Category: Neighbourhood photowalks (Page 5 of 5)

Some Early Fall Colour

October 8, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

Fierce Drumming at Yonge & Dundas

October 4, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

These guys were from a music school called Juicy Bowtie Music. There was some pretty fierce drumming to AC-DC when I took these shots this past Saturday at Yonge & Dundas.

Bike Share Toronto

September 29, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

Seen on Elizabeth Street

Saturday Afternoon

September 24, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

A little wandering around on a Saturday afternoon…

**Bike Locks & Handcuffs**
An odd combination found on Jarvis Street

**Under The Scaffold**
Somewhere on Jarvis Street

**Metropolitan United Church**
56 Queen Street East

**St. Michael’s Hospital**
30 Bond Street

**St. Michael’s Skywalk**
Spanning Shuter Street

**Yonge & Dundas**
Yonge Dundas Square with the SAMS sign atop 77 Victoria Street

**20 Edward Street**
Who remembers The World’s Biggest Bookstore? This is the site where it used to stand; now there’s a high-rise condo. The World’s Biggest Bookstore operated from 1980 until 2014. The 3-storey store covered 64,000 square feet and was noted for its bright lights and over 20 kilometres of bookshelves. I still miss it.

**The Shop Is Closed**
Somewhere on Yonge Street, north of Edward Street

A College Street Walk, From West to East

September 24, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

For some time, it’s been on my Toronto photography bucket list to explore College Street from absolute end to end. Having never been west of Bathurst Street on College, it was territory new to me – even better! My College Street photowalk turned out to be an absolute delight. Here’s a bit of what I encountered that day; to see all the shots from this photowalk, see the link at the bottom of this post.

**Bethel Evangelical Community Church**
1155 College Street

**Flowers Outside Yerba Buena Cannabis Store**
On the corner of Dufferin Street & College Street

**Antiques at Ralph’s Hardware**
846 College Street, near Ossington Avenue

**Repainting The Revival**
783 College Street. Revival is an event venue for hire.

**Camões Square**
In Portuguese Pioneers Parkette. Luis Vaz de Camões (1524-1580) is considered Portugal’s greatest poet.

**The Garden**
Portuguese Pioneers Parkette

**College Fruit Market**
Northwest corner of Beatrice Street and College Street

**Little Italy Heart**
Southeast corner of Grace Street and College Street

**Piazza Johnny Lombardi**
Southwest corner of College Street and Grace Street. Johnny Lombardi, Broadcaster and Founder of CHIN radio among many other things, was often referred to as the “Mayor of Little Italy”. He lived in the neighborhood all his life. This memorial to him was installed at the southwest corner of College Street and Grace Street in an area known as “Piazza Johnny Lombardi” in Little Italy. The sculptures were designed by Veronica and Edwin Dam de Nogales.

**Sneaky Dee’s**
Still at the corner of College and Bathurst Streets

**St. George’s Lutheran Church**
410 College Street. St. George’s is a German–English speaking Lutheran congregation with German roots. Their focus is to offer German and English speaking congregational life in downtown Toronto.

**Fancy Franks**
326 College Street, corner of College and Major Streets. Gourmet hot dogs!

**Colourful Condo Balconies**
301 College Street, near Spadina Avenue

**Church With An Identity Crisis?**
8 Robert Street, just off College Street. The sign out front says it is Iglesia Hispana La Casa de Misericordia Eterna (Spanish church), but the sign on the church door (and on Google Maps) says it is the Hungarian Reformed Evangelical Christian Church. Whatever it’s called I think it’s a pretty, quaint little church.

**James Till & Ernest McCulloch – MaRS Discovery District, 101 College Street**
James Till PhD and Ernest McCulloch MD are globally recognized as the Fathers of Stem Cell Science for their research in the 1960s at the Ontario Cancer Institute and Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. They received Canada’s Gairdner Award in 1961, and were inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2004, and won the Albert Lasker Aware for Basic Medical Research in 2005. Monuments sculpted by Ruth Abernethy in 2016.

CLICK HERE TO BROWSE ALL THE SHOTS FROM THIS WALK

St. Joseph Street

September 15, 2022 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

I love walking down St. Joseph Street in downtown Toronto. The street consists mostly of 1940s-era Art Deco and/or brownstone apartments. Much of the original architecture is still in place and, thankfully, the street has not been totally overrun with towering condos. Yes, there are some condos on this street, but they have been kept low (not counting FIVE St. Joseph near the corner of Yonge Street) and styled to match the existing architecture of the original buildings. I always feel like I’m stepping back in time when I walk through this small street, which really only stretches from Queen’s Park Crescent to Yonge Street; it’s a small street with big character, and there’s a lot of gay history here as well.

**The Canadian Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph Street**
The national office of this organization dedicated to honouring and preserving the efforts of Canadian composers is located in a residence built in the Queen Anne style in 1892 for William J. Hill, who was a City Councillor and contractor. The Canadian Music Centre has been in existence since 1959 and moved into the building in 1984, and named the building the Chalmers House to recognize the financial contributions of Floyd and Jean Chalmers to renovate the premises.

A Dark Past: 16 St. Joseph Street

The street is quite idyllic until you come upon an apartment building at 16 St. Joseph. Whenever I pass by this building I always think of that atrocious murder of gay bar owner Sandy LeBlanc in September 1978, and I wonder who committed this violent murder and for what reason. This murder is famous in the annals of Toronto’s gay history, and remains unsolved to this day.

There has been a lot written on this particular murder so I won’t go into great detail here, nor am I qualified to – just Google it if you want to learn more. Basically, friends of Sandy LeBlanc became worried when they didn’t hear from him after a day or two. The friends went to the apartment building and kicked Sandy’s door in – they found LeBlanc’s bloody body on the floor. He had been stabbed over 100 times – the police called it “overkill” and I can certainly see why. Police at the time found bloody footprints leading from the carpet in the bedroom to a window overlooking the alley. Reports said the carpet was so thick with blood it squished when officers walked on it. A bloody handkerchief was also found on the front lawn of the property.

The building was known as “16 St. Joseph Court” at the time of the murder in 1978

Anyway, back to the street…

11 St. Joseph Street. Home many years ago to the famous and seminal 1970s gay club “The Manatee”, and later, “The Playground”. The condo building has been rebuilt since that time, but reconstructed in the exact same design as the original.

**6 to 14 St. Joseph Street**
The row of five buildings were Second Empire style rowhouses completed in 1879. They are listed in the Historic Yonge Street Heritage Conservation District and designated under Part IV and Part V, of the Ontario Heritage Act. The buildings feature red brick cladding with a mansard roof over moulded brick frieze. Tapered stone lintels top windows and door openings.

5 St. Joseph Street – former home of the gay club “Katrina’s”, later renamed “Colbys”, and later still became “Bachelors”. Like 11 St. Joseph Street beside it, the original building was demolished but a new one rebuilt in the exact style.

Near the corner of Yonge and St. Joseph Streets stands a sculpture entitled “Artifacts of Memory”, created by artist Eldon Garnet. It is composed of five lines of text which stretch 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”

Not on St. Joseph Street but right around the corner is 579 Yonge Street, home to the awesome gay bar “Cornelius” back in the day. The dichotomy of this building still amuses me to this day – in the 70s and 80s, “Cornelius” sat above the notorious biker bar “The Gasworks”. You could not possibly have found two more disparate worlds co-existing in one structure.

And… that’s about it. If you’re interested in the history of Toronto’s gay clubs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, check out the site Then & Now. There’s an abundance of detail there regarding Toronto’s gay past and it makes for fascinating reading, especially if you were in the scene at the time.