Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.
Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures Travel Tuesday Our World Tuesday Image-in-ing
My Corner of the World
September 2019 - Toronto ON
Discovered on a walk along Dundas West at the Chelsea Hotel.
Click here to see more Yonge St. murals highlighting the street's musical history.
Pam Lostracco is the artist and was done in 2018.
Murals surrounding the Chelsea’s parking ramp are divided into panels — to resemble a film strip — and include colourful elements that highlight the evolution of theatre on Yonge Street. Reflective paint, beams of colour and a unique marquee overhang now welcome guests as they drive down the ramp, including a scene from Phantom of the Opera.
I know, wrong Chelsea Hotel, but who could resist!
Chelsea Hotel - Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2” is a candid, bittersweet musical memoir about a brief sexual encounter he shared with rock icon Janis Joplin at New York City's famous The Chelsea Hotel in the late 1960s..
The True Story Behind the Encounter
Cohen admitted years later that the song describes a chance meeting with Janis Joplin. Neither was looking for the other—Cohen joked he was hoping to run into Brigitte Bardot, while Joplin was actually looking for songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Instead, they crossed paths in an elevator and ended up together on an unmade bed.
Despite later expressing mild regret for "kissing and telling," Cohen immortalized Joplin not with malice, but with acute empathy for her inner demons:
The Paradox of Fame: He notes that while she was famous and celebrated ("your heart was a legend"), she was deeply vulnerable.
Preferences: Joplin famously told him she preferred "handsome men," but made an exception for him.
Key Themes in the Lyrics
"We are ugly but we have the music": This famous line addresses how artists rejected or oppressed by conventional standards of beauty find their redemption, worth, and connection through creative expression.
The Transience of Life: The closing lines—"Ah, but you got away, didn't you babe? / You just turned your back on the crowd"—function as a poignant reflection on Joplin’s death from an accidental drug overdose in 1970, framing her passing as an escape from the exhausting demands of her public life and stardom.
Imperial 6 Theatre was at Yonge and Dundas in 1919.
Massey Hall, I've written about it before.
Nickelodeon At Dundas Street. Unaware Ryerson students there one night in '74 were sitting next to an incognito Bob Dylan.
Lowe's Theatre, now known as the Elgin and Winter Gardens Theatres.
The magnificent theatre complex on Yonge Street, a few doors north of Queen Street was erected in 1913.
The two theatres were of distinctly different personalities: the Elgin was all gold leaf and rich fabrics, a formal theatre of plaster cherubs and ornate opera boxes. The Winter Garden was a botanical fantasy, its walls hand-painted to resemble a garden, its ceiling a mass of real beech boughs and twinkling lanterns. The theatres played host to such greats as George Burns and Gracie Allen, Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
When The Phantom of the Opera began its 10-year run in Toronto in September 1989, it opened in an opulently restored Pantages Theatre, where we saw it!
All I Ask of You
Love how she signed this!
Lots of transport in the works. They'd be rather ugly walls without the art.
ReplyDeleteFun murals!!
ReplyDeleteI hope that beetle was no diesel, though!
I like the style and how you integrate real people, too.
Great murals at the entrance to the underground parking garage.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting mural collection (or maybe just one mural would be more correct!)
ReplyDeleteThat is a good one!
ReplyDeleteI like not only the murals, but the fact there is reflective paint, which will help night time visitors.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the mural with the legs, feet, and top hat with the man on the bicycle in the background that looked like he had been cut off at the top by the car.
It's amazing how different those two theaters must have been. This was a fun post to read. Amazing the difference in styles, too.
...wow, what a post, Jackie! Treasures for my eyes and ears.For some reason I can't listen to the videos, my computer is doing strange things, I'll have to stop back. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteLately I've seen people sharing wall art from lots of different cities. It must be a trend that more places are allowing it and not considering it graffiti. - Margy
ReplyDeleteVery cool street art! Love these photos
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up at https://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2019/11/happy-veterans-day.html
These are wonderful.
ReplyDelete