Thursday Doors

Linking up at Norm's Thursday Doors.

October 2018 - Toronto ON

A few doors as we walked to lunch this week at Burger's Priest on King St. West.

Duet on the left and Two Cats on the right.

Tuesday Treasures

Travel Tuesday

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

October 2018 - Toronto ON

Click here to visit other historical buildings in the area. You can also click on Liberty Village in the tags below this post.

A short excerpt from a National Film Board Somewhere in Heaven about Liberty Village before it got trendy and was an artists' haven.

Originally home to heavy industry, Liberty Village has undergone a startling transformation and emerged as the creative and innovative heart of Toronto. Where once machines hummed and physical labour ruled, today an exciting new reality is crafted from that enduring collaborative spirit and passion for creativity.

The Toronto Carpet Factory (built between 1899 and 1920 by the Hayes family) is a classic example of English Industrial style, with the operational buildings encircling the boiler house. The Barrymore brothers manufactured woven carpets but converted the looms to make coats and blankets for our soldiers in both World Wars. They also manufactured furniture just down the street on Atlantic Ave. York Heritage Properties purchased the Toronto Carpet Factory in the 1980’s and converted it into office and commercial use taking great pains to maintain the historic and architectural features of the building including its high ceilings, operable windows, wooden floors and exposed bricks and columns.

There are many smokestacks scattered around Liberty Village. Looking back towards the carpet factory.

The Toronto Carpet Factory comprises eight buildings on a 4-acre, one-city-block site, with a total rentable area of approximately 310,000 square feet. The buildings, built between 1899 and 1920, are similar in architecture to other industrial buildings built in Britain and America during that time. They were constructed in the classic 19th century style of perimeter buildings forming a cloister around a central quadrangle and powerhouse. All of the buildings are of heavy timber construction with load-bearing brick walls, wooden columns and beams, and hardwood floors. All roof decks are wooden, with the exception of the boiler room/generator room which is concrete slab.

If you zoom on the legend on the mural you will see its current tenants are very trendy with names like:

5ive 15ifteen Photo Company
Digital Black Magic
Brainbox Media
The Word on the Street I attended their annual Toronto book festival a few weeks ago.
War Child Canada
Nude by Nature not what you think, it is an Australian makeup brand
Sinking Ship Entertainment
Shoeless Joe's Bar and Grill
School Bakery and Cafe

Mural - William Lazos

In its time, the site was considered to be "state of the art", completely self-reliant, with its own steam-generated heat, power and electricity capabilities, fire pump and an underground cistern storing 625,000 gallons of water for emergency use. The cistern, still operational, remains buried beneath the floor of 72 Fraser Ave. A maze of catacombs (steam pipes), still deliver heat through the site. Ceiling heights range from 12' up to 22', and 24' in some of the corridors of Mowat Ave.
Alterations to the buildings have been undertaken with the utmost care to retain the integrity of all original architectural detail. York Heritage Properties, the owners of the Toronto Carpet Factory like to refer to their method of renovations as "invisible mending" - repairs that don't draw attention to themselves.

I was looking for this mural, not realizing how fabulous these buildings were!

Siobhan Kennedy developed the concept with Jim Kushnir & Sara MacLean | Mural Artist: William Lazos

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge. PLACES PEOPLE LIVE

This week's challenge at Cee's Fun Foto Challenge. PLACES PEOPLE LIVE



ON ROOFTOPS - Singapore China

ON A FARM - Southern Ontario

IN A CASTLE - Windsor Castle England

IN AN RV PARK - Mazatlan Mexico

ON A CANAL - Bangkok Thailand

IN A LIGHTHOUSE  - Gilbert Nova Scotia

Monday Mural

I'm linking up at Monday Mural


August 2018 - Toronto ON

Twenty women artists transformed a graffiti-covered laneway in 2017 just north of Queen Street West between Lansdowne and MacDonell into a stretch of vibrant murals.

Bkez, an organizer.

thepaintedlime - Tennille Dowers

Caitlin Taguibao

controlartdelete - Rachel Wilmshurst

Name on mural is Monica on the Moon - Monica Wikeler

muisca_- Daniela Rocha, sorry about the gate.

Cute, but I can't see a signature.

mska

hellokirsten - Kirsten McCrea

originalsmilez - Julieta Arias

This mural by Chief Lady Bird and Aura celebrates Indigenous motherhood.

Carolanna Pilado

huntoland - Renato Hunto

No signature.

toest - Sarah Gilmore

Foto Tunes

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme. 

2009 - Philadelphia PA

MZTV Museum

October 2018 - Toronto ON

We had walked by this (unknown to us) museum during the summer as we explored Liberty Village. At that time we didn't stop in.

Since we were back for another lunch we decided to step inside the museum.

We were greeted by a receptionist who said it only opened at 2 PM and she would get a guide for us.

MZTV - Dedicated to preserving the technological history of the television receiver, this museum has a specialized collection of British and North American TV receivers and related items. Housed in the heart of Liberty Village, the museum's collection spans the evolution of television from 1920s mechanical scanning discs to 1970s solid-state electronics.

What/who is MZ? Moses Znaimer is Toronto's own visionary prophet of the airwaves. He is also a co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, and the current head of ZoomerMedia.

When we moved to Toronto in the early 90s, Citytv was a breath of fresh air after watching Canadian and American networks. This was local and edgy.

Moses Znaimer, founder of Zoomer Media, has defined a Zoomer like this. "The demographic of active people aged 45 plus; "Zoomers". Zoomers; noun. Derived from "Boomers With Zip!" People age 45 plus who enjoy life to the fullest."

The ultimate "zoomer"!

Back to the museum:
Dedicated to preserving the technological history of the television receiver, this museum has a specialized collection of British and North American TV receivers and related items. Housed in the heart of Liberty Village, the museum's collection spans the evolution of television from 1920s mechanical scanning discs to 1970s solid-state electronics.

We are led down a hallway lined with vintage radios and TVs.

Also lining the hall were these fabulous works of art, I am tracking down the artist's name.

As a learned student of communications philosopher Marshall McLuhan, Znaimer has long been fascinated with the delivery system - "the Medium is the message!" - and iconography showcasing classic TV sets can be found throughout his work, from the salad Citytv days right up to his booming Zoomer empire.

Marshall McLuhan taught at the University of Toronto.

An altar to the 50s. Did you know that there is a patron saint of television????

Check out the middle of the TV screen.

Later we saw this FACT in the museum.

Pope Pius XII designated Clare as the patron saint of television in 1958 on the basis that when she was too ill to attend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room.

If the staff lounge The Writing on the Wall Television in Quotes.

Moses with the Ten Commandments of Television.

We were given an overview to the museum and its excellent app by Darryl Komaromi, Director Social Media Community Relations and then left on our own to wander. Darryl came back at the end of the tour to get our positive feedback.

I will admit I had no idea who invented television!

Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer.He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television. He is best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the "image dissector", as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera which he produced commercially in the form of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation from 1938 to 1951 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

You can read more about him in this article from The Smithsonian.

This article contains information on the other pioneers.

I was totally intrigued by his first name Philco but couldn't find how he came by it.

Who was Television’s First Star?

Felix The Cat – This Very Figure of Him

Felix rose to TV stardom in the late 1920s, when the American communications giant, RCA, chose him as a test subject for its television research. The lighting required to reflect images into the primitive television camera of the day proved far too hot for humans to stand, so using an inanimate object was the only option.

The engineers purchased this papier maché figurine of FELIX from the famed toy store, F.A.O. Shwartz in New York City, just up 5th Avenue at 57th Street from their own offices at Rockefeller Centre. Felix fell off his turntable often, which explains his “imperfect” condition. First his tail fell off, then his head, which was reattached with a drumstick.

It was in 1928 that RCA first broadcast Felix from the Empire State Building. Later, Felix was honoured when RCA transmitted his image on the first commercial television broadcast in 1939, as a lead up to the formal unveiling of television at the New York World’s Fair. Thus, Felix the Cat became Television’s First Star!

Before his television debut, this cat enjoyed many lives in animated film. Created by Otto Messmer, the initial series played from 1920 to 1928. The fun-loving cat made a comeback in 1936, starring in three short films. Then, in 1960, a new series was produced for television that featured the debut of Felix’s magic bag of tricks.

Felix’s most recent performance occurred in 1991, at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York City, as part of the first demonstration of High Definition Television in the USA.

I'm going to let the photos and descriptions speak for themselves.

I love this beauty!

 Click here to read more about Marilyn at the MZTV website.

From Marilyn to Elvis

Yet more televisions.

UPDATE!

The MZTV Museum posted a link to this post on their Facebook page!