Toronto Through My Lens
At 7 Hart House Circle in the University of Toronto sits a bronze sculpture entitled Rune. Placed in 2001, the piece was created by artists Randy Gledhill and Berenicci Hershorn.
What exactly is a “rune”? Merriam-Webster defines rune as: any of the characters of any of several alphabets used by the Germanic peoples from about the 3rd to the 13th centuries. As applied here I would imagine rune refers to information/education as provided by a university.
A little night photography for you. Actually, this post is part TOcityscapes and part photography experiment.
It was a rainy evening when I took these night shots on the deserted corner of Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue.
Opposite Bridgepoint Health Centre (now Hennick Bridgepoint Hospital) , near the intersection of Gerrard Street East and Broadview Avenue, there stands the Zhong Hua Men gate, aka Toronto Chinese Archway. The gate serves as an entrance-way to the Chinese community in this neighbourhood.
The Archway’s official construction began in late 2008 and opened to the public, with a ceremony by then-Mayor David Miller, on September 12, 2009. The creation of the Archway came about in large part due to the efforts of Valerie Mah, as a member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of East Toronto, together with Councillor Paula Fletcher.
The two stone lions, each weighing 3 tons, sitting at the base of the Archway are a gift from the People’s Republic of China. The project cost roughly $900,000.00, of which the City of Toronto contributed $415,000.
Ten years in the making, the Archway was the brainchild of Dale Cheung, President of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (East Toronto) and Bernard Loh, the group’s Vice-President, as well as a small group of past and present members. The group dreamed up the project, back in the day, while having Dim Sum with the area’s former City Councillor, Jack Layton.
In keeping with the traditional Chinese Paifeng style of commemorating the great achievements of ones ancestors, the Zhong Hua Men Archway is engraved with messages of goodwill and wisdom.
The Archway and parking lot next to it has since won a prestigious international award in 2012 for Best Design/Implementation of a Surface Parking Lot.
In front of the Hudson condo at 438 King Street West, there sits a sculpture by artist Jed Lind, entitled Ballast.
Installed in 2013, Ballast is a patinated bronze sculpture of the prow of a ship, anchoring the corner of King and Charlotte streets in Toronto. Rising like a skeletal prow of a Great Lakes freighter, the five-metre tall bronze sculpture is described by artist Jed Lind as a visual metaphor for the transformation of the King Street corridor from working class to creative class. The artwork began as a maquette that was laser scanned and enlarged. After hours of meticulous sculpting and finishing of the enlarged positive form, the sculpture was cast in bronze in small sections. The sections were welded together, finished, and the bronze was patinated.
Jed Lind’s photographs, sculptures, and installations are populated with nautical vessels and vehicles, though they are not always immediately recognizable. On this particular creation, Jed Lind has commented:
Transformation is central to my work whether physical, emotional, or metallurgical. Ballast represents for me a transformation of the King Street corridor which is so drastically different than my memory of it growing up. Ballast is modelled on the frontend of a working lake boat, or Lakers as they are called. The boat is a nod to the blue collar working class that used to occupy the now vacated commercial and industrial spaces, while the geodesic pattern is a reference to Buckminster Fuller who inspired youth culture—in the late 1960s and 70s—to transform their existing circumstances through architecture. I hope Ballast will be a model for the younger generation who have taken over downtown en masse.
After years of planning to attend and then never going (hearing reports of the crush from massive crowds had turned me off), I ventured down to the Distillery District’s Winter Village last night. Luckily (for me, anyway) we’d had the big “storm” last night and the weather was not great; this kept a lot of people away. The event has become so popular and crowded over the years that the Distillery’s Winter Village is now a ticketed, timed event – at least during the evening hours on the weekends.
I’ve always wanted to photograph this event during a white Christmas, so last night’s storm worked in my favour. Also, the temperature kept a lot of people away: it was -12°, with the “feels like” wind chill dropping the temp to a balmy, breezy -27°. I bundled up and was good to go, although my hands were turning into blocks of ice while hanging on to the camera… talk about suffering for your art.
The historic Distillery District has 65+ local shops, restaurants and cafés. Many of these were in full operation for the Winter Village event, plus vendor cabins offered specially curated seasonal items and gifts. Several food cabins also lined the cobblestone streets.
As it is every Christmas, the Allan Gardens conservatory is decorated and filled with thousands of flowering plants, over 30 varieties of poinsettia and seasonal topiary masterpieces made entirely of plant material.
There are floral scenes with thousands of colourful blooms, vines and lush plants from around the world. The Flower Show is a welcome respite from the cold and grey of December, and has a nice festive feel to it.
This year Holiday Fair joined together with the annual Cavalcade of Lights event at Nathan Phillips Square. I checked things out this past weekend at the heavily-attended event.
This year’s naturally grown spruce tree (55 ft. high) came from Baldwin, Ontario and is decorated with more than 300,000 energy-efficient lights and 500 ornaments. It will remain on display throughout the holiday season and will then be recycled into mulch for tree planting in the spring. The Christmas tree lighting is sponsored by Toronto Hydro-Electric System.
The Cavalcade of Lights will run until January 7, showcasing light displays and festive decor alongside public skating on Nathan Phillips Square. This year the event takes inspiration from light festivals and cultural celebrations around the world and features elements from a variety of holiday traditions associated with light, lantern and fire for new lighting installations.
Continuing on the store window theme, here’s what Saks Fifth Avenue, along Queen Street West, had to offer:
The resemblance to Cousin Itt has been noted…
The Hudson’s Bay flagship store at Queen and Yonge Streets traditionally have superb Christmas windows, filled with a lot of intricate detail. I ventured down to the store last night with camera in hand and great expectations of a warm and fuzzy experience. As a Christmas traditionalist, though, I was incredibly disappointed: instead of the traditional cheerful Christmas vignettes, the window displays this year are all about the commercialism and automation of Christmas gift giving. The emphasis this year is on providing an interactive “virtual experience” which involves the spectator via their phone.
Since Saks Fifth Avenue moved into the eastern side of the building a few years ago, The Bay Christmas windows have never been the same. Anyone who’s lived in the city for a while and gone down to The Bay to check these out will see that now there are only five Bay windows remaining on the Queen Street side, near the west end. I remember when those fantastically-dressed windows stretched all the way across Queen Street and down Yonge to Richmond Street, utilizing all the Bay windows. At one time, The Bay’s Christmas windows were easily on par with Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s in New York; it was an awesome site, but is no more.
For the first time ever, the digital extension will now transport Canadians inside the windows from anywhere across the country. To immerse themselves in the whimsy and wonder of the windows, customers just scan the QR code, point the camera at a surface and click to be transported into the augmented reality. Once ‘inside,’ device motion and screen interactions let people explore elements from all five of the holiday windows using both the front and rear cameras on their smartphones. An added bonus: Holiday enthusiasts can share a photo or video using the AR experience on Instagram or Facebook Story, tagging @hudsonsbay and using the hashtag #MyBayHolidayWindow for a chance to win one of five $1,000 gift cards to shop in-store and on TheBay.com*.
The unique QR code can be found at select Hudson’s Bay stores, on The Bay’s social media channels, on The Bay gift cards, and on packages ordered on TheBay.com throughout the holiday season.
“For more than 100 years, these holiday windows have been quintessential to the Toronto experience,” says Alexander Meyer, Chief Customer Officer at The Bay. “With the digital transcendence of this year’s windows, we are creating a whole new level of connectivity for our customers, not only in Toronto but throughout Canada.”1
The windows this year did not really lend themselves to still images as all the objects were in motion; instead I’ve captured a little video of each of the five window vignettes:
Christmas 2018 was a great year for The Bay’s Christmas windows. Here’s a few of the windows from that season:
Located at the busy intersection of Yonge and Queen Streets, the Toronto Eaton Centre Bridge is a dramatic public landmark that replaces the previous pedestrian bridge, which was completed in 1978. The bridge spans Queen Street West and links the Toronto Eaton Centre with The Bay/Saks Fifth Avenue on the south side of Queen Street West.
The design challenge involved carefully merging the contrasting buildings the bridge links – on one side the historic 1896 sandstone Hudson’s Bay/Saks Fifth Avenue (formerly Simpsons – anyone remember that?) with Romanesque revival features, and on the other, the contemporary glass and steel forms of the 1977 Toronto Eaton Centre.
From the architect’s website:
The new bridge was designed as a beautiful, sustainable addition to Toronto’s streetscape and pedestrian infrastructure. Conceptualized as a metaphorical handshake between these two seemingly opposing architectural styles, the geometry of the bridge transitions from the circular arches found on the historic Hudson Bay facade into the rectangular forms of the Eaton Centre. In addition to its steel, bronze and glass appearance echoing the materials and iconography of the historic buildings it links, the Bridge maintains the original ethos of the Eaton Centre in its honest use of simple materials. In total, the structure is comprised of 190 patinated bronze panels and 210 double, curved glass panels, each unique in shape and curvature. The Bridge has transformed the link between the historic buildings it sits aside. It enhances, rather than overshadows, the architectural features of each building.
In order to minimize disruption to the busy intersection of Yonge and Queen Streets, the bridge’s main structural components were assembled on nearby James Street and moved into place in one piece. I took these shots on May 28, 2017 while the bridge was still very much a work in progress on James Street:
Moving the 218 metric tonne bridge in place required a highly specialized hydraulic lift system given the minimal clearances on both the Eaton Centre and Hudson’s Bay sides. The entire process took several hours in the early morning hours on a weekend, shutting down this section of Queen Street. The remainder of work was done in place allowing the street to remain operable.
The new bridge opened in late 2017. I took these shots of the completed pedestrian bridge on April 10, 2021:
Now the puppies are nice and warm. Love this fountain.
Pretty sad but it’s time had come
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Well done Marv! I walk by this area so often and really take these for granted, but when you highlight…
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This is such a lovely part of the city. I love how they fixed up that square and the fountain…