Except it’s not a real church.
It’s part of a film/movie set on a studio lot. The unusual part is that it is right on Eastern Avenue in full view of passers-by. I’m not sure what production it’s for but maybe keep your eyes open in the coming months!
There’s a video on the internet of a kangaroo hopping down the street in deserted downtown Adelaide Australia and there are photos of other animals that have taken to roaming urban streets now that many people are staying at home. I thought of these things as I drove downtown today. Not because I saw animals. Not because the streets were quiet and empty. No, instead I wanted to compare these animal sightings to the proliferation of orange and black traffic cones as well as dump trucks and other machinery. It seems like the city has taken this time to block more lanes for construction than usual – I may be imagining things but I doubt it.
below: Driving east on Adelaide
below: Demolition on Jarvis
below: Maud Street
below: Lombard Street
below: I think that they are looking at me but how can I be sure?
My destination this morning was Graffiti Alley. There were no tourists there today but there were trucks blocking the alley. More construction nonsense.
below: In fact there were two trucks
below: A new Nick Sweetman mural – a purple rhinoceros
below: This mural is not new but it is the first time that I have seen it with no cars parked beside it.
below: Graffiti Alley now tests positive for the novel coronavirus, the green variety.
below: KFC sits empty. That’s not a coronavirus victim – it was empty before we all started staying home.
below: A message from 525 and 523, Stay Safe! (actually it’s from T-bonez).
Stay safe and
stay healthy!
Every once in a while, but not as often as I should, I go through old files and folders of pictures that I have taken. Pictures that I have meant to use but never got around to it. Today I found a series of photos from mid-February, back when there was snow on the ground. In amongst them were some graffiti and street art shots from somewhere between Chinatown and Kensington and those are the ones that I chose to show you here.
below: A tribute to Prince on a utility pole
below: Mural by @emstroart (aka Rei Misiri) and @kuyaspirit
below: It’s seen better days. A grubby and dirty dog in the water.
below: Two grominator creatures- one of them is an historic figure (!?) beside a cat
below: …. and the other has a happy friend
below: A few hearts and a little star in a whirlwind of colour.
below: Even the pole was included.
Back before the winter snow had melted, I was at Yonge and Eglinton and noticed that the old bus bays at Eglinton station were gone. That structure had sat empty for a couple of years but now there is a big hole where they once stood. As I looked through the pictures that I took that day, I decided that it might be interesting to explore farther east to see what was happening with the Crosstown LRT construction that has messed up the traffic through midtown for so long now.
below: Southwest corner of Yonge & Eglinton.
below: There is still a lot of construction underway on Eglinton near Yonge.
below: A little father east and more holes in the ground. This is the intersection of Eglinton and Mt Pleasant taken from the SE corner looking towards the NW. At least the facade of the old Imperial Bank of Canada building on the NW corner was originally going to be used as the LRT station but have those plans changed? The building was demolished but apparently the facade was taken apart brick by brick and will be re-built later.
below: This is the plan for the Mt Pleasant station as seen on the Crosstown website.
below: Looking west from Mt. Pleasant.
below: Between Laird and Brentcliffe (east of Bayview). See those low rise brick apartment buildings? How long until they’re gone?
below: At Brentcliffe. The LRT is underground here and there is no station at this intersection. Laird, where there is a station, is only one block to the west.
below: From Brentcliffe, Eglinton goes downhill because of the Don River ravine system
below: Part way down the hill there is a section of concrete. At first I thought that this was where the LRT was going to come to the surface.
below: But then I wasn’t so sure. There is a concrete wall blocking what would be the exit. It’s difficult to get a closer look because there are two layers of fencing in the way. Nobody was working here. In addition, there is another section farther along that looks like the actual opening. Maybe this is part of the supporting infrastructure?
below: Still walking east along Eglinton…. Almost to the bottom of the hill at Leslie – looking east along Eglinton Avenue with E.T. Seton Park on the right and the railway bridge in the distance. Leslie Street, which ends at Eglinton, is on the very left side of the photo. There is talk that this intersection will be closed for two months this summer.
below: I turned around and took a picture of the hill that I had just come down. Here the LRT surfaces and the tracks run down the center of the road, with lanes of traffic on both sides of the tracks. I am fairly certain that you can see the entrance to the tunnel, the east portal, near the middle of this picture. From here to Kennedy station the tracks are above ground (except for a portion of the route at Don Mills).
below: The sidewalk on the south side ends at Leslie street. Here, I chatted with a policeman while we waited for the light to turn green. Once he did, he escorted me across Eglinton as we had to pass through part of the construction zone. This is where I also discovered that there are no bus stops between Brentcliffe and Don Mills Road. That’s only 2 km but it feels a lot longer!
below: A development proposal sign stands on the lawn of what used to be the Inn on the Park but what is now a Toyota dealership.
below: The station at Don Mills and Eglinton will be called “Science Center” and it will be under the intersection.
below: There will be a bus terminal on the northeast corner of Don Mills Road and Eglinton with underground access to the LRT station. This is what construction looks like on that corner at the moment.
Just east of Don Mills Road, the LRT surfaces again and remains above ground until Kennedy station. I took the bus from Don Mills Road to Victoria Park as there wasn’t as much to see in this stretch.
below: Looking east from Victoria Park Avenue.
…and social decline, and capitalism, and a few more…..
The many dangers that we face.
The demolition of older residential buildings in Regent Park continues as that area of the city is redeveloped.
Around the demolition site, someone has hung 18 “danger due to” signs, printed with different “causes” of danger, such as industrialization.
It’s spelled wrong, but you know what it’s trying to say (hypocrisy).
Apathy
Over consumption
Political subterfuge
Doug Ford
GM food
Human infestation
Mass surveillance
Misuse of signage
Shrinking resources
Predatory economics
Shitty pop music
Capitalism
Urban decay
Misinformation
Social decline
This is the story of one building at one intersection, Yonge and Belsize (just south of Eglinton) but it’s also a story that is being repeated over and over again in the city. The story of demolition and rebuilding. The story of loss of the older wood and brick structures as they are replaced by glass and steel.
By December 2016 all of the businesses had closed down.
below: The back of the building
Just over a year later demolition began in earnest.
“There’s more than one way” describes the above picture quite nicely but it’s probably a stretch to say that it’s relevant to this blog post at all. Not that that’s ever stopped me! The other day I stood at this intersection (Lakeshore and Sherbourne I think) trying to decide which way to go. I went straight ahead because that’s what the traffic signal told me to do. I obeyed. “When in doubt, go with the green light”, is one of my ‘rules’ when I’m walking.
below: The artistry of hydro towers and wires framed by the Lakeshore and the Gardiner.
below: Shattered glass
below: Part of “Site Specific” by Scott Eunson & Marianne Lovink, on Sumach Street at Eastern Ave.
below: The view inside the streetcar. A new 514 Cherry car was wrapped in a light blue ad.
I have no idea what it was advertising.
below: There are a number of this “eye” balls in the playground part of Sherbourne Common.
below: Changing the billboard. The image is printed on a large piece of vinyl (plastic? something similar?) and held to the frame by ropes. Or at least that’s what it looked like. It was quite a distance up so it was difficult to see exactly what they were doing.
below: Graffiti. Two words. In yellow.
below: Chairs. Blue chairs. Three blue chairs plus one reflection.
below: A drab door on a drab wall.
below: An entrance to a different parking lot.
below: Numbers on the concrete.
below: More numbers. Another code that I can’t crack.
below: Stonework details on an old bank building.
below: Another old building – now that the north building of the St. Lawrence market has been demolished, the rear of the St. Lawrence Hall has been exposed. It’s quite a pretty building.
below: Interior, St. Lawrence market
below: And when you’re in front of the St. Lawrence market, isn’t it obligatory to take a picture of the Gooderham building? A Toronto iconic view.
below: Another icon, the CN Tower, as seen through the Distillery District from Cherry Street.
That’s a fabulous orange door!
below: Postage stamp art at 234 Adelaide East by Joanne Tod and Jon Reed. The whole installation includes 12 images including a 1930 painting by Lawren Harris (2nd on the left) which was issued in 1967. To the right of it is a stamp honouring the Alouette 2 research satellite. In between those stamps is Queen Elizabeth, a fixture on Canadian stamps for so many years. The old post office which was built in 1834 is nearby.
below: Walls. Shored up walls of the construction hole in front of a wall of glass.
below: Last, symmetrical? steps in the buildings.
May all your lights be green!
On Friday morning, my original goal was to find ‘Residents of the Esplanade’, a CONTACT Photography Festival outdoor exhibit at David Crombie Park but it was such a beautiful morning that I didn’t stop there. I found more than just the ‘Residents’.
Forty years ago, May 1976, the site plan for The Esplanade neighbourhood was approved. Since then, it has become home to a very diverse group of people. And it is those people that this installation celebrates on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the neighbourhood.
Crombie Park runs along the south side of The Esplanade between Berkeley street and Lower Jarvis. The installation consists of a number of small white rectangular pillars with the picture and story of person on either side.
People were out enjoying the morning; school kids were playing basketball at recess.
Flowers were blooming.
below: Looking towards Lower Jarvis Street and downtown Toronto.
below: One street beyond Lower Jarvis is Market Street. It dead ends at the railway tracks. The long structure on the right is a parking garage.
below: After a small backtrack up Market Street, I went through Conger Coal Lane to Church Street. I don’t think I have walked this way before. The lane was named in commemoration of the Conger Coal Company whose yard and wharf was nearby. It was one of the many companies that provided Toronto with coal back in the day when coal fueled the city. It was started in 1870 by Mr. P.D. Conger. In 1913, Sterling Coal company bought Conger and the name was changed to Conger Lehigh Coal Co.
below: A very old photo of the Conger Coal Company dock at the foot of Church Street, back when Church street ended at Lake Ontario
below: Tucked into a corner on Church street immediately south of Front Street, is an art installation by Paul Raff called ‘Shoreline Commemorative’. A topography of limestone forms the base of the work. A glass ball representing the line between sky and water sits on top of a tripod that tries to evoke a land surveyor’s tripod. The words on the wall say “For 10,000 years this was the location of Lake Ontario’s shoreline. This brick wall stands where water and land met, with a vista horizon”
below: Continuing the lake theme, a little fish out of water, jumping over the entrance to a condo.
below: From the lake theme to another common theme in the city, construction. Spring is the beginning of construction season and here Berczy Park is being upgraded. In the background a new condo is being built but as we all know condo construction ‘season’ never ends. In fact, the challenge might be to find a place in this city where there isn’t a condo being built.
below: I walked past the never ending Front Street construction. Construction in front of Union station seems to be finished, but this stretch of Front Street just west of the station is still being worked on. There have been fences here so long that I can’t remember a time when they weren’t here.
Along with many other people, I have been watching the demolition on the southeast corner of Dundas & Sumach streets, part of the Regent Park redevelopment. This 14 storey apartment building was designed by Peter Dickinson; it was built in the late 1950s.
January 31st, 2015
I first saw this building being demolished on a grey day at the end of January.
I’m not sure when the demolition actually started.
Looking north up Sumach Street.
The colours of past lives.
3 February
It would have been a cold job, working outside during the coldest February on record.
In the midst of demolition.
10 February
Looking across the intersection of Dundas and Sumach.
A view from the south.
Looking west from River Street.
Another view from River Street.
12 February
17 February
23 February
27 February
There were always a number of people taking pictures whenever I was there.
dust storm in the sunlight
28 February
… after 5 weeks, 6 March
Just another hole in the ground.
as I walk Toronto 