Toronto Through My Lens
Barbara Barrett Lane is located just south of Bloor Street West, running between Brunswick Avenue and Borden Street.
The Lane is home to this wonderful mural by Elicser, one of Toronto’s brightest street artists. This scene is dedicated to musicians and the people who listen to music.
Up until a few years ago I would pass through the Sherbourne Street area near Bloor Street East twice per day, on my way to the subway. Not the most uplifting of ‘hoods, the area has traditionally been slightly down at heel. That has all been changing recently. This past weekend I went up Sherbourne Street, not having done so for quite a while, and was shocked by the recent changes on Sherbourne and neighbouring Howard Street.
After years of neglect, the heritage building on the corner of Howard Street and Sherbourne Street finally gets some attention (and a new condo built above it):
I shot these while heading to the subway via the wonderful little street known as Glen Road. I’ve always loved Glen Road; so much character – to me it has an almost-Brooklyn look and feel. It’s a huge bonus that the once-derelict period houses on the west side of the street were recently renovated and revitalized:
Sherbourne Street continues to change and gentrify. Over the last few years several upscale condos have gone up near the corner of Bloor Street East, making the area a little more desirable than it was a couple of years ago.
What do you do with an abandoned old train station? Why, turn it into a high-end LCBO of course!
Located just off Yonge Street near Summerhill Avenue, this structure used to be the North Toronto Railway Station. It was in service from 1916 to 1930, and closed in 1931 after Union Station opened downtown.
In 1916, architects Frank Darling and John Pearson were assigned the task of creating a new North Toronto rail station. The centrepiece of their plan was a 140-foot clock tower inspired by the Campanile in St. Mark’s Square in Venice. Built by the P. Lyall & Sons Construction Company, the station went on to service the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line running across Toronto.
This station was the first building in the city to be constructed of Tyndall limestone from Manitoba, supplied by The Wallace Sandstone Quarries.
When then-Mayor Tommy Church laid the cornerstone on September 9, 1915, he praised the CPR for being the first railway company to give Toronto proper recognition. He hoped the station would be the first of a series of railway gateways to the city, improving inter-city commuting. When passenger service began on June 4, 1916, destinations included Lindsay, Owen Sound, and Ottawa. The most popular route was Montreal, which attracted wealthy businessmen who lived nearby.
When Union Station opened in 1927 and the Great Depression followed shortly thereafter, the North Toronto Railway Station, which served smaller towns in Ontario and was originally meant to augment the bigger station, began to suffer. The last paying passengers filed through the station on September 27, 1930. Brewers’ Retail moved into the northern portion of the terminal building in 1931.
The station was re-opened, briefly, at 10:30AM on May 22, 1939, when King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth (mother of Queen Elizabeth II), arrived for their first visit to Toronto. This was the first visit to Canada by a reigning British monarch. The King was also officially the Canadian monarch, marking the first visit by one to the city. The royal couple departed Toronto through Union Station. Shortly after World War II, returning soldiers passed through the North Toronto station; they were its last rail passengers.
The building has been protected under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act since October 13, 1976.
You want booze? There’s nothing you can’t find here – champagne, wine, beer, vodka, gin, whisky, scotch, tequila – you name it, they have that and a lot more. They also carry extensive vintage and imported liquor.
The station has a much, much longer history than I’ve noted, so if you’re interested in reading a more in-depth article, click here for the wiki.
The Alexander Muir Memorial Gardens are located at 2901 Yonge Street, on the east side of Yonge below Lawrence Avenue. The park was created in 1933 by public subscription to honour Alexander Muir, who composed the song The Maple Leaf Forever. Landscape architect Edwin Kay designed the park using the maple leaf as a theme.
The Gardens were originally located opposite Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Yonge Street, but were moved to its present location in 1951 to make way for construction of the Yonge subway line. The park at its present location was formally dedicated on May 28, 1952. Edwin Kay’s formal, symmetrical design of the original gardens was replicated at the new location.
It’s very peaceful here; a great place to unwind and take refuge from the city.
This mysterious statue stands guard at the townhouse complex on the northwest corner of Irwin Avenue and St. Nicholas Street.
There is absolutely nothing to identify it, its purpose or its artist. I have a sneaking feeling, though, that it’s created by the artist Robert Bowers, as it has such a similar look to another sculpture I’ve featured here on TOcityscapes:
What do you think – similar or not?
Click here if you’d like to read my post on this untitled Bay Street sculpture.
Ghost bikes are to be found across Toronto wherever a cyclist has been killed. Members of the cycling community have been installing these tributes for more than 20 years.
This ghost bike, outside Old City Hall at 60 Queen Street West, commemorates the spot where bike messenger Darcy Allan Sheppard was killed on August 31, 2009 from a vehicle altercation with former Attorney General Michael Bryant. I remember reading and hearing about this altercation at the time; the incident was more violent than most. The tragedy was compounded by a controversial decision by an Ontario government-appointed independent prosecutor to drop criminal negligence and dangerous driving charges against Bryant.
Throughout the ensuing years, the memorial has been maintained by Sheppard’s family and their supporters. The memorial has served as the meeting place for semi-annual gatherings calling for a more equal justice system for cyclists killed on Toronto’s roads.
Another ghost bike resides on the corner of Avenue Road and Davenport Road. Adam Excell was riding his bike on Avenue Road, near Davenport Road on June 13, 2015, when he was struck and killed by a car that did not remain at the scene.
By creating this blog I’ve discovered the Toronto sculpture works of Canadian visual artist and novelist Eldon Garnet piece by piece. As it turns out, over my years of photographing Toronto I’d been unknowingly capturing shots of Eldon Garnet’s work. Going through shots both old and recent I realized I have enough to publish a post focusing on Eldon Garnet’s collective sculptures in Toronto, soooooo… here we go.
Eldon Garnet is a true Torontonian; he was born here in 1946. His prolific sculptures and photographic work has been held at the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and the Amsterdam Center of Photography. He is also a Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design located in the city’s core. Eldon Garnet is represented by the Christopher Cutts Gallery in Toronto and the Torch Gallery, Amsterdam
To Serve and Protect is a three-part sculpture surrounding the Metropolitan Police Headquarters in downtown Toronto. The three pieces are located at the main Headquarters entrance at 40 College Street, the southeast corner of Bay and Grenville Streets, and the Grenville entrance. The sculptures were erected in 1988.
If you’d like to read my post dedicated to this 3-piece sculpture, click here.
This bridge on Queen Street East, which crosses the Don Valley Parkway, bears an inscription across the top which reads:
This river I step in is not the river I stand in
The text is based on a quote from the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said: You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. Basically, change is the one constant in life.
The overall textual theme of the work is Time, its substance and ambiguity. Time And A Clock is 1 part of a 3-site art piece, with the second part appearing as words embedded in the 4 corners of the Broadview Avenue and Queen Street East intersections. The last part of the work appears on 4 metal banners further east at Jimmy Simpson Park. Unfortunately I have no shots of the other 2 pieces of the installation (I’m thinking there just might be a further post on these), but as a whole the work is presented like this:
1) At the location Queen Street East/DVP location:
THIS RIVER I STEP IN IS NOT THE RIVER I STAND IN
2) Each of the 4 corners at the intersection of Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue, bear 1 of the following text embedded in the sidewalk:
TOO SOON FREE FROM TIME
TIME IS MONEY : MONEY IS TIME
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
TIME = DISTANCE X VELOCITY
3) Near Jimmy Simpson Park (872 Queen Street East) 4 steel poles hold banners which read:
COURSING
DISAPPEARING
TREMBLING
RETURNING
On a less artistic note, this current steel Truss bridge crossing the Don Valley was built in 1911 by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company of Darlington, England. It was higher in elevation than previous bridges at the location and streets on each side of the river were graded higher to meet the level of the bridge. The bridge was opened for streetcars on October 8, 1911, and for other road traffic 5 days later.
The bridge was renovated in the 1990s; Eldon Garnet’s public art was added at the top of the bridge in 1996.
Created by Eldon Garnet and Francis LeBouthillier and erected in 1989, this monument is located at the intersection of Blue Jays Way and Navy Wharf Court.
The sculpture depicts 2 life-sized Chinese workers precariously moving a beam into place to complete the construction of a railway trestle. The boulders at the base are from the Canadian Rockies. Three pairs of rocks from the original transcontinental rail route are parallel to the pedestrian pathway and contain a small plaque stating One by One the Walkers Vanish.
Between 1880 and 1885, 17,000 men emigrated from China, most from the province of Kwangtung (Guangdong), to work on Canada’s burgeoning railway. By some estimates, more than 4,000 workers died during the construction. In addition to facing racist discrimination, the immigrants were often given the most dangerous jobs in the already dangerous task of blasting through the Rocky Mountains to lay the Western section of the track. Many were killed by landslides, cave-ins, disease and explosions. Despite the high risk involved in their work, Chinese were paid half as much as other workers.
The Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial was erected to commemorate the contribution and sacrifice of these workers, who remained nameless in the history of Canada. After the railroad was complete, many of the immigrants who survived could not find new jobs. To that end, a plaque on the memorial reads:
With no means of going back to China when their labour was no longer needed, thousands drifted in near destitution along the completed track.
This sculpture is located at 21 Osgoode Lane, behind the Courthouse and adjacent to Nathan Phillips Square. It features the scales of justice on which balances a lamb (left) and a lion.
The text on the piece reads:
Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination
A description from the artist’s website:
The lamb often signifies purity, innocence, meekness. It often represents either pure thought or a just person. The lion is rich in symbolism. In common correspondence, the lion is the “king of beasts,” the “natural lord and master,” the possessor of strength. It also can represent earth and at times “philosophical fire.”
The context in which the lamb and lion appear in this sculpture direct the interpretation of these two symbolic representations. One is large, one is small and yet the scales balance. The mis-weighted yet balanced scale invites us to question why and how. The answer is simple – on the scales of justice each individual is equal. One is strong and one is meek, one is powerful and one is weak, but the law treats both equally.
To borrow some further explanatory text from the McMurtry Gardens of Justice website:
The scales are also represented symbolically. The tower and the platform are constructed symmetrically yet askew. The tower is twisted to a 60 degree angle to the back of the courthouse, to which the platform is parallel. The ends of the platform are cut at 30 degree angles in correspondence to the support tower. The tower is constructed such that the dimensions from the top to the bottom are angled.
Everything about the mathematics of this scale is calculated to be in perfect proportion, balanced, but turned or angled 60 or 30 degrees, as are the proportions designed to range from 1 to 2. The final effect is a scale that is balanced yet in a complicated fashion, possibly a metaphor for the law itself.
The scales are constructed of brushed stainless steel. The lion and the lamb are life size, realistically rendered in bronze.
In Inversion, you will see upside down moose, foxes and wolves in front of the James Cooper Mansion condos, 28 Linden Street (Bloor/Sherbourne area). Placed in 2011, they are made of bronze.
But what exactly does it all mean? From Eldon Garnet’s website:
This sculptural work is a comment about our current, local relationship with the age-old Canadian, and particularly urban, interaction with nature. Simply put, nature has now been turned on its head. The threat has gone, the desire is not to fortify our existence against the wilderness which has been tamed to disappearance, but rather, it is now a nostalgic desire to embrace what no longer exists. Our current longing is to return a sense of nature to our environment, not to build walls against its presence, but rather to embrace nature.
Near the corner of Yonge and St. Joseph Streets stands Eldon Garnet’s sculpture Artifacts of Memory. Unveiled in 2016, it consists of 5 lines of text stretching out into interconnected yet disparate strands:
FROM ONE NARRATIVE TO THE NEXT
IF NOT TOMORROW TOMORROW
LUCKY ENOUGH TO FLY INTO THE FLAME
SLOWLY SURELY DISAPPEARING
FOLLOWED BY MOMENTS OF EQUILIBRIUM
The piece highlights the conditions of living in the modern world with a focus on the passage of time. The sculpture is meant to captivate the observer’s curiosity and reflection as they walk toward and under the artwork.
Eldon Garnet has expressed that Artifacts of Memory materially espouses the difficulty of coming to terms with history, time, and death.
Art critics have commented on Artifacts of Memory:
Sprouting a multiplicity of civic narratives, the sculpture resists the comfortable and easy sense of resolution – of certainty – often dispensed by less playful and less daring public art.
Well, that’s about it for Eldon Garnet’s sculptures in Toronto – at least the ones I know about. If you know of any I may have missed please let me know.
Walking down Queen Street East this past weekend on my way to photograph Riverside, I passed Sumach Street; the colour of these interesting pieces caught my eye and drew me in.
At 60 Sumach Street sits The Magic Building. I’m not sure exactly what goes on at said building, and I couldn’t find much on the Web, so I guess it’s open to interpretation:
Above the door an annoyed-looking witch casts a weary eye on any interlopers…
… while a figure not unlike Metallica’s James Hetfield broods quietly on each side of the door…
BUT!… the best part of this location is the massive, impressive canvas by Elicser, wrapping around the corner of the Magic Building:
On the other side of Sumach Street at the corner of Queen Street East, is this utility box – unmistakably Elicser:
Elicser is one of Toronto’s best street artists who has helped define our cityscape. In photographing Toronto over the years, I’ve encountered a lot of Elicser’s work, all of it impressive and distinctive. You can read more about him here and here.
Here’s a short video on the man himself:
Leaving the magic behind and heading a little further east across Queen Street, I encountered these in an alley beside a building at 533 Queen Street East:
Quite good, actually. The only identification on the mural was a little inscription on the one side: Not Art by @ITSMAHYAR. After some minor Googling, I found a little bit more here about the Not Art Gallery and the artist Mahyar Amir.
So, all in all, it was an interesting little diversion that day on Queen Street East.
Outside the Kelly Library, St. Michael’s College (U of T) at 113 St. Joseph Street, resides Untitled by sculptor William McElcheran.
This bronze sculpture was installed on June 6, 1973 as a plastic piece before being bronzed a few years later; it was sent to Italy for that process.
This is a 2-sided sculpture: the street side shows a crowd of people, many clinging to the others, while the library-facing side shows historical figures involved in intellectual discussions.
McElcheran deliberately included the faces of many contemporary and ancient scholars and teachers on this side of the sculpture. Some of these individuals, such as Einstein or Gandhi, are easy to make out. From left to right, you can see the following figures:
James Joyce
Stephen Leacock
T. S. Eliot
Geoffrey Chaucer
Marshall McLuhan
Dante Alighieri
Germaine de Staël
George Bernard Shaw
George Sand
Leo Tolstoy
William Shakespeare
Sigmund Freud
Jean-Paul Sartre
Rene Descartes
Etienne Gilson
Søren Kierkegaard
Georg Hegel
Immanuel Kant
Eugène Ionescu
Jacques Maritain
St. Thomas Aquinas
Sir Isaac Newton
St. Theresa of Avila
St. Augustine
Albert Einsten
Eldridge Cleaver
John Henry Newman
Barbara Ward
Karl Marx
Charles Darwin
Mahatma Gandhi
Herman Kahn
Some of these scholars – for example, Marshall McLuhan and Etienne Gilson – have taught at St. Michael’s College and even used the Kelly Library.
So what does McElcheran’s statue symbolize? The interpretation of Reverend Edward A. Synan (1918-1997), a noted philosopher and medievalist with the Pontifical Institute at the Medieval Studies at St. Michael’s College, was printed in the September 7, 1973 issue of the U of T Bulletin:
There are people outside and inside the Library, all of them gratifyingly different. … Some hurry by and will never go in. … Some will go in, but why hurry? Stand around and talk awhile. After you are in, ideas, facts, perspectives, are all hard to come by. One side of Bill’s sculpture says this and much more.
The other side in this artist’s report on the inside of our Library… (he) has reached the people whose books guarantee them survival. … Bill has put in conversation men and women who met only in libraries and in the intellects of those who use them. … Not all the figures are historic — at least not yet. Look carefully and — who knows? — you may find yourself.
Synan also observed that the head of Jesus can be seen on the side of the statue facing the street. Synan said McElcheran was trying to show that Christ overhears the talk of those waiting outside the library and that He can like what He hears. Knowledge is what a library is all about and it means hard work so a lot of struggle goes on, for first you must get in.
1Analysis from the Kelly Library’s site
Want to see more works by William McElcheran? Click here to read about another of his sculptures I’ve profiled on TOcityscapes.com.
The Simcoe WaveDeck is one of four WaveDecks along Toronto’s Harbourfront. Located at the foot of Simcoe Street – 234 Queen’s Quay West to be exact – it opened in June 2009.
Located at the water’s edge, the wooden Simcoe WaveDeck features an informal public amphitheatre-style space with curves that soar as high as 2.6 metres above the lake. Inspired by the Canadian cottage experience and the shorelines of Ontario’s great lakes, the WaveDeck is meant to give urban dwellers a feel for life at the lake.
The other WaveDecks along the Harbourfront are the Spadina WaveDeck (foot of Spadina Avenue), the Rees WaveDeck (west of Rees Street on the south side of Queens Quay), and the Parliament WaveDeck (foot of Parliament Street; currently under development).
The WaveDecks were designed by the firm West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The WaveDecks have achieved the Award of Excellence, Ontario Builders Awards (2009) and were nominated for the Conde Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards (2010).
The Spadina WaveDeck has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including a Toronto Urban Design Award. It was also the first Canadian project ever to be short-listed for the world-acclaimed Brit Insurance Design Awards.
The Rees WaveDeck has been honoured with several awards including a Bronze Medal for Landscape Design from the Design Exchange.
To see a time lapse video of the Simcoe WaveDeck’s construction, check this out:
There is to eventually be a total of 8 WaveDecks along the Harbourfront, and they promise to totally transform our waterfront.
Here’s an interesting video from our controversial architecture critic Christopher Hume, discussing this project and its expansion:
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