Toronto Through My Lens
I’ve walked by this colourful mural many times meaning to get a few shots of it, and I finally succeeded.
The mural is painted on the side of 401 Games at 431 Yonge Street, just below College Street. Painted by artist Jasmine Pannu, the mural features characters that may be familiar to gamers and fans of anime :
There’s nothing quite so rewarding in street photography as setting out for the day, having no destination in mind; you merely wind through the city with your camera wherever your feet take you, recording the city as it goes about its daily business.
I love shooting in black and white – it makes everything so much more interesting, moody, dramatic and contemplative. Here are some black and white shots from one such session:
On the second floor of the Muji store in the Atrium on Bay (20 Dundas Street West), there Is a curious-looking bit of automation sitting on their coffee bar. Introducing Jarvis, the robot barista.
Installed in spring of 2024, the automated coffee maker whips up your beverage order using two robotic arms; steaming milk, pulling espresso shots and even creating espresso art, just like a human barista.
The entire process is automated. I had read about this robot barista and wanted to give the thing a try. To kick things off, I stepped up to the Artly ordering system on the counter and placed my order on the screen for an Iced Chocolate Milk (alternatively, Artly has a smartphone app where your order can be placed):
The screen then stated how long the process was going to take, and prompted me to stand by. Suddenly Jarvis came to life and started concocting my order for an Iced Chocolate Milk. Here’s how it all went down:
After delivering the drink to my highlighted delivery point on the counter, Jarvis stopped and said he couldn’t continue as he required human intervention to top up his supply of cream and milk… OK, so the whole thing is almost automated. Human intervention arrived in the form of the fellow below, which kept Jarvis happy for the rest of the beverage orders.
The whole process is quite fascinating, even amusing. As he works, Jarvis is very exacting and slow-moving so I don’t think humanoid baristas will have to worry too much about job security. As I watched Jarvis’s robotic, precise, methodical drink-making process, I was thinking it would be absolutely hilarious if the thing suddenly went totally berserk, flinging latte and chocolate all over the place with wild abandon. So much for automation.
The coffee company behind these robotic baristas is Artly Coffee. They are a coffee brand known for integrating advanced technology with the coffee-making process. They utilize AI-powered robotic baristas to prepare and serve coffee, aiming to offer a consistent and high-quality coffee experience. Artly Coffee claims they are part of a growing trend of using automation and technology in the food and beverage industry to enhance service quality and customer experience.
There is also a robot barista in the Vancouver Muji store on Robson Street. By all accounts Jarvis is a big hit on the west coast as well.
We’ll see how long Jarvis rides the current wave of automated coffee machines. I’ve noticed a couple of the automated robots from RC Coffee are now gone from downtown Toronto, so we’ll just have to wait and see if Artly endures.
At 819 Yonge Street, just south of the Church and Yonge Street intersection, you will find a Heritage Toronto plaque for Conrad The Raccoon.
Who is Conrad The Raccoon you may ask? Well, ten years ago, this dead raccoon on a downtown Toronto street sparked an impromptu sidewalk shrine. Passersby laid flowers, candles and cigarettes around the critter.
Conrad went viral in 2015 after his remains laid on the sidewalk at the corner of Yonge and Church streets for nearly 14 hours following a social media post reporting the dead animal to the city:
Now, 10 years later, Heritage Toronto has erected a memorial plaque at the site in honour of Conrad. Apparently a little statue with life-size raccoon prints will be added to the plaque site at a later date:
Heritage Toronto actually has a Condolences for Conrad page! Check it out here or scan the QR code below:
I mean, really, Toronto and raccoons just somehow go together…
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.
Continuing on the “dead mall” theme (see my earlier post on the deserted Cumberland Terrace), we’ll take a little look at another urban mall that just didn’t make it: the Aura Concourse Shopping Mall (alternately, The Shops at Aura).
The mall is located under the magnificent Aura tower on the corner of Yonge Street and Gerrard Street East. Standing at 80 storeys high, Aura is Canada’s tallest residential condominium and is a remarkable structure:
One would think that such an impressive building would yield a world-class shopping mall at its base, but that is not the case. Although IKEA, Marshalls and a couple of other stores on the upper-platform levels are doing fine, it’s another story below ground.
Prior to my visit, I’d never been down to these shops under Aura; I’d heard a lot about them but had never witnessed them first hand. When I visited, it was the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon on Yonge Street – you’d think the mall would be hopping, but…. not so much.
Prior to the below-ground mall opening, there were promises from the developers of extending the PATH up to College Park along with a new premier shopping mall and experience. None of that happened. Apparently, in the pre-planning days, the mall merchants were presented with an inflated picture, by the planning commission, of how active and successful the mall would become. Of course this is not the reality and I’ve read that the merchants are now suing the developers for false presentation.
BlogTO has described The Shops at Aura as “Toronto’s Worst Mall”. This is largely in reaction to the half-vacant retail space, limited offerings at the food court, and atmosphere (at present, only 3 of the 12 fast food units are occupied):
BlogTO describes my feelings to a T while I was in this mall: “the whole place feels like an anxiety-inducing maze in which the more turns you take, the further you get from an exit”. In the half-hour or so I walked around the mall I became increasingly depressed. This gave way to a feeling of claustrophobia, like I had to get out of the place; I felt very trapped down there:
I’m the last person who should be making fun of other people’s web design, but – COME ON Aura!! – their website is pure embarrassment! It looks like something a 4th grade html class might have come up with on a bad day. The site is ugly as sin, full of useless information, and most links take the viewer to the dreaded “404 Not Found” page.
So much is wrong with this mall, I don’t know where to start. There’s absolutely no street level indication that these shops exist, and without a PATH connection, people have no reason to make a detour into the Shops at Aura. There’s just not much demand these days for 30 variety shops selling cheap phone cases and snacks.
We’ll see what the future holds for this space…
At 189 Yonge Street we find the fabulous Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres. These are separate theatres located in the same building: the Winter Garden is located seven storeys above the Elgin, which is at street level. They are the last surviving Edwardian stacked theatres in the world.
Currently owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust, the pair of theatres were originally built as the flagship of Marcus Loew’s theatre chain in 1913. The building was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, who also designed the Ed Mirvish Theatre (formerly named the Pantages Theatre). The Elgin Theatre has a seating capacity of 2,149, while the Winter Garden Theatre seats a maximum of 1,410.
Before construction of the stacked theatres, Marcus Loew intended to rent out the Yonge Street frontage as commercial space, but the dimensions contravened a 1912 Toronto bylaw. To bypass the bylaw, Thomas Lamb had to file drawings with the City Architect’s Office that showed a “sham” entrance on Victoria Street. Today, the Victoria Street entrance is still used — as the stage door.
Both theatres were built to host vaudeville acts and the short silent movies of the time. Each theatre was intended for a different class of patron. The gold-and-marble, domed, “hard-top” lower theatre (originally called Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre) was home to continuous vaudeville and movies. The theatres played host to such greats as George Burns & Gracie Allen, Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle and Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy.
The classical architecture of the Elgin was typical of vaudeville stages, set apart by its lavish interiors. Renowned for its warmth of colour and coziness, it was decorated in modern French Renaissance style – with gilt, imitation marble, red damask and ornamental plasterwork of festooned grapes, ribbons and musical instruments.
In 1939, the Elgin held the premieres of classic films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. It would continue to be open for the public from the end of World War II into the late 1970s, but as a cinema the theatre was facing high taxes. Even in 1940, as it lost money, the Elgin was beginning its journey towards degradation as the splendour of the old vaudeville days was starting to fade.
The upper-level Winter Garden is an “atmospheric” country garden under the stars, painted with murals of plants and garden trellises, with tree trunk columns and lantern lights. This upper theatre was originally built for the “big time” vaudeville market and had reserved seats at premium prices, catering to affluent patrons. As well as competing in a different market, the upper theatre could be used for experimentation with acts, without the risk of closing the lower theatre.
With the decline of vaudeville, the Winter Garden closed in 1928. It remained closed for more than half a century, becoming a time capsule of a bygone era. The lower-level Elgin, with its grand domed ceiling, continued as a movie house, gradually slipping into disrepair with the passing of each decade. After closure there was left inside a large collection of vaudeville flats and scenery, now the world’s largest surviving collection.
In 1969, Loews sold the Elgin to Famous Players. By the late 1970s, the Elgin was showing mainly B movies and soft-core pornography. In 1981, the Ontario Heritage Foundation bought the structure from Famous Players. The Elgin was closed as a movie theatre on November 15, 1981; the final film presented at the theatre was the erotic sex comedy What the Swedish Butler Saw.
From March 1985 through March 1987 the musical Cats was very successfully presented in the essentially unrestored Elgin, showing the viability of the theatre. Cats went on to gross nearly $22 million in ticket sales, making it one of Toronto’s most successful commercial shows.
Later in 1987, a $29-million restoration began in both theatres, directed by architect Mandel Sprachman; this was the largest theatre restoration ever undertaken in Canada. The gilt plaster detail work in the Elgin required more than 300,000 wafer-thin sheets of aluminum leaf. The walls of the Winter Garden had to be cleaned using hundreds of pounds of raw bread dough to avoid damaging the original hand-painted watercolour artwork. More than 65,000 square feet of new space was created, including lobby and lounge areas and an eight-storey backstage pavilion housing modern dressing rooms and two rehearsal halls. The theatres reopened to much acclaim in 1989.
The Elgin had suffered extensive alterations through its declining years of use as a movie theatre. The proscenium arch had been destroyed to accommodate a wider screen and the opera boxes had disappeared. With the original architectural drawings and archival photographs as reference points, the interior of the Elgin with its gilt ornamental plaster surfaces, red damask wall coverings and imitation marble features was painstakingly restored or reconstructed.
Here’s an excellent short video detailing the history, decline and rebirth of these beautiful theatres:
The Elgin and Winter Garden theatre building is a National Historic Site of Canada, and the theatres remain one of Canada’s finest theatrical stage complexes. A sampling of shows that have been presented here includes:
The theatres have also presented musical and comedy concerts, lectures, award presentations, gala screenings from the Toronto International Film Festival and a variety of special events and receptions.
According to the website TorontoGhosts.org, a number of paranormal occurrences in the theatres have been reported over the years, including:
If you’re still reading this – thank you! I realize this has been a long-ish post but with such a fantastic subject, it’s easy to get a little carried away – the building is certainly deserving of architectural praise. We are so very fortunate to have this historic, gorgeous theatre complex in our city and shouldn’t take it for granted. The Elgin and Winter Garden came very close to being demolished like so many of Toronto’s heritage buildings… and that would truly have been a shame.
References:
Heritage Matters
Ontario Heritage Trust
HistoricPlaces.ca
Local Film Cultures: Toronto
TorontoGhosts.org
The last time I walked down The Esplanade, I was struck by how many new condos have sprung up in that neighbourhood. I thought it may be interesting to put together a little photo journal of the structures I encountered that day.
Pride Weekend in Toronto is soon upon us. In preparation, this month an explosion of rainbows and inclusion messages from local business and merchants have been appearing in the downtown core. Here’s some of what I’ve come across in the last few weeks:
Using a filter and utilizing some moody street lighting, my intent was to emulate – if possible – those wonderful, grainy old 1940s/50s night images of a large urban centre in the wee hours.
I captured these images a few weeks ago when walking in the Yonge-Dundas area:
I love black and white! Great job on putting together this collection.
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I came upon this by accident with a friend when it was under construction. At the time we said we…