Port Lands | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘Port Lands’

Villiers Street with images

Posted: May 3, 2023 in construction, locations, public art, waterfront
Tags: chain, fence, images, locks, oil drums, photography, Port Lands, redevelopment, Ryan Walker, silos, Vid Ingelevics, Villiers Street

Part of Port Lands redevelopment.

Almost a year ago, a number of photos of the Port Lands work were installed along Villiers Street, “How to Build a River”. This is at least the second exhibit by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker in this location. The prior set of images can be seen in a post from 2020, “the new Cherry Street bridge“. It was part of the Contact Photography Festival for 2022. I realize that it is now 2023 but I had forgotten about this exhibit until last week when I was walking in the area.

Here are some of the photos along with a few other details seen on Villiers Street.

below: “Sand and Charcoal”

below: “Stratified River Ingredients”

below: Meander

below: Eastward on Villiers Street

below: Crib Wall 3

below: “Layering Membrane”

below: “Transplanting #1”

below: “Transplanting #2”

You might not be able to see these images any more. It is now May 2023 and there is another Contact Photography Festival that has just begun. Ingelevics and Walker have a newer exhibit planned which was scheduled to be installed for the 1st of May. Chances are this newer exhibit will stick around for a while too!

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.

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.

north of the Keating Channel

Posted: March 10, 2021 in history, locations, old buildings, transportation, waterfront
Tags: British American Oil, concrete, DVP, electricity, Gardiner Expressway, history, Keating channel, Lakeshore Blvd., pipes, Port Lands, ramp, street art, water

The other day, later in the afternoon, I was driving along the Lakeshore when I noticed that perfect lighting on the south side of the Keating Channel. I’ve done blog posts about the Port Lands development but I hadn’t looked at it from the other side. A quick change of plans – a parking spot nearby and a walk along the Lakeshore. This is some of what I saw that day.

below: At the bottom of Cherry Street

below: At the corner of Cherry and Lakeshore.

below: Along the Lakeshore, looking south towards Port Lands at Cherry.

below: The Gardiner curves slightly northward as it aligns with the Keating Channel. Lakeshore Blvd takes a wider turn and comes out from under the Gardiner for a few brief moments before slipping back under as both roads parallel the channel.

below: On the south side of Lakeshore, there is no sidewalk here but the grassy area is wide enough…..

below: Walking here offers a different view of the Port Lands. The “smokestack” on the right is the old Hearn Generating station.

below: Some of the buildings that remain on Villiers Street.

below: Panorama of Keating Channel being developed, 1916, before there was much on the Port Lands and Cherry Street was just a one lane dirt road.

below: Keating Channel, 1916

The original plan for the diversion of the Don River called for a more curved mouth of the river before it joined the Keating Channel. But the British American Oil Company who owned the land fought that idea. Instead, the 90 degree turn that still exists today was built to avoid crossing B/A property.

below: A few years after the channel was upgraded (1934)… From vacant land to a forest of BA oil tanks. There are railway tracks along the edge of the channel. From Wikipedia: “In 1908, with 8 shareholders, B/A built Canada’s third refinery on 3 acres on the eastern waterfront in Toronto. The company refined imported crude oil and its main product was kerosene; a then-useless by-product was gasoline, which was dumped into a swamp.”

Photo by Arthur Beales. Toronto Port Authority Archives, PC 1/1/10769. Found at Wikimedia Common

below: BA refinery with the Don River on the right, 1931. There were still storage tanks here in the 1960s when the city was building the Gardiner Expressway.

1931 photograph, vintage, black and white, of British American oil refinery just north of the Keating Channel and just west of the Don River,

Photo source: Library and Archives Canada, online

below: This rusty “fence” isn’t going to hold anyone or anything back. I had visions of tumbling into the icy channel if I went near it. I think that just looking at it made it wobble.

below: There are still places to tie up your boat

below: A big tap? It’s attached to a pipeline but is it functional? (It doesn’t look like it). There is a lot of infrastructure buried under the Lakeshore, sewer lines, water mains, electricals, etc., but this looks like a piece of history. Pleased correct me if I’m wrong! Also – if you plan to explore here, there are stretches where the only option is to walk right beside the road.

below: Likewise, the box structure is probably there to protect the rest – but what are they? Valves of some kind?

below: Looking north to Canary District and West Don Lands development. The oil tanks are long gone.

below: Looking up from Lakeshore, under both the Gardiner and the ramp from the DVP

below: Looking west from Don Roadway along the Keating Channel to the new Cherry Street bridge.

below: Intersection of Lakeshore and Don Roadway.

below: Two metal transmission towers standing side by side. Geometrical, straight lines, yet lace-like.

below: From the Don Roadway, northbound and homeward

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.

wandering away from the beach

Posted: September 10, 2020 in construction, locations
Tags: beach, bike, construction, hoardings, Humipan's, inflatable unicorn, Lake Ontario, metal bars, old buildings, people, photography, pictures, Port Lands, rust, signs, stage, T 'N T, windows

Along came September and right away we’re into fall weather. I offer this post as reminder of warmer days not so long ago…..

below: Cherry Beach on a sunny August afternoon – keeping our distances

The unicorn days of summer

below: Apples. I like finding apple trees in unexpected places like behind Cherry Beach.

below: One of the many little boat and sailing clubs east of Cherry Beach.

below: An older building on Polson Street that remains.

below: A temporary stage was set up on Polson Street across the street from The Rebel nightclub and concert venue.

below: Every time I walk in the Port Lands, it’s a little different. One constant is the many acres that remain behind barriers.

below: A fire breathing monster?

below: Cherry Street sidewalk is blocked (at T ‘N T)

below: All that remains of the T ‘N T Supermarket is the front entrance. The rest of the store has been demolished. A river will flow here one day.

below: Rowing down Cherry Street

below: On Villiers Street

below: Most of the storage tanks are gone and all the gates are locked.

below: A quiet place to sit, outside Humipan’s

below: Accepted? Shouldn’t it be bikes excepted?

Stay you!

Port Lands update

Posted: September 6, 2019 in construction, landmarks, locations, old buildings
Tags: abandoned buildings, cement trucks, Cherry Street, Commissioners Street, construction, demolition, DOn River, Don ROadway, flood protection, Keating channel, Lake Ontario, Port Lands, skyline, T and T, Toronto Harbour, Villiers Street

Work on the Port Land redevelopment continues. The area is changing fast enough that I thought another visit would be a good idea.

below: Cherry Lifeguard Station, calm and peaceful in the early morning. On a weekday in September all is quiet here.

below: A new red lifeguard chair sits on a freshly raked beach. In the distance, a tug pushes a barge out of the harbour and onto Lake Ontario.

below: A family of Canada geese rest on the embankment of the Keating Channel. The white concrete supports of the Gardiner Expressway are reflected in the water.

below: Looking west along the Keating Channel. The Don River empties to the bottom right, just out of the picture. At the moment, the Keating Channel is the only route to Lake Ontario but this is about to change.

below: The Cherry Street bridge, a lift bridge, was broken in the open position for about a month at the end of the summer. It was fixed in time for Labour Day weekend so it is down now (can it go back up? It will soon be demolished so maybe that doesn’t matter)

below: From above, the Keating Channel is in the foreground and it is here that construction on a new Cherry Street bridge is just beginning. This is west of the present bridge because Cherry Street is going to be straightened as it passes under the Gardiner. There is another small channel behind the Keating Channel but it ends at the T&T store… for now. Cherry Beach and Lake Ontario are in the background.

below: Reflections of the T&T sign. Soon this store will be gone. The path of one of the new waterways for the Don River goes right through the middle of their property to join with the channel that is already there (picture above).

below: Villiers Street, looking west from the Don Roadway. The new path of the Don River is going to make an island of this part of the Port Lands as it runs parallel to, and immediately west of, the Don Roadway.

below: Villiers Street is actually two streets running parallel, both of which have two-way traffic. This is left over from the days when the railway ran down the middle of the street.

below: Remaining fragments of railway track can be found all over the Port Lands. This is Villiers Street at the Don Roadway. The Gardiner Expressway is in the background.

below: Old gas pump on Villiers.

below: The northwest corner of Commissioners and the Don Roadway. The green mound is the beginnings of the flood protection work there. Flood protection means work on the re-routing of the mouth of the Don River.

below: Looking west on Commissioners Street from east of the Don Roadway (at the traffic lights). This is one of several large hydro structures that run from the Portlands Energy Centre (a natural gas burning electrical plant). Hydro infrastructure changes are part of the Port Lands redevelopment.

below: Work on the south side of Commissioners.

Soon Commissioners Street will be closed between the Don Roadway and Cherry Street. All of the buildings there will be demolished. At the moment, most of them are empty.

below: Old abandoned buildings on Commissioners

below: United Rentals on Commissioners Street, now empty. Soon gone.

below: Chained and locked.

below: North side of Commissioners, east of the Don Roadway. You can see the Gardiner Expressway and the old Lever Brothers factory.

below: South end of the Don Roadway.

below: Looking west towards downtown from the Don Roadway

below: Back in July the demolition of the GFL (Green For life) buildings was well underway.

below: This is the GFL recycling transfer station during the demolition process. At the same time, the shoreline was being reconfigured and “naturalized”. The trees in the water in the foreground have since died but this is part of the plan – they are to become part of a new fish and wildlife habitat.

below: Access to the northwestern part of the Port Lands has been very limited. Cherry Street and the T&T parking lot are as far as you can go … if you obey all the signs. (photo from July)

below: September

below: The sea gulls have the parking lot to themselves, between Lafarge and the lake at the west end of the Port Lands. There are no plans (that I can find) to remove or relocate Lafarge.

below: If you stand looking at the view above, and then turn around, you get the image below. Polson Pier view of the Toronto skyline.

below: Map of the area. As you can see, I have only covered a small part of the Port Lands. There is so much more to explore!

rerouting the Don

Posted: May 7, 2018 in construction, history, locations, waterfront
Tags: boats, channel, flood control, gravel, Hearn, Keating channel, Lake Ontario, Lower Don River, masts, Port Lands, redevelopment, salt, ships, Villiers Island, water, waterfront, wetlands

a lot of masts from sailboats standing upright, a man walks on one of the boats as he gets it ready to go back in the water after the winter

Getting ready for spring. RCYC (Royal Canadian Yacht Club) is nearby.

There are a few changes happening down at the Port Lands.

below: Aerial view of the present configuration of the Keating Channel, Don River, and part of the port lands beside a drawing of the planned changes. Rerouting the Don River will create an island, Villiers Island.

In the 1880s, the lower part of the Don south of the former Winchester St. bridge (just north of Gerrard St) was straightened and the mouth of the river was placed in a channel to create additional harbour space and industrial dock space for boats in what is known as the Port Lands. This project was called the Don Improvement Project. The Don River now empties into the inner harbour through the Keating Channel. Lakeshore Blvd passes over the very south end of the river and because of its height (very low), boats can not enter the Don River. Boats may still enter the Keating Channel by going underneath a lift bridge at Cherry St. The straightening of the Lower Don also allowed for construction of the railway line parallel to it.

below: The cars are parked on vacant land between Lakeshore Blvd and Lake Ontario/Keating Channel. Mounds of gravel have been dumped off the end of Essroc Quay and beside Keating Channel. You might also have noticed the nine green bins that have been laid across the water (very left side of the photo). They too are full of gravel. These are part of the beginning of the renovations of the port lands. The Keating Channel will remain, but the area south of it is slated to be changed. In the middle is the GFL (garbage collection) transfer station. The low reddish brown building was a recycling facility. It was the site of a fire a few months back and most of the south end sustained substantial damage.

Access to the western portion of the port lands is via the Cherry Street bridge.

below: Here it is being lifted to allow a boat to pass through the Keating Channel. This bridge was built in 1968 and is at least the fourth bridge at this location.

below: In 1900 a wood swing bridge was built with just a single railway track that was operated by the Grand Trunk Railway. There are still remnants of the tracks that serviced the industries located in the area.

below: Two steel drawbridges were subsequently built here, one in 1912 and one in 1932. This is a circa 1915 photo of the lift bridge at Cherry Street.

photo from the Toronto Archives of the liftbridge at Cherry Street, open position, black and white photo taken about 1915, found on Wikipedia.

source: Originally from the Toronto Archives Fonds 1244, Item 1482 but found on Wikipedia

The plans for the redevelopment of this area show that the south end of Cherry Street will be moved to west of its present location – the jog in Cherry where it joins the Lakeshore for a short distance will be eliminated.

below: This is a close up shot of Essroc Quay at approximately the new location of the new Cherry Street bridge. The Keating Channel is in the foreground. This quay, and the water channel behind it, will be turned into wetlands and parkland. Essroc is a landfilled pier and is publicly owned as is Cousins Quay (the one behind it with the GFL transfer station).

below: A new fence too.

below: Looking across Essroc Quay to the Toronto skyline

There are many reasons for rerouting the Don River. The Port Lands are no longer used by many industries, land use has changed. As the city grows and changes, this area has become prime real estate but it is also a flood plain. Before any development can occur, flood control measures need to be taken. The Cherry Street Stormwater and Lakefilling project will stabilize the local shoreline, protect land from flooding, and create a new landmass to begin the re-naturalization of the Don River’s mouth. The river would be re-routed through the middle of the Lower Don Lands between the Keating Channel and the Ship Channel. The area being filled will become part of ‘Promontory Park’, a new major green space across the harbour from Toronto’s skyline.

The project will also allow for a realignment of Cherry Street so that it no longer merges with Lakeshore for a short distance. At the moment, the Cherry street and Lakeshore Blvd intersection is problematic, especially for pedestrians. Once upon a time there wasn’t much reason for people to walk there I guess. Now, if you are on the wrong side (the west side) of Cherry street, you get stranded at Lakeshore.

The Keating Channel isn’t exactly beautiful. Lakeshore Blvd and the Gardiner Expressway run along the north shore of the channel. There has been discussion & debate about the fate of these roads but so far nothing has changed. Will they demolish this section of the elevated Gardiner? Or won’t they? (Probably not).

below: The very south end of the Don River at the moment. Not much to get excited about is it? It looks like there is work being done under the bridge? (something’s happening there but I don’t know what). Hopefully it will look better in a few years.

The Ship Channel is south of the proposed changes described above.

below: Piles of salt on the south side of Ship Channel. These arrive by ship. The old Hearn Generating Station is in the background.

And south of it all, Cherry Beach.

More info on the Cherry Street Stormwater and Lakefilling project

with pink tutus and boas

Posted: June 12, 2017 in events, people
Tags: #divastoronto, #runlikeadiva, 5k, Cherry St., couples, event, fund raiser, girls, half marathon, kids, men, Port Lands, Portlands, road, run, runners, street, sunglasses, support, volunteers, women

Run Like a Diva,
5 km run and a half marathon in the Port Lands.

below: Pink tutus were given to all those who registered to participate in the event.

1700 people ran the 5K event and almost as many (I think) ran the half marathon.

The original plan was to hold this event on the Toronto Islands but with this spring’s flooding, the run was moved to the mainland. It was a charity event in support of Rethink Breast Cancer.