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!
as I walk Toronto 