RC Coffee (short for Robo Café) kiosks are popping up around Toronto.
So far in my travels I’ve come across two locations – one near the St. Lawrence Market area, and the other at 475 Yonge Street, above College Street.
Automated coffee cafe at 36 Church Street, north of Front Street EastRC Coffee automated café at 475 Yonge Street, just above College Street
So what are they, exactly? RC Coffee’s website proclaims themselves Canada’s First Robotic Café – Fully Automated Coffee Kiosk, Open 24/7. Serving coffee without a live person present is the name of the game here. From their website:
RC Coffee is filling a void in the market for high-quality unattended coffee kiosks. We’re looking to change the perception of self-serve with sophisticated technology that brews coffee up to the standards of seasoned coffee connoisseurs. No more drip, no more pods. RC Coffee taps into the potential of the latest Eversys Cameo espresso machine technology to rival the coffee from any café.
Here at RC Coffee, we understand that it’s more than just great coffee that keeps people coming back. Our robots delight users with their speed of service and accuracy. Our simple mobile app makes it easy to find the closest Robo Café, remotely view the menu, and load an account via credit card. Next time, you can load your previous order or select from saved favourites, selecting personalized blends at the touch of a button.
So much for the personal touch. Oh well, automation marches on, I guess.
Other RC Coffee locations in Toronto are at:
Toronto General Hospital, 200 Elizabeth Street Kensington Market, 160 Baldwin Street Little Italy, 550 College Street Lyndhurst Centre, 520 Sutherland Drive Dundas Station, 1 Dundas Street West St. Joseph’s Hospital, 30 The Queensway Bickle Centre, 130 Dunn Avenue
You can learn more about Robo Café here on their website.
The 51st annual Festival of India (also known as Ratha-Yatra) took place this past weekend in Toronto. The very first Festival of India in Toronto launched in 1972, and has been growing steadily every year.
This year’s Festival of India parade ran down Yonge Street to Queens Quay West. Three giant floats (called Chariots) were hand-pulled by thousands of attendees and spectators, and there was much singing, chanting, drumming and dancing in the streets. Everyone was encouraged to participate. The parade attendance and spectator involvement this year was massive, due I’m sure to the public returning en masse to events post-COVID.
What is the Festival of India all about?
To answer that question, I’ll refer to a bit of explanatory text from the Festival of India’s website:
The parade down Yonge Street echoes an annual procession that has occurred for centuries in the ancient city of Puri, India. There, three mammoth chariots, known as rathas are taken on a jubilant procession, called a yatra. Hence, the Festival is also known as Ratha-Yatra or “chariot procession”. In Puri, this age-old Ratha-Yatra procession continues to attract over a million people every year!
Seated on each float (chariot) are beautifully bedecked Deities of Jagannatha (another name for Krishna or God), Baladeva (Krishna’s brother), and Subhadra (Krishna’s sister). The procession itself symbolizes the pulling of the Lord into our hearts and this is done with great pomp and grandeur.
In the late 1960s, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the worldwide Hare Krishna Society (ISKCON), inaugurated the North American and international versions of this ancient Indian festival. With roots steeped in spiritual traditions, the festival is now celebrated in every major city around the world, including London, Paris, Sydney, and New York.
The Toronto Festival of India Parade 2023
The chariots roll down Yonge Street surrounded by the crowdTrumpeting on a conch shellDancing down Yonge StreetPeople, people, and more people Yonge Street was very congested
If you would like to view my 2017 album of the Festival of India, which includes the post-parade activities, click here. That year the event was much less crowded and had a more subdued vibe to it.
On September 29, 2022, a new park opened to the public – the Dr. Lillian McGregor Park. The park is located at 25 Wellesley Street West and encompasses the lot bounded by Wellesley Street West to the north and Breadalbane Street to the south. Bay Street condos to the west and the condo at 11 Wellesley Street West to the east form the rest of the border.
But who is Dr. Lillian McGregor, you may ask? Dr. Lillian McGregor (1924-2012), hailing from Whitefish River First Nation, was a dedicated nurse and community leader, recognized for her work in promoting indigenous culture and education. She received the City of Toronto Civic Award, the National Aboriginal Achievement Lifetime Award and the Order of Ontario and was the first indigenous woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto, and was the University’s first Elder In Residence.
The park features include pathways, seating, a playground and artwork by Kenneth Lavallee, a Métis artist from outside of Winnipeg. The artwork in the park recognizes regional Indigenous histories and cultures and honours themes important to Dr. McGregor, including health, spirituality and language.
The art is inspired by Dr. McGregor’s family clan sign (the crane) and by the elements of her childhood home on Birch Island (rock outcrops, water, and reeds). The aim was to envision the Park as a small natural refuge in the midst of downtown Toronto, a home away from home. The artwork is weaved throughout the site and fully integrated with the landscape.
Crane Sculptures
A family of cranes consisting of four separate, bent aluminum sculptures are perched on stone foundations. Each crane depicts a different stage of life according to the Medicine Wheel: Childhood, Youth, Adult and Elder.
Reed Screens
The laser cut aluminum screens are painted a teal shade of green to mimic the tall reeds in which cranes make their home. The placement of the Reed screens is flexible and expandable to cover any structure within the Park.
Feather Canopy
An abstracted feather becomes a canopy over the Wellesley Street entrance, providing shade and protection from the elements. The white feather is made of laser cut powder-coated white aluminum and supported on thick steel tube quills.
Medicine Wheel
In the central gathering space, a mosaic medicine wheel is inlaid into the pavement, at the convergence of the main paths.
Children’s Playground
History
There is a very long and complicated history of this patch of land where the park sits.1
The original plans for the 2.1 acre site worth $75 million back in 1984 was to create a world class opera house. Premier Bill Davis’s Conservative government held a design competition where Moshe Safdie was chosen for the $311 million project. The Opera House Corporation was created to manage the property. Approval was granted in 1988 and the existing buildings on the site were demolished, with plans to begin construction in 1991.
In October 1990, Premier Bob Rae and the NDP were elected. In light of the recession, the province wanted to reduce the project scope. When the Opera House Corporation stood firm, the province pulled their funding. In 1992, the municipal and federal governments withdrew their financial support. The property became known as East of Bay Lands. The property remained mostly vacant, with the exception of being briefly used as a temporary skateboard park. The land adjacent to Bay Street was sold to Morguard who constructed condo buildings Opera House at 887/889 Bay Street in 1998 and Allegro at 909 Bay Street in 2000. A small piece south of Breadalbane Street was designated as green space. East of Bay Park was opened in 2002 as Leaf Gardens, and subsequently renamed Opera Place Park. The balance of the land east of Bay to west of St. Luke Lane became known as 11 Wellesley and reverted back to the province when Morguard didn’t develop it.
In July 2012, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam made a motion to City Council to purchase the land to be used as a park, but lost out in the competitive bidding process that started in August 2012. Lanterra was the successful bidder with a purchase price of $65 million. In October 2012, Councillor Wong Tam was successful in obtaining monies from the City’s Government Management downtown parkland dedication fund for the three Lanterra developments (The Britt, Murano and Burano) in the neighbourhood. Then-Councillor Doug Ford eventually ended up supporting the allocation of funds.
The City’s purchase of the land for the park was finalized in 2013, and a ground breaking ceremony was held in June 2015. The condominium building at 11 Wellesley started being built in 2015 and finished construction in 2020. The building of the park began when the building of 11 Wellesley was winding down, with substantial completion in November 2021. The title conveyance to the City of Toronto became complicated with blanket easements with the adjacent properties. The main portion of the park opened September 29, 2022 with the dog park portion scheduled to be open shortly thereafter.
This will bring back memories for a lot of people. These shots are from February 2017, so they’re too new to fall into my From the Vaults category, but too old to be considered new cityscapes (if that makes any sense).
Ah yes, Honest Ed Mirvish’s little empire of kitsch at 581 Bloor Street West. This photoset was taken on the last weekend that Honest Eds was open to the public. The store had been emptied and closed prior to this date, but reopened on this particular weekend only for a couple of farewell parties and a massive art installation which took up the entire store. After that weekend the store closed permanently and the demolition began. A new condo building now sits on that famous corner of Bloor and Bathurst, and yet another piece of Toronto history has sadly died.
At 50 Pottery Road, across the street from the Todmorden Mills complex, is a banquet hall and event centre called Fantasy Farm.
The location is surrounded by greenery and parkland and – except for the traffic on Pottery Road – is fairly tranquil and quiet for such a centrally-located area within our bustling city. The site is beautiful and atmospheric. No one seemed to be around when I toured the grounds to get a few shots of this intriguing place:
Last week I happened across a curious piece found at 220 Bay Street, nestled in a passageway behind the TD Centre off Wellington Street West. Created by Canadian artist Evan Penny, this large sculpture – entitled Pi – is of a man’s head which has been cut into four pieces. The pieces are cut at ninety degree angles with straight lines which are in sharp contrast to the roundness of the outside of the head and the features of the face. The tallest piece measures approximately four feet high.
The features of the man’s face are very strong but they show little expression as if he is lost in thought and the fact that his head has been turned into a puzzle has not registered.
The bronze is a deep green colour which gives this sculpture a warm complexion.
This sculpture has been in place since 1996. I am amazed I had not come across this work until just recently; it resides in kind of a hidden pocket in the King/Bay area so that may explain it.
This bronze sculpture entitled Family Group by artist Almuth Lutkenhaus resides in Berczy Park in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood.
The sculpture is a family unit depicting a father, mother and two children. The man and the woman are facing each other and the base of these two figures join to form one solid unit. The small boy is resting against the front of the mother and the girl child is resting against the chest of the father. These children look as if they are secure within the family unit by resting in front of their parents and being enclosed by their bodies and encircled with their arms.
Commissioned in the 1970s by a local historical society, Family Group was at first accepted by the City of Toronto, but subsequently rejected on aesthetic grounds. Controversy ensued, with author Margaret Laurence contributing to the debate by declaring: The work seems to me to be a tender and beautiful tribute to the Berczy family and, by extension, a tribute to the concept of family everywhere. The sculpture was finally installed in 1982 with financial help from the Consumers’ Gas Company.
This sculpture was donated by The Historical Society of Mecklenburg Upper Canada Inc., with the financial assistance of The Consumer’s Gas Limited and The Council of Metropolitan Toronto, in memory of Johann Albrecht Ulrich Moll, better known as William Berczy, born December 10, 1744 in Wallerstein, Germany. He was co-founder of York (Toronto) in 1794 when John Graves Simcoe was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. His younger son, Charles Albert Berczy, was the first president of The Consumer’s Gas Company, from 1847 to 1856, and Postmaster of Toronto. His older son, William Bent Berczy, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada and, like his father and mother, a gifted painter.
Fair Grounds (2001-2003) is a work by Canadian artist Michel Goulet. It is comprised of two parts, a part residing on each side of the main entrance to the Icon II condo at 250 Wellington Street West.
Part 1: The Ribbons
Colourful ribbons recall the tradition of tying a ribbon around one’s finger or around a cherished object as a reminder to oneself to remember, or as a call for hope or a happy ending.
Part 2: The Chairs
Eight chairs, each unique in their period and style, are arranged in pairs to simulate different relationships between two people when they meet on equal terms.
While these two parts stand their own ground, they also trigger a reading that connects them, expanding the dialogue to a further dimension. The chairs are an invitation to take a seat with others or in the absence of others, while the ribbon colours intertwine with hopes or dreams and keep wishes, promises and memories alive.
The sculpture is made of stainless steel and painted aluminum, and was commissioned by Tridel & the Dorsay Development Corporation for the 2003 completion of the Icon II condominium complex.
On the St. Michael’s College campus of University of Toronto, there resides a bronze sculpture entitled Neighbours. Created by artist Joe Rosenthal, the piece was installed in 2001.
Two figures lean on opposite sides of a railing with their gaze just past one another. They lean together while waiting for something, possibly speaking softly to each other while passing the time. Their facial expressions are parallel in somber intensity.
Their body language differs subtly. One figure leans forward expectantly, almost hopefully, as if they can see what is to come. The other leans with patient resolve.
In this sculpture, Joe Rosenthal has provided an excellent example in composition. The two figures are placed in an equal yet opposite position. This guides the viewers’ gaze back and forth between the two dramatically.
Joe Rosenthal, the sculpture’s artist, was born in Romania in 1921. He came to Canada in 1927 and served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1942-1945. He studied at the Ontario College of Art and continued his learning on extensive sketching trips through the Northwest Territories, Mexico, Cuba, England, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt.
His work has been recognized with awards from the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canada Council, and the Toronto Outdoor Exhibition. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and the Ontario Society of Arts.
Then, a year later, one of the gals scored a little accoutrement…
There’s nothing like a good, gossipy catch-up with a friend
For more than half a century, renowned literary critic Northrop Frye made Victoria College at the University of Toronto his intellectual home: he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy, taught English to students from 1939 to 1991, and wrote such influential works as Fearful Symmetry and Anatomy of Criticism. This bronze sculpture – located near Northrop Frye Hall on the Victoria College campus – shows the esteemed professor in a state of contentment, surrounded by beloved books.
The life-size statue was created by artists Darren Byers and Fred Harrison. The figure is a modified version of a sculpture in Frye’s hometown of Moncton, New Brunswick.
The artists adapted the statue so it reflected Frye’s time at U of T and in Toronto: among his stack of books is a class planner, and in his right hand is his wife Helen Kemp Frye’s sketch of a party. The book he holds contains images of an angel, the Leviathan and the divine creator, which allude to his religious background and to poet William Blake – whose work is the focus of Fearful Symmetry.
Yes, it needed To go. I lived nearby and would pass this hospital many times over the years. Looking forward…