Toronto Through My Lens
On the side of the Shoppers Drug Mart at 565 Sherbourne Street, there exists a mural entitled Article 26: A Mural Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Amnesty International Toronto Organization is a group working in the city to raise public awareness of human rights issues. Thirty murals exist throughout the city, each based on one of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Located at 121 King Street West, this sculpture is entitled Megaptera, and was created by Transylvanian-born artist George Schmerholz. Megaptera novaeangliae is the scientific name of humpback whales, the name translating to Great Wings.
The humpback whale here is depicted with her calf. The sculpture was carved from a single block of granite, called “Prairie Green”, which was sourced from Riviere à Pierre, Quebec. The sculpture, dedicated on May 18, 1993, weighs 43,000 pounds and took 1.5 years to create.
Hello everyone and welcome back after my TOcityscapes hiatus! If you’d like to see what I was up to while in Tuscany, Italy you will find my blog here.
This past weekend I attended Doors Open Toronto and visited a couple of venues. Of most interest to me was The El Mocambo on Spadina Avenue. As someone with a passionate interest in pop/rock music history, I’ve always wanted to see inside the “El Mo” to see what it’s like.
The venue has played a crucial role in the development of popular music in Toronto since 1948 – the place is Toronto music history personified!
Opening in 1948, the El Mocambo was one of the city’s first cocktail bars. The establishment’s name and iconic neon palm sign were inspired by a San Francisco nightclub. At that time, the main floor was converted into a dining hall with a dance floor on the second floor that featured Latin music. Live music was not permitted until July 1948 (imagine that!?), when the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario reversed an earlier ban.
The business and building were bought in 1972 by Michael Baird and restaurateur Tom Kristenbrun. Under the pair’s ownership, the “El Mo” became a youth-oriented blues and rock music venue. It brought bands like Downchild Blues Band (which became the club’s house band), as well as Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and many others, “up the street” and paid them a regular fee to perform. During the early 1970s, the upstairs featured mostly “retreads” and “has-been” acts, with the occasional group on the rise. Most of the time, drink sales determined which bands would return. The bands would start out downstairs and if the revenue they generated increased, they would sometimes graduate to upstairs. Up and coming performers such as Tom Waits, U2 and Elvis Costello performed at the El Mo in the 1970s.
On March 4, 1977, looking for a low-key venue to record in, The Rolling Stones played two performances at the club. The second performance occurred the next night, March 5, 1977. The Stones billed themselves as “The Cockroaches”, and club patrons got the surprise of their lives when this band turned out to be the Rolling Stones. The live album of these Stones performances, entitled El Mocambo 1977, was released in 2022.
The club was expected to close after a last show on November 6, 2014. However, on the eve of its impending closure, it was announced that the club had been purchased for $3.8 million by Michael Wekerle, who arranged to renovate it and maintain it as a live music venue. Currently, the El Mocambo is open and operational after its 30 million dollar renovations to two stages, several different bars, a recording studio, private rooms, and dance floors. It looks terrific and has been beautifully restored, with a strong emphasis on the club’s past (and rightfully so).
Hello to my faithful subscribers! Just a quick post today to let you know that TOcityscapes is going on a little hiatus.
I am off to Tuscany, Italy on a much-delayed photography trip. There won’t be any TOcityscapes posts for a couple of weeks, but if you’d like to follow my travel adventures on this upcoming trip, just head on over to my travel site and subscribe. That way the system will send you alerts when I publish new travel posts from Italy. I am hoping to blog daily if I can while there, but I’ll just have to see how my time goes – due to the photographic nature of this trip there will be a lot of early mornings and late nights. If I can’t blog while there I’ll definitely post once I’m home again.
Here is my travel site: Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost. You’ll find the Subscribe tool on the About and Contact pages, and in the site’s footer.
If you do subscribe – thank you! The site is “in growth” at the moment, but developing as time goes by.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Take care!
A private road north of St. Joseph Street, west of Bay Street, is home to red brick Edwardian style mansions that were built in 1892 by Remigius Elmsley as the first subdivisions in the City, located on the former family home, Cloverhill Estate.
The heritage properties are owned by University of Toronto, St. Michael’s College, some serving as student residences. The four houses of residence collectively contain 20 single and 12 double rooms. The buildings underwent a $4 million renovation in 2007.
The remaining houses are used as administrative offices: Founders House (1 Elmsley); Phelan House (3 Elmsley); and Windle House (5 Elmsley).
Developed during the 1890s, Elmsley Place attracted professionals and politicians, including Sir George W. Ross, who lived at No. 1 Elmsley while serving as Ontario’s premier. After the Supreme Court of Canada presided over the extension of present-day Bay Street northward during the 1920s, the college purchased the title to the street. By the late 1940s, the laneway was closed off and the Edwardian-style homes were converted to offices and student residences. Today, cut off from traffic, this tree-lined cobblestone lane is a perfect walk into the heart of the St. Mike’s campus.
Well, early spring in Toronto could only mean one thing – time for the Cherry Blossoms to pop. This spring I didn’t have the time or fortitude to fight the crowds out at High Park, so I’ve posted my shots from a visit a couple of years ago.
Cherry blossom trees are located in several parks and locations throughout Toronto. There, you can take part in the centuries-old tradition of hanami, the Japanese term for flower viewing. Called Sakura in Japan, these cherry blossom trees bloom in Toronto at the end of April to early May.
1959 – The Japanese ambassador to Canada, Toru-Hagiwara, presented 2000 Japanese Somei-Yoshino Sakura trees to the citizens of Toronto on behalf of the citizens of Tokyo. The trees were planted in appreciation of Toronto accepting re-located Japanese-Canadians following the Second World War. Many were planted on the hillside overlooking Grenadier Pond.
1984 – A grove of Japanese cherry trees were planted along a pathway west of the Children’s Adventure Playground. The trees were donated by Yoriki and Midori Iwasaki as a special gift to the people of Toronto and a joyful symbol of life.
2001 – Through the Consulate General of Japan in Toronto’s Sakura Project, 34 Yoshino ‘Akebono’ and Kwanzan ‘Fugenzo’ Sakura trees were donated and planted on the east shore of Grenadier Pond near the Maple Leaf garden.
2006 – Sixteen additional Yoshino Sakura trees were planted near the original 1959 planting site.
2019 – New trees planted in a special ceremony to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Sakura trees donated to High Park in 1959 by the citizens of Tokyo
1 Courtesy of the City of Toronto website
I don’t often say this about sculptures or artwork I come across in the city, but this one leaves me cold and uninspired. Created by artist Mark di Suvero, this piece is entitled No Shoes and is located in Corktown Common in the Canary District.
The work does have quite a history. No Shoes was commissioned for the International Sculpture Symposium in Toronto in 1967. That year, Mark di Suvero was a rising star in the international art scene. He was part of a group of artists invited to participate in the Toronto International Sculpture Symposium – an event held to celebrate Canada’s centennial. He created two sculptures in High Park: No Shoes, situated by the woods at the bottom of a hill and the towering Flower Power, which rested at the top of the same hill (you can check out my earlier post on Flower Power here). After a lengthy 2012 restoration overseen by di Suvero himself, No Shoes was moved to Corktown Common in June 2013.
If you’re interested, there is an extensive article here on Mark Di Suvero and the creation, history and rejuvenation of No Shoes.
This one has been on my shot list for quite some time, and I finally got around to photographing it. This visual assault on the senses is known as Leslieville’s Crazy Doll House and has been quite the neighbourhood attraction; it’s one of those things you kind of have to see to believe.
The Doll House is located at 37 Bertmount Avenue, near Queen Street East and Jones Avenue:
The house is owned by one Shirley Sumaiser, who has been collecting stuffed and plastic critters for over twenty years and using them to fill up her front yard.
I stood speechless for some time before I started snapping some shots. It’s almost overwhelming taking in the sheer details of this assault on the visual senses:
The Doll House is not just dolls—there are toys, stuffed animals, plaques, and signs, some hung from the fence, some mounted on wooden stakes, and some lining the porch and eaves.
Apparently owner Shirley Sumaiser’s passion for collecting objects began after her husband passed away. Twenty years later her Doll House is still a beacon in the Leslieville neighborhood.
I’ve read that the collection is often redone or circulated to suit a holiday or a set of new or seasonal additions. The result is an ever-changing garden of tchotchkes that attracts tourists and gawkers (like me) alike.
Sitting in front of the Gardiner Museum at 111 Queen’s Park is a curious ceramic and bronze sculpture entitled Cracked Wheat. Created by artist Shary Boyle in 2018, this quirky and cracked flask-shaped vase stands tenuously on two little gold legs.
The gold cracks serve as an homage to the 16th century Japanese tradition of Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The tradition celebrates breakage and repair as part of an object’s history. This detail is a tribute to the Kintsugi collection at the Gardiner Museum, a place that is known for showcasing craftsmanship and quality from all over the world, in addition to commenting on colonialism and object valuation.
In contrast, the Canadian Wheat pattern on the front of the vase is a nod to mass-produced tableware designs that were made popular in the 1960s, work that would not likely be on display at the Gardiner Museum. Here, Shary Boyle has aspired to create a work that speaks to the universality of ceramics and show us what they can teach us about our history.1
I came across these last weekend, painted on the side of a building on the northwest corner of Bay Street and Adelaide Street West. Quite good, I think.
According to the bio on the right of the image, the creator is Niyi Adeogun, an interdisciplinary artist, design engineer and creative entrepreneur. He has a passion for art and innovation and continually explores how integrating both can improve people’s daily interactions with the world around them. He founded and leads a creative agency called ZeroResistance studios. His website can be found here.
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