kept seeing street art referencing The Annex.

When you’ve been taking pictures in a city for more than 10 years, you end up walking the same streets and alleys. Sometimes you find yourself with identical pictures. Other times things have changed and there’s a new story to present. For this blog post there is a bit of both. Some of the murals that I saw in the lanes behind Bloor were new to me but there were many that I have blogged before. Rather than show all of the previous murals, I have linked to older posts.

below: Part of “Meet me at the Magnolias” by Leslie Phelan

below: The back part of a larger Elicser Elliott mural on the side of Dirty Bird Chicken and Waffle restaurant on Bloor Street. The full mural is featured in the blog post “feeling hungry?” from early in 2017.

Bagpipe Lane runs behind the south side of Bloor for less than a block

below: A few simple designs

below: Boris Badenov from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” – who is he trying to blow up now?!

Barbara Barrett Lane is the eastern continuation of Bagpipe Lane. This is what you see when you first enter the lane from Borden Ave.

below: Nine years ago this was part of a mural that covered the back of buildings on Bloor Street. You can see it, and other murals that were in Barbara Barrett Lane at the time, in a blog post from 2013.

There is a large mural by Elicser Elliott on Barbara Barrett Lane. I have already posted quite a few pictures of it so rather than show more of the same, here is the link to the “elicser paints people” post.

David French Lane runs south from Barbara Barrett Lane.

below: Near the north end of David French Lane is this black and white garage. It is now partially covered with ivy and vines but it too also been around since 2013. At that time many of the garages were already covered with street art but they have all been re-painted (see 2013 blog post, ‘graffiti on garages’)

below: This mural on David French is very similar to the “street scene” mural on Barbara Barrett shown above. I wish there was a signature of some sort on them!

In 2017 there was a laneway paint project, “You Are Here” on David French Lane. Once again, you can see images of most of the garages in a previous blog post.

below: Dudeman’s skulls and old TTC bus were part of that project. Route 77B was a combination of the 77 Spadina bus and the 510 Spadina streetcar; it runs from Spadina station (on Bloor) south to Queens Quay before looping and returning north.

below: A dog with a spiked collar by Christina Mazzulla.

below: A blue eyed, black haired person with a tiger and a bluebird, all at 263.

below: Emily May Rose’s now iconic raccoons. They hang out all over the city!

below: “Fat bottomed girls … You make the rocking world go ’round” Name that tune!

Farther east there is another lane but with no name (Toronto is full of nameless lanes!).

below: Glorious old textures

below: This may or not be something called Tomo

… and back to Mallo. Until next time!

around Wadsworth Park

Posted: January 1, 2022 in alleys, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, Bareket, Carleton village, garages, garden, Haenahhh, houses, Kisong Koh, Kseniya Tsoy, lane, Mediah, murals, park, Que Rock, Wadsworth Park

Just east of Old Weston Road, between St. Clair and Davenport, is Wadsworth Park. This park dates from 1934 when the city purchased the land from the Canadian National Railway.

below: The sign in Wadsworth Park gives a brief history of the park in five languages. It also provides a map of the 19 species of tree that grow here, species include London Plane, Tulip, Linden, Freeman Maple, Norway Maple, Bur Oak, Kentucky Coffee Tree, and many others.

below: Suri in grey tones while drinking, mural by Haenahhh.

below: Mediah blues on the right and a Que Rock mural on the left.

below: A closer look at the mural by Que Rock – Mother Earth, loons, and pine trees.

below: Fantasy creatures playing in a mural by Kisong Koh

below: The alley behind Carleton Village school

below: Windows on the south wall of Carleton Village school.

below: Mural by Kseniya Tsoy on a garage door. On the extreme right is a small part of a mural of a purple dog by Bareket – my apologies for not including a better photo …. especially since I now know that she was responsible for organizing the mural paintings in this alley earlier this year.

below: End of season remains of veggies (brussel sprouts?) in a patch of land between the alley and the park.

below: Beware of Portuguese dog!

More murals (and other things) in the area can be seen at the next blog post, South of Davenport.

Some of the murals in this post can also be seen in my worldwide street art blog, Carleton Village murals Toronto 2021

intersections – St. Clair and Danforth

Posted: October 30, 2021 in intersections, locations, old buildings
Tags: abandoned buildings, CLM Industries, graffiti, houses, industrial, memorials, Pinehills cemetery, railway tracks, redevelopment, Scarborough, Scarborough Church of God, Scarborough GO station, Scarborough Junction, stores

Toronto’s old industrial buildings are disappearing. So when I saw the tall brick chimneys near St. Clair and the Danforth I had to stop and take a closer look.

CLM stands for Canadian Line Materials, also known as CLM industries. It was a division of McGraw-Edison Ltd and they manufactured electrical equipment. One of their contracts was with the Canadian Government to build air raid sirens. CLM was sold in 1985 and no longer exists.

below: Back in behind, part of the parking lot has been given over to the Scarborough Community Garden.

below: In the above photo you can see the solar panels on the roof of the Scarborough Church of God that is across the street from the old CLM buildings. Construction of the church began in 1958 and it was dedicated in March 1960 as the Scarborough Junction United Church. The blue sign indicates that this is also the home of the Scarborough Grace Harvest Church (Korean).

below: Side windows on the church

below: A reminder of how diverse Toronto is – Workers rights in many languages

below: “Known as best psychic and spiritual healer in Toronto”

below: Arsenio’s Kitchen has chicken and rice for $5.99

below: Fuel stop – gas for the car and a roti for you

Just to the west, Kennedy Road crosses both St. Clair and Danforth and forms a small triangle. Immediately south of the Danforth, Kennedy goes over the railway tracks.

below: The view east from Kennedy, looking towards Scarborough GO station.

below: The view west from the bridge

below: A bit of country in the city.

below: An elephant hiding in the bushes. Any idea of what flag that might be? Trinidad and Tobago?

below: Anime-like on a bridge railing.

below: Standing on the platform at Scarborough GO station and looking east. Here the tracks split – the GO train line to Kennedy and Agincourt stations (and beyond) splits to the left and heads northward. The other tracks are the main CNR line as well as eastward GO line to Eglinton GO station

As I walked, it soon became apparent that there were a lot of commercial buildings now sitting empty. It’s becoming a bit repetitive but once again I found myself in an area that is about to undergo some profound changes.

below: An empty building waiting for demolition.

Scarborough Junction redevelopment plans involve a 26 acre plot of land adjacent to Scarborough GO station – what has become known as the Scarborough Junction Masterplan.

below: Drawing of the Masterplan. It covers a large chunk of the triangle created by the CNR tracks, Kennedy Road to the west, and St. Clair to the north. It will create about 6620 residential units in 17 buildings with the tallest tower being 48 storeys high. The CLM building is on this site (blocks C & G?). (image source: Urban Toronto).

below: View from the Scarborough GO station. At the moment, most of the land along the northwest side of the tracks is unused.

below: Outdoor seating arrangement

below: Truck for sale

below: On the southwest corner of Kennedy and St. Clair is a small plaza from the 1960s.

below: Another empty building behind a fence – Some clothes in cases all that remains of what was once a thrift store (and probably something else before that). There is a weathered sign suggesting a condo development but I haven’t been able to find anything about it (or I missed something).

below: One corner that is in no danger of being redeveloped is the northwest corner of St. Clair and Kennedy. This is Pinehills Cemetery.

It’s heart warming to see that people care enough about those who have passed away that they find ways to celebrate that person in creative ways. Insert jokes here about how we’ll all be dead before the Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup.

College – Dundas – Lansdowne

Posted: September 20, 2021 in doors, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: ads, architecture, Canadian flags, College Street, dolls, doors, Dundas Street, dystopia, graffiti, houses, Junction, Lansdowne, murals, posters, reflections, stickers, stores, streetcar, the Junction, windows

Three streets, College, Dundas, and Lansdowne, form a small triangle in the west end. The following pictures were taken on a summer day a couple of weeks ago when I was walking in and around that triangle.

below: Mural – railway bridge. Just west of here, Dundas crosses a set of tracks – the same line the services Pearson airport and points beyond.

below: Eating Dominos in the doorway

below: Small part of a freaky display of dolls and similar toys along the wood rails surrounding a sidewalk patio

below: More dolls from the same place – what does that do to one’s appetite?

below: Colourful umbrellas cover a makeshift patio on the street

below: New sidewalk on College Street with a large mural in the distance…..

below: Beanstalk mural on the side of the coin laundry on the northeast corner of College and St. Clarens. Maybe that’s Jack at the bottom… 😀

below: Orange house, northwest corner of College and St. Clarens

below: …. and an orange car, an older Porsche convertible, in an alley around the corner.

below: Lost Time

below: Reflections, TTC streetcars and the pope

below: In a convenience store window – get your keys cut here, or buy a mask, but watch out for the five deadly terms used by a woman. Fine? Go ahead!