Posts Tagged ‘TTC’

canary and swan

Posted: April 15, 2016 in locations, public art
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Within the past week or so, the fences around the new Canary District have come down.  Toronto’s newest development is now open to the public so I thought I would check it out.

I started my walk from the streetcar stop at King and Sumach.  Walking down Sumach Street I passed the metal fence that separates the school property from the street.  This stone building was built in 1887 as Sackville Street School and it has been used as a school ever since.  At the moment it is home to Inglenook Community School.  The fence with it’s double layer of metal – rusted in the back and shiny in the front – is interesting in the daytime but even more so at night when it is lit with a series of lights located between the layers  and near the base of the fence.

public art on Sumach St., rusted metal and shiny metal fence with cut outs, looking across the street at it, with older stone building behind it.

When I took the above picture I was standing on the new streetcar tracks that run south from King Street.  The tracks are ready and the wires have been installed.  Streetcars will begin servicing the route in June as part of route 514.  No map or schedule appears on the TTC website yet but apparently this route will run between the Dufferin Gate Loop and the new loop on Cherry Street via King Street

below: Looking north from Eastern Avenue at the new streetcar tracks on Sumach Street.

looking north on Sumach Street from Eastern Ave at the new streetcar tracks. They are blocked by 5 large black and orange traffic cones as well as a large do not enter sign. Overhead wires for the streetcars are in place.

At Eastern Avenue, Sumach Street becomes Cherry Street.   The new Cherry Street YMCA is on the east side of the street.  The sidewalk is wide but at the moment the branches of the young trees are at face level and you have to be careful where you walk.

looking south on Cherry Street from Eastern Ave, past the new Cherry Street YMCA on the left and all the new trees that have been planted.

below: The bright red detailing on the YMCA building continues over the entry way.  Part of the new residences for George Brown College peak out from behind.

roofline over the entry of Cherry Street YMCA with it's bright red colour. Corner of George Brown College building is in the background.

Front Street now has wide sidewalks.  None of the businesses have moved into the ground level retail spaces yet but the signs in the windows suggest that a number of cafes, restaurants, and food stores will soon be opening.   A couple of public art pieces are also on the sidewalk.

below: ‘Lampposts’ by Tadashi Kawabata

A tall art installation as public art on Front Street in the Canary District, Lampposts by Tadashi Kawabata, construction from many different styles of street lamp posts all arranged in a cluster

below: Looking up from underneath the artwork.

looking up at the lights from underneath the artwork,Lampposts by Tadashi Kawabata

below: ‘The Water Guardians’ stand over a soft squishy playpad.
It was designed by Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins.

'Tje Water Guardians', A tall art installation as public art on Front Street in the Canary District, 3 stylized abstracted human forms with legs in an arc shape over a squishy playpad in green, blue and white. The blue represents water. The green parts are raised slightly in bumps.

below: There are a lot of little design elements that have been incorporated into the this development including what I think is a bench.  With a light underneath?

A curved black metal bench on a sidewalk

below: The sidewalk around the trees is made from two colours of brick.  The opening for the tree is just the right size to collect garbage.  Whether or not these traps get cleaned out remains to be seen.

square hole in the brickwork of the sidewalk to allow a tree to grow. The hole is shallow, a few cm. deep but it collects garbage such as empty coffe cups and discarded papers that blow in the wind.

below:  The Canary District is not yet finished as this sign clearly states.

A large plot of land with rocks and newly planted trees in a grid. An orange and yellow sign advertises the Canary District. It also says that this land is slated for future residential development

below: The sculpture ‘No Shoes’ by Mark di Suvero is now accessible.   The artwork was completed in 1967 and originally installed in High Park.   In 2013 it was renovated and moved to Corktown Common.

The sculpture 'No Shoes', red metal beams and wood poles, very large, stands in a park with some buildings in the background.

below: The pavillion at Corktown Commons in the distance.

The pavillion at Corktown Commons i the background as seen through the bottom part of the sculpture 'No Shoes'

below:  The Bala Pedestrian Underpass, aka the south exit from Corktown Commons, goes under the railway tracks and merges with the Don Landing part of the Lower Don Valley trail.  The artwork was designed by Rolande Souliere and is part of the StreetARToronto initiative.   A yellow Lovebot and a happy orange monster have been added to the scene too!

pedestrian underpass under railway tracks that has been painted in bright stripes, yellow, red and black. The left of it is a large yellowlovebot and to the right is a sign with a map and a description of the Don Pathway, part of the Pan Am Path.

below: Nature in the city.  Birds of a different feather.  On the Don River, just south of Corktown Common a pair of swans is nesting.  One of the swans was swimming a short distance away while the other was sitting on the nest.   Cars pass by on the Don Valley Parkway unaware of the domestic scene below them.

A swan is sitting on a nest in the Don River, it is beside the Don Valley Parkway, a busy road in Toronto, two cars are passing by above the swan.

old friends

Posted: December 15, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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In the world of graffiti and street art, change is usually inevitable and sometimes interesting.  One exception seems to be the alley that you can see from subway between Keele and Dundas West stations.  The building on the corner of Bloor West and Indian Road is new, but otherwise little is changed.  Even though most of the street art is the same as before, I don’t think that I have posted it in the past.  Here is documentation of most of it.

below: King Midas still looks over the TTC parking lot at Keele station.  Well, I’ve always assumed that it was King Midas although he was the guy whose touch turned everything to gold, not grey.

mural of older man in grey tones, with open book on his lap, beside him is the Midas logo (auto repair).

below: And this monkey is still asking what the noise is all about.

mural on an exterior wall, a monkey in old fashioned aviator's helmet and pink scarf is shouting "What's all the noise about"

below: ‘Sink or Swim’ by elicser

graffiti street art in an alley - a mural by elicser called sink or swim. A large man with a red toque and a red plaid shirt.

below: A lovebot shares wall space with an Uber5000 birdie….

graffiti street art in an alley - a lovebot wheatpaste on a wll beside a Uber5000 yellow bird holding a Canadian flag

below: … because Everybody’s a Winner

graffiti street art in an alley - a mural by Uber5000 titled Everyone's a WInner. Yellow birdies sitting around a table. There is also a lovebot wheatpaste on the wall.

below: Laser, not loser.   Now with laser vision.

graffiti street art in an alley - a Uber5000 mural of a man with reg glasses and red flashes coming from his eyes. A little birdie is sitting on top of a ghetto blaster

graffiti street art in an alley - a large salt shaker with the words Salt o' the Earth written below it. A garbage bin is beside it.

  below:  Ghostbusters in a hard to reach place

A ghostbuster logo painted on the side of a building in an alley

below:  Zooks is still on her wall.

street art on a wall in a laneway. Blue background, naked woman with long brown hair, standing between two tags

below: This turtle has seen better days

A green turtle character painted on a wall in a lane. Wearing glasses, standing up. The paint in the lower part of the piece is peeling badly.

grey and light blue tag street art on a multi coloured background, two butterflies as well, one pink butterfly and one blue butterfly

mural on the side of building in an alley, TTC streetcar, buildings, people, subway, with another building in the foreground
mural on the side of building in an alley, TTC streetcar, buildings, people, subway,

below:  Guard dog at the bottom of the stairs

painting of a large black dog on a door at the bottom of an exterior stair case. Graffiti dog, street art dog. It looks like he is sitting in front of the door looking at people as they walk towards the door.

blog_train_street_art

below: She seems to turn when the door opens, a mural by EGR art

 

a large mural of a woman with wings that takes up the entire back of a two storey building in a laneway. There is also a metal staircase with a small porch. The door at the top is open so part of the woman in the mural opens up too. The mural is by EGR art.

large mural of a young man's face in grey tones. Small moustache, head only,

below:  He (she?) still keeps goal on the back porch.

painting of a hockey goalie in full pads and helmet painted on a blue door by a small porch in a laneway.

looking down a laneway towards a large brick apartment building. The side of a truck has some graffiti on it - the truck is backed into a parking spot in the lane. The buildings in the lane have graffiti on them.

part of a mural with a lot of heads, a man, a green character, amongst others, high on a wall

rabid raccoon in blues, street art

street art in an alley, a white skull with a black baseball cap. Cap says Big Dirt on it. Words above the skull are Mary Recka Pantilo (could be Mozy not Mary)

below:  This mural also has a painting of Marilyn Monroe in it along with Bruce Lee and Alfred Hitchcock.  There were too many cars parked in front of it when I walked past the other day.

part of a larger mural, Alfred Hitchcock holding a sign for the filming of Psycho, Bruce Lee is also in the picture, a car is parked in front of the wall, in an alley

below: King Kong dominates this wall.

Grey toned mural of King Kong holding a woman over a tall building as he walks through a large city, and towers over it.

street art painting of a grimacing big fat yellow male face with eyes closed and big white teeth showing

below: We Rise Up

large mural of upreached open hands releasing a red butterfly
below: War and Peace

mural of police in riot gear confronting a person with both hands giving a peace sign

A green four eyed blov with a peace sign shaped nostrils, and a necklace with a gold H on it.

Someone has scrawled Your life is a lie in black over a piece of street art. Someone else has changed lie to life by adding an f

graffiti street art in an alley - an angry bird bird with the words Rainy Days

graffiti street art in an alley - Two black and white hearts, one with a face drawn on it. The words cloud + glare = [heart]

community, transit, and transitions

Posted: December 13, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
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Along a short stretch of Coxwell Avenue

Upgrades to Coxwell subway station include work on the north side of Strathmore Blvd.  Two murals were created to brighten the hoardings around the construction site.  Both murals are the work of a program called ‘City on the Move – Young Artists in Transit’.  If you use Coxwell subway station you can’t help but see these murals as they are right across the street from the entrance.

below: ‘Today Reassembling Yesterday’ shows people standing within a miniature old East York.  On both sides of the mural is a replica of a Hollinger Bus line ticket.  This bus company was founded in 1921 by John Hollinger and it serviced the growing neighbourhood of East York.  By the time the TTC took it over in 1954, Hollinger had 96 employees and a fleet of 56 buses that traveled twelve routes on such streets as Woodbine, O’Connor and Coxwell.

mural in front of a construction site, the tops of two brick houses are visible behind the fence, a large green crane is working at the site

below: In this mural, five panels are covered with wallpaper of pictures of the past.  Residents, the present day, peel back the layers of the past to reveal their visions and hopes for the future.  On the left, red barns and hay stacks make way for solar panels over fields with bird filled skies.  The next panel is also inspired by agriculture – healthy corn fields and other crops under a layer with horses and stables.  The middle panel puzzles me.  I’m note sure what the pictures on the brown paper represent but birds in a tree are under it.  The fourth panel suggests accessible public transit.  Lastly, cars and trucks make way for rivers to fish in.

A mural of kids peeling away layers of wallpaper with pictures on it.

‘New Revelation, at Coxwell’

a poem by George Elliott Clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto 2012-15
to accompany the mural at Coxwell station

As wallpaper peels to windowpanes, spy
Grass, insurgent, urging all our future
Is Spring: Sunlight sparks sweat and dream; wind drives
Machines. Thrilled, birds wing and sing so sprightly,
Everyone delights. Blossoms float perfumes.
Branches brandish emerald bouquets. Our lungs
Flood with surging airs, clean as chlorophyll,
Mint-new, mint-tangy, so song is born,
Just by breathing. Wheels become our earthly
Wings, so infant and elder, builder and
Dreamer, can flit – transit – through the city
As public millions that public millions
Uphold, so that the lame, too, can take
The air and wheel down to creek, stream, and lake.
Suddenly glittering, afresh with fish.

The TTC also owns property on the southeast corner of Coxwell and Danforth.  Back in 1915 this facility was built as the Danforth carhouse for the streetcars that ran along the Danforth.  When the Bloor Danforth subway line opened in 1966, these streetcars were retired and the carhouse was converted to handle TTC buses instead.   In 2002 the Danforth carhouse (or Coxwell Barns) was shut down.  Some of the property has been sold off but the TTC still has a presence there.

below:  Along Coxwell Avenue, south of the Danforth, there is a fence that separates TTC property from the street.  It was a typically drab TTC concrete barrier.  Recently it was painted by a group of volunteers.  The word ‘transition’ now pops out at passersby from a colourful mural designed by Sean Martindale.

Transitions written in block letters in a large geometric mural that matches the grid of the concrete that makes up the fence

close up of the letter N and part of S in the Transitions mural on a TTC fence on Coxwell ave.

Transitions written in block letters in a large geometric mural that matches the grid of the concrete that makes up the fence

If you walk a few more blocks south on Coxwell, you will come to a fence where many butterflies have stopped to rest.

two wood butterfly shapes that have been hand painted by kids and then attached to a chain link fence around a school playground.

They share a fence with a few creative owls wisely made out of recycled materials.  Tin cans, CDs, buttons, bottle tops, corks, paper clips, sunglass lenses, clothes pegs, foil plates, and bits of plastic repurposed.

 

four owls made of recycled goods, foil pie plates, CDs, bottle tops, there feet are wrapped around twigs and they are attached to a chainlink fence

owls made of recycled goods, foil pie plates, CDs, bottle tops, there feet are wrapped around twigs and they are attached to a chainlink fence - two corks for horns

owls made of recycled goods, foil pie plates, CDs, bottle tops, there feet are wrapped around twigs and they are attached to a chainlink fence - also blue buttons for the nose

below: A little red fairy door, home of the Earl Haig gardener.  This past summer there was a project called  Danny’s Urban Fairies.  Fairy doors that were hand crafted by local artists started appearing in stores and parks along Danforth East  (from Jones to Westlake).  Some of the fairy doors remain but many were auctioned off in November to raise money to support the non-profit East End Music Project.

A little red screen door, fairy door, at the base of a tree with two little signs. One sign says Earl Haig gardener and the other says Do not litter.

below: No bows and arrows allowed!

old sign on the exterior wall of a school that says: Playing of golf, hardball, handball, bows and arrows prohibited

 

 

new houses on Keele

Posted: December 10, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
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There’s another new mural in town.

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street, looking north on Keele Street
This one is on Keele street, just north of Bloor.

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street, south corner
It is under the subway bridge, directly across the street from the Keele subway station.

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street

It was painted by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka.

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street

The mural was a collaboration between StreetARToronto, Bloor by the Park BIA, and the City of Toronto.

part of a mural showing two houses, with two real houses in the background

 

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street, north end of mural

part of a mural by Rob Matejka and Tommy Matejka on the wall on a TTC subway underpass at Keele, a mural of houses on a street

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,

imagine design create

Posted: November 4, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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As I sort through the photos that I took this past summer, I keep finding pictures of street art that I have not yet posted.  The following collection were taken in the Dupont and Ossington area back in July.

below: A very horizontal piece by Cool Ethan, obviously

a long horizontal street art painting

below: A TTC streetcar passes by the Massey Harris building, a mural by Colin Turner Bloom.  This office building, at 915 King St. West, was built in 1883 as the headquarters for the Massey Harris Co.  It was declared a heritage building in 1973.  Since then it has been developed as lofts/condos.

A mural on a garage door by colin makes art, showing a large brick building with a TTC streetcar passing in front of it.

below: A city scene mural by Monica on the moon,  just off Dupont Avenue.

long mural, black background, white line drawing of a city scene by Monica on the Moon

close up of part of mural, white line drawings of a city scene, lots of houses and other buildings, on a black background on the side of a house. Small window as well as three trash bins are in the picture.

below: Another garage door

garage door covered with a street art painting of squiggly shapes in oranges and reds with dark grey background

below:  Up, up and away with a bunch of red balloons.

two stencil graffitis on a white garage door in a lane. One is of a girl standing on her toes and holding onto a bunch of red balloons that are up in the air. The other stencil is of a man from the shoulders up

below: Bobby with a gas mask, stencil on garage door in a lane.

stencil graffiti in black on a white garage door. London bobby (policeman) wearing a gas mask, from the waist up

below:  Two lovebots on Dupont.

two lovebots on a blue metal structure on a brick wall. The top one is a gameboy lovebot. The bottom one is the usual robot lovebot.

sticker on a white wall. Sticker says ADORE: for all the golden moments captured indoors and out

back to the Milky Way

Posted: September 6, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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A return trip, out of this world.

Toronto street sign, Milky Way, with a one way arrow sign below it.

below: Street art along the north wall of 376 Dufferin Street.

tag-like street art under a window in an alley

tag-like street art under a window in an alley that says GEMS

tag-like street art under a window in an alley

Street art on a wall in an alley, A Jarus woman with a blue shawl around her shoulders and a persue rabbit reaching for money that the woman is holding in her hand.

below: A new buff monster on pink.

A garage door in an alley painted pink. A large fat grey creature with bat-like wings and bulging eye takes up most of the space, a small skeleton is sitting on the creature's head. The piece is signed Buff Monster

below: Greetings from Parkdale mural

Greetings from Parkdale mural in light blue and purple featuring a ttc streetcar in shades of purple

below: This mural can be seen from Milky Way although it is painted on the side of Stones Place on Queen St. West

vacant lot, with a grey van parked in it, two pieces of street art on a wall as well as a large two storey mural

blog_milky_way_queen_west

below: Back in October 2014, there was a large lovebot on the wall where the mural is now.
For other photos of Milky Way from last autumn, see when  I blogged about it previously.

large wheatpaste lovebot on a brick wall

A large street art piece painted in an alley. It covers most of the side of a brick house. It is mostly blue lines and arrows.

graffiti in yellows and greens on a blue background, on a wall in an alley, between two windows with metal grilles, signed BSM Crew

Street art in pinks and reds, signed by Wizard

Two heart stickers on a metal pole. One is a pink lovebot shaped heart and one is a drawing of two hands making a heart shape with the thumbs and forefingers

A black poser bunny spray painted on a wall that is covered with slaps, stickers, and words written in black marker
A number of stickers, or slaps, on a black metal box

Black and white wheatpaste of a man's head, bald but with a large curly beard. Line drawing

Other new street art in the Milky Way was in a separate post a few days ago.

art and fashion on Dundas

Posted: August 13, 2015 in public art
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“Art Loves Fashion! Fashion Loves Art!” 
Retailer H&M is presently renovating the southwest corner of Yonge & Dundas.  On the Dundas St. side of the development, the hoardings have provided a space for an art exhibit. It is an outdoor digital gallery of images produced by students in OCAD’s Digital Painting/Expanded Animation (DPXA) program.

People walk by the hoardings beside the sidewalk on Dundas St. near Yonge, part of the new H & M store being built there. There are pictures on the wall.

below: ‘Nude Collage’ by Arshia Salesi

colourful image with slices of watermelon, purple hyacinth flowers, and a parrot

 below: Resting against ‘Indeterminate Peony’ by Trudy Erin Elmore.
To the left is ‘Nonscape V’ by Monica Moraru

A man in a white shirt and wearing a backpack leans against a white wall that has a picture printed on it.

below:  A woman walks past ‘Streetcar Style’ by Avery Kua.

A woman walks by a wall that has a picture on it os people getting off a streetcar. The woman is looking at the picture

below: ‘Blocked!’ by Ghazaleh Baniahmad

Artwork in grey tones using pieces of photographs of two women, mother and daughter, It is printed on white and displayed outdoors on a wall. It is called Blocked! and the artist is Ghazaleh Baniahmad

below: ‘Ascend’ by Niya Vaillancourt

A woman walks around a corner and is approaching a wall with a picture on it called 'Ascend'

 below: ‘The New Patronage’ by Cat Bluemke

A picture of two people, man and woman, both drawn with black lines, the man has pink highlights and the woman has blue. Both are from the shoulders up and they are looking at each other.

below: Sign making below ‘ Cloth and Jewels’ by Samet Choudhury

A man is sitting on the sidewalk. He is making a sign on a piece of brown cardboard. The wall behind him has a large picture on it that is part of an exhibit

Who haunts Queen station?

Posted: August 7, 2015 in history, public art
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Let’s talk about this couple

mural on a subway wall, close up of a man and a woman. The man has an orange coloured face and is wearing a green jacket and cap. The woman has long black hair and a long pink dress

If you ride the Toronto subway you’ll probably recognize them from the walls of Queen station.

looking across the TTC Queen subway platform and tracks to the opposite wall where there is a mural, enamel on steel, of a couple as well as some buildings. An ad for shoes is blocking part of the mural

A couple of weeks ago I was standing beside them when I overheard a woman telling the man she was with that the people in the mural were Lord and Lady Simcoe.

I was fairly certain that she was wrong so I checked.   This is a picture of John Graves Simcoe.

A portrait of John Graves Simcoe

There could be some resemblance and John Graves Simcoe did play an important part in Toronto’s history.  He was the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada (1761-1790).  He established York (now Toronto) as the capital of Upper Canada in 1793 and he gave us Yonge Street.  But note the military clothing in the above portrait; he was a British army officer after all and I doubt he’d be depicted in a mural wearing a green jacket and matching cap.

There aren’t many pictures his wife Elizabeth, or Lady Simcoe, but suffice it to say that they don’t look like the woman in the mural.

A few minutes online provided the following information:   The title of the mural is “Our Nell” and the people are supposed to be William Lyon McKenzie and Nellie McClung.  Three buildings are shown, the old Simpsons building (now the Bay), City Hall, and the Eaton Centre.  The artist is John B. Boyle.

This is a photo of William Lyon McKenzie; I guess there’s a resemblance.

A black and white picture of William Lyon McKenzie

McKenzie was born in Scotland in 1795.  He emigrated to Upper Canada as a young man.  Although he held a number of jobs, he seemed to like writing for newspapers best.  After working for newspapers in Montreal and York, he established his own newspaper, the ‘Colonial Advocate’ in 1824. Although that paper went bankrupt and he fled to New York for a short time to evade his creditors, he used newspapers as a vehicle to promote his political ideas for most of his life.  To a large degree the story of Upper Canada politics of the early 1800’s is a story of the Tory governing elite vs the Reformer upstarts.   McKenzie was solidly on the side of the Reformers.

Toronto was incorporated as a city on 6 March 1834 and the first municipal elections were held later that month.  McKenzie was elected as an alderman.  At that time, the mayor was elected by the aldermen from their own ranks and in 1834 McKenzie was appointed mayor.  He lost the next election in 1835.

McKenzie was also a leader in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.  It was not much of a rebellion, more like a skirmish near Montgomerys Tavern (near Yonge & Eglinton) that the Reformers lost badly.  The rebellion leaders were allowed to flee to New York state.  Once in Buffalo, McKenzie declared himself the head of a provisional government of the Republic of Canada.   He even convinced some Americans to help him invade Upper Canada from Navy Island in the Niagara River.  Bombardment of Navy Island late in December 1837 by the Royal Navy destroyed the S.S. Caroline, an American ship that was helping to supply McKenzie’s followers on Navy Island.  And that was the end of McKenzie’s rebellion.

Okay then, that’s the man in the mural.  What about the woman?  I went looking for picture of Nellie McClung as well as information about her.  I recognized her name but I couldn’t remember what her role in Canadian history was.   First, this is her picture:

 black and white picture of a woman, Nellie McClung, sitting at a desk

I didn’t see any pictures of her with long hair or as a younger woman.   Nellie McClung was born as Nellie Mooney in Ontario in 1873 but moved to Manitoba as a child.   One of the causes that she worked on was woman’s suffrage and she helped Manitoba in 1916 to become the first province to allow women the right to vote and to run for public office. By 1922 women could vote federally and in all provinces except Quebec.  Quebec women could vote federally but had to wait until 1940 before they could vote in a provincial election.

McClung was also one of the five women who campaigned to have women recognized as “persons” by the Supreme Court so that they could qualify to sit in the Senate.  In 1930 Cairine Mckay Wilson was appointed Canada’s first female senator, just four months after the “Persons Case” was decided.

Now when you pass through Queen subway station you can think a little about the history that it represents, and not so much about how ugly it is.  Because it is ugly.  Especially this section of the mural:

part of a mural at Queen subwaystation in Toronto, a misshapen Eaton Centre with a grotesque looking woman bending over in her garden in the foreground.

Is that a woman in the foreground?  Or a slug with appendages?

distress at Union Station

Posted: July 16, 2015 in locations, public art
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A while back, I posted some photos of ‘Zones of Immersion’,  Stuart Reid’s art installation at Union Station.   Now that it is completed, I decided to revisit it.  There has been some talk about how depressing it is.
I’ll let you decide whether it is depressing or not.

If you are on the ‘northbound to Finch’ platform you get a clear view of all the panels.
If you are on the ‘northbound to Downsview’ platform you can only see some of the glass panels.

I’ve now been back a number of times and this is what I saw:
1) Of the figures with discernible gender, 12 or 13 were male.
2) The males are of different ages and shapes.
3) The number of females outnumber males by at least 2:1.
4) Almost all (or even all?) of the women are young.  They are all thin, if not gaunt.
5) There is one child…. with a finger up his/her nose.
6) Only two or three figures are smiling.

 

Part of an art installation at Union Station, paint on glass panels - a rough drawing, black outline with some grey shading of a couple

paintings on glass panels, Union Station art installation, two women. One on the left looks very sad, like she's been crying. The other woman is painted very dark grey with a few red highlights.

Looking along a subway platform at Union Station, the far wall is an art installation, paintings on glass panels of people

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels,

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, a woman's head in dark blues and blacks, heavy paint around the eyes

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, a large face in red
blog_union_art_thinking

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, three men sitting on a subway

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, on the left are white words on blue background, on the right are two women in profile

“the way we settle into a seat
the way we stretch when the train is empty
and retract as it fills
the way we deflect a glance and simultaneously present
language of the body claiming, relinquishing and balancing
personal space in the interstitial realm
halfway between the worlds of here and there”

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, a woman in yellow on a green and blue background, a man is waiting for the subway and his reflection is in the photo

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, woman standining

The panels that can be seen on the ‘northbound to Downsview’ platform are seen as the reverse of those viewed from the other platform.

black and white painting on glass of a woman holding a mobile phone

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, upper part of a man sitting and reading, in profile, on the left is the reflection of a woman waiting for the subway
“slicing through the clay of the earth’s first skin
steel rails and electric lines
going from      going to
slicing through time and distance
darkness and light
station by station
releasing us into the city’s fabric
stop by stop
after a days labour
taking us home”

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, four women sitting on the subway

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, a group of people standing. The word because is also visible in the picture

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, a woman sitting on the subway with a child on her lap. The child has a finger up its nose

part of an art installation, paintings on glass panels, on the left side is a man on blue and on the right is a woman's head drawn in blue

painting on glass panels, two women, on the left is standing, on the right is pointing to the left.

(added in October) I got off the subway at Union Station today.  There were three guys in front of me.  One of them stopped and pointed to the nearest painting which happened to be the one above.  As he pointed he said “See what I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to jump… “.

 

I’m happy to be corrected if you can prove me wrong.

 

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