TO Cityscapes

Toronto Through My Lens

Month: May 2025

Ward’s Island

May 21, 2025 / / 1 Comment

As most know, the Toronto Islands are comprised of three small land masses – Hanlan’s Point, Centre Island and Ward’s Island – joined in an arc.

Ward’s Island is on the east side of the Islands. Unlike Hanlan’s Point and Centre Island, which are full of picnic areas and BBQ sites, Ward’s is mostly residential, having a quiet, calm aura to it.

The city, from Wards Island

Exploring The Cottages

On Ward’s Island there are 262 homes and roughly 650 people living on the Island. The community has no stores, cars or public transportation, so life is very different for Islanders:

Think you want to live on Ward’s Island?

Well think again… it’s an awful long wait. There is Legislation in place for Island residents which safeguards their homes: The Toronto Islands Residential Community Stewardship Act. Under the Act, the deed to a house may be transferred only to the current owner’s child or spouse. If the house must be sold for personal reasons, and if a child or spouse will not be the new owner, the process is handled by the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust Corporation. The house and the land lease are sold for the owner’s benefit, but the buyer must be an individual on a 500-person waiting list which was established through a lottery. A firm price is set by the Trust; no bids or negotiation are allowed. This process was intended to eliminate the risk of the homes being sold on the open market, driving up the prices, and preventing a windfall for the owner.

Down to the Beach

The Ward’s Island beach is located at the start of the boardwalk, next to a small playground and washrooms behind the soccer field. It’s the least busy of the three main beaches of the Island.

An old-fashioned boardwalk runs the length of the southern shore, starting at Ward’s Island Beach and passing the back gate of Riviera cafe with its lovely patio.

Sandy path to the beach
Lonely canoe

“The Anatomy of Fear” by Bruce Smith

On the north part of the island there is an interesting art instalment by artist Bruce Smith, who lives on Ward’s Island. The instalment is described by the artist:

Fear can give rise to frantic despair and also can lead to progression. This duality is represented in “The Anatomy of Fear” as the right and left wings. The terrifying right wing consists of the body of the dragon, filled with “Big Bucks” ($): a bat wing coloured red to indicate hysteria and disruption. A contemporary analogy of this wing is the denial of global warming and refusal to engage in carbon emission reduction programs. The benign left wing is filled with common sense “c”, coloured environmentally-friendly green with shape derived from a dove.

Back to the Mainland…

Waiting for the return ferry
Beach beside the ferry docks
Time to go back to the mainland

Hearn Generating Station

May 13, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Watching a suggested video on YouTube a few days ago reminded me of a fascinating urban relic in Toronto: the Hearn Generating Station:

Photo: City of Toronto

The Hearn Generating Station (named after Richard Lankaster Hearn) is a vast decommissioned electrical generating station down in the docklands. The plant was originally fired by coal, but later converted to burn natural gas. Everything about the plant is on a massive scale and, according to sources, encompasses 650 thousand cubic metres of space. The plant opened in 1951 and closed in 1983.

The R. L. Hearn Generating Station was the site of Canada’s first 100 MW steam turbo-generator set. The station sits in what was once Ashbridge’s Bay, a shallow marsh that was filled in with rubble from downtown construction sites from 1911 to 1950s.

Located in the Toronto Docklands, the Hearn’s surrounding area has not been gentrified whatsoever. You would not know you are still within the boundaries of the City of Toronto; the location feels remote and desolate:

Industrial mess at its finest
Looking back at the city

The Hearn Generating Station is located at 440 Unwin Avenue. Once reachable only by car or on foot, a TTC bus now has a route down Cherry Street which will take you to Unwin Avenue after passing over two of the dockland shipping channels. There are no sidewalks down Unwin Avenue, and it’s a long and dusty trek past industrial warehouses and landfill mess to get out to the Hearn.

Not the most uplifting neighbourhood…

Is this where old City Sightseeing buses go to die?
Industrial mess at its finest

Approaching the Hearn

At any rate, my goal is now in sight:

The architecture and former use of the structure of the Hearn reminds of the Battersea Power Station in London, UK. The Battersea, though, has been restored and transformed into a very hip and modern venue with a mixture of over 150 shops, bars, restaurants, leisure and entertainment venues. The Battersea has thrived but the Hearn currently remains decayed and abandoned.

BlogTO recently called the Hearn Generating Station the most dangerous site in the City of Toronto… with good reason. The site is a favourite with urban explorers and photographers, and there has been more than one death of these intrepid people on the site:

Disclaimer: these are not my images

I was able to get these shots by sticking my camera lens through the fence (security is quite serious here, and the rolled barbed wire at the top proves a point). I was being closely watched by the Security there, but had no nefarious or illegal intent other than grabbing a few shots for the blog:

Denied!
Taken through the steel webbing of the gates

Here is the excellent YouTube video which triggered my interest in the Hearn Generating Station:

A Rebirth… Sort of

On June 5, 2014, the building was partially cleaned up and used for the Toronto Luminato Festival Big Bang Bash, their 2nd annual fundraising gala. It also featured the Yves Saint Laurent Opening Night Party later that evening. In 2015 the building was used for UNSOUND hosted by Luminato Festival. In 2016 Luminato Festival used the building for its festival.

There is Hope for its Future, Though…

There are future plans, though, for this behemoth and the portlands area in general. According to the development site:

A massive redevelopment proposal is planned for the historic Richard L. Hearn Generating Station in Toronto’s Port Lands. Dubbed The Hearn District, the redevelopment would incorporate the shuttered power station into a multi-use district to be built over 30 acres by the Cortel Group. With the conceptual design for the masterplan by PARTISANS, SvN, and public realm design by CCxA, the proposal envisions thousands of residential units and extensive cultural and commercial spaces.

Click here to read the full details of this redevelopment proposal.

Let’s hope this comes to pass. It would be wonderful to see this amazing building and the desolate area of Toronto come alive.

Museum Subway Station

May 9, 2025 / / 3 Comments

In a city of drab subway stations, the Museum station on Line 1 is currently a welcome exception.

Museum station opened to the public on February 28, 1963 as a stop on the University subway line. Located south of the intersection of Queen’s Park and Charles Street West it served, as its name implies, the Royal Ontario Museum.

Museum station platform level on opening day, 1963
Photo: City of Toronto Archives

Fast Forward…

In April 2008, a major renovation by Diamond and Schmitt Architects and Jeviso Construction Corporation transformed the platform level to mirror exhibits in the Royal Ontario Museum.

This renovation replaced the original tile scheme. Supporting columns were redesigned to evoke various historical and cultural figures, including the Egyptian deity Osiris, Toltec warriors, Doric columns, Forbidden City columns, and Indigenous Northwest Coast house posts.

The walls were re-clad with mauve aluminum panels by Ontario Panelization. This incorporated painted 1/4″ fire-rated Lexan into the panels composing the large MUSEUM lettering on the walls with a historical hieroglyphic inscription from the ROM. The walls and ceiling colours were also updated to complement the new look, making the space feel more like a museum exhibit than a transit stop:

On an interesting footnote, the Museum subway station has been named among the ten most beautiful metro stations in the world by The Guardian newspaper.

Stock Yards Village

May 7, 2025 / / 4 Comments

History

In decades past, “the stockyards” at Keele Street and St. Clair Avenue West were just as the name implies: stock yards where cattle, sheep and pigs were slaughtered and sold for human consumption.

The property began as a 30-acre lot but eventually expanded to be nearly 200 acres. A fire in 1908 burnt down most of the timber structures; they were quickly replaced by concrete ones. As the stockyards expanded, more and more packing houses began popping up along St. Clair Avenue West. Famously, Maple Leaf Foods opened in the neighbourhood in 1927.

Given all the animals and meat-packaging companies, the area had a rather unpleasant smell, which only further reinforced Toronto’s “Hogtown” nickname (I’ve always wondered why Toronto is still sometimes referred to as Hogtown… now I know):

The Stockyards were called “Canada’s Greatest Livestock Market”
Photo: BlogTO

In 1944, the Ontario government took ownership of the stockyards, renaming them the Ontario Public Stockyards and later the Ontario Stockyards. This site was one of the largest in all of North America:

The Canada Packers stockyards, located at the southwest corner of Keele Street and St. Clair Avenue, 1950. The Junction was home to a large manufacturing community for the first half of the 20th century. Photo: City of Toronto Archives

Redevelopment

In January 1994, the Ontario government closed the yards; demolitions were mostly complete by March. The horse exchange was demolished in December 1994. An administrative building, erected in 1904/05, was demolished in 1995. The last manager of the stockyards moved to the CNE in 1995.

The area was redeveloped and the current mall opened in March 2014. The Stock Yards Village mall is anchored by several major stores, including SportChek, Winners, and HomeSense. The mall formerly had a Target from March 2014 to April 2015. That space remained vacant from April 2015 to November 2017, when Nations Fresh Foods opened:

Corner of Keele Street and St. Clair Avenue West
Corner of Keele Street and St. Clair Avenue West

The architecture of the outdoor mall is rather odd: the small streets twist and wind around the shops, and the shops themselves are located on 3 different levels which can only be reached by going to the parking lots or the suspended pedestrian bridges. The site is part-pedestrian mall, part-vehicle throughway, and part-parking lot. Music blares from loudspeakers situated throughout the entire site, sidewalks are wide, and benches are scattered throughout the outdoor mall. Clearly, the architects were striving to achieve a “village feel” to the place:

Shot from one of the pedestrian walkways

Nations Fresh Foods

Nations Fresh Foods is an independently owned grocery store chain, founded in August 2012 in Woodbridge. According to the company, Nations are considered “a new, higher-end, banner store”. In total, the parent company owns 8 stores: 5 Nations Fresh Foods stores, 2 Oceans Fresh Foods Market stores, and 1 Grant’s Foodmart store, which is another affiliate chain. Two of the stores are located in Brampton, three in Mississauga, one in Vaughan, one in Hamilton, and one in Toronto.

Nations Fresh Foods
Going up the escalator to Nations Fresh Foods
Tornado-like sculpture outside Nations Fresh Foods

Nations Experience

A ride up the escalator will bring you to the Nations Experience, a vast, noisy and chaotic gaming spot/playground for kids:

Food Court

Nations Fresh Foods

And yes, there is actually a bona fide grocery store amidst the chaos:

Over the decades, the neighbourhood has almost completely transformed. Since the closing of the original stockyards the land has been redeveloped, mainly for big-box stores.

New townhouses down Weston Road, across from Stock Yards Village
New townhomes lining Weston Road, opposite Stockyards Village

These days the Ontario Stockyards are found further north, in Cookstown.

Reference: BlogTO, The History of the Stock Yards District

Toronto’s Half-House

May 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

The lone row home at 54 1/2 Saint Patrick Street dates back to Toronto’s slums in the late 19th century. Built somewhere between 1890 and 1893, this bay-and-gable relic from a bygone era once was one of six identical, structurally intertwined homes on what was then known as Dummer Street.

Time passed, the street names changed, and a particularly sharky land holdings company began buying up property throughout the neighbourhood in the middle of the 20th century. Eventually, the owners of the row houses caved, but not as a unit. Each half of the row houses’ wholes were torn down at an excruciatingly slow pace… until 54 1/2 remained the only one left.

This begs the question: how does half a building cleave away so cleanly only to leave the rest of it standing? Very carefully. In a miraculous feat performed with clumsy and powerful machinery, a demolition crew managed to tear down 54 1/2’s neighbour to the north with such precision as to not disturb any of the original facade on the building that was to remain. The white, exterior wall had once been a load-bearing wall hidden internally to divide the neighbours’ bedrooms and living rooms from each other. One slip with an excavator and the half-house would have come tumbling down.

By 1975, The Village by the Grange Housing Project opened just next to the Half House, giving it another odd appearance – a half of a house next to a full housing project. And that’s the way it has stayed for decades.

As of 2013, the house was reported to be privately owned and vacant. The current assessed value, according to city officials, is $648,000. As it begins to show signs of wear, its status as last bastion of the neighbourhood’s less pleasant days are beginning to show on its craggy, half-face. Then again, if any house has earned its character, it’s this one.

Text source: Atlas Obscura – Toronto’s Half-House

Ohyo Spree

May 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Passing through the busy area of Yonge and Dundas last week, I encountered a new claw machine arcade called Ohyo Spree at 340 Yonge Street.

Apparently Ohyo Spree has a twinned store in Empress Walk in North York called Ohyo Fun. These Asian claw machine arcades seem to be all the rage at the moment, and there’s another nearby one called Octo Zone at 247 Yonge Street (I covered that one briefly in this prior post).

If you’d like to see what BlogTO says about the new arcade, their review is here.

These arcade interiors are an explosion of colour with their vibrant neon lighting:

From the arcade’s website:

Looking for a unique and exciting experience in the Toronto GTA? Our arcade is not just for kids—it’s the perfect place for adults to unwind, relive your childhood, and compete for exclusive toys! With a variety of claw machines and fun challenges, it’s an ideal place for date nights, group outings, or just a casual hangout with friends.

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