This is a commission by Ken Lum for a commercial realty development in Toronto. The site is directly behind City Hall and involves a long corridor (passageway) from Bay Street to City Hall. Two bronze sculptures are placed on either end of this corridor signaling historical immigrants to this area in the form of two children from different eras. Pinned lettering in oxidized bronze reading: “Across time and space, two children of Toronto meet…” are attached to the wall that spans between the two sculptures.
Another pretty quiet week.
Since we had a snowstorm on Saturday, I thought it would be fun to have a picnic of fried chicken with honey garlic sauce and potato salad.
Tuesday I went out for some groceries.
Ah the joys of a city snowfall...
We watched an interesting but disturbing movie, The Torture Report.
Very glad I didn't have to go anywhere this morning on public transit.
It turns out this installation is the latest from Canadian cannabis company Aphria Inc. The company is hoping to fight the seasonal blues by hosting what it calls a Plant Positivity Winter Garden. This “pop-up greenhouse experience” features a 30-foot tunnel lined from stem to stern with a collection of cold-weather plants.
We met a friend and headed to a dinner hosted by our financial advisor. It was at the National Club, a private club founded in 1874 for business professionals. Seemly they did a reno in 2013, but I'm not sure where. It felt like a funeral parlour as you walked in and everything seemed dated. After cocktails, we had a soup (opinions vary, pea or squash), chicken that was actually quite nice and a espresso creme brule, which committed the ultimate sin of not having a crisp shell to be cracked with a spoon!!
There were two interesting presentations. No photos taken.
I did finally get to use the Uber app on my phone for our friend!
We took the streetcar home.
Thursday my BFF and I finally went to lunch and got all caught up.
Friday John and I walked to St. Lawrence Market and picked up steaks, boneless leg of lamb, ground pork and stocked up on vegetables.
And we have a rainy weekend ahead.
MENU
Fried chicken with honey garlic sauce and potato salad.
Mushroom stuffed flank steak, mashed carrots and sauteed cabbage with mushroom gravy. Recipe called for the meat to be cooked for 45 minutes covered and then 30 minutes uncovered. This was way too long as the meat was too well done.
Lamb koftas with sliced red onions, cabbage and carrots. Homemade
and 3 ingredient naan. I have made this flatbread before but this time it just wouldn't work.
For the letter of the week for this round I am going to go with all things TTC, Toronto Transit Corporation.
A fun song showing the building of the subway 1949-1954
Letter B BAY Station
It is located in heart of the Yorkville district just north of Bloor Street West on the west side of Bay Street.
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) operates its lost articles office at this station, where forgotten objects on the city's buses and trains are held until reclaimed or sold by auction.
Bay station opened in 1966 as part of the original segment of the Bloor–Danforth line, from Keele in the west to Woodbine in the east. Early plans of the line, and even some published maps, named this station "Yorkville"; the platform signs read "BAY" in large type, with a smaller "YORKVILLE" underneath.
Below the main platform for Bay station is an abandoned platform, which was used for only six months in 1966 when the TTC experimentally ran trains whose routes included portions of both the Yonge–University and Bloor–Danforth lines. This abandoned platform is sometimes referred to as "Lower Bay" by the general public or "Bay Lower" by the TTC.
The "secret" door to the lower platform, this was the exit during Doors Open.
The platform was in service from February to September 1966 as part of an interlining experiment, in which the TTC ran trains along three routes, with one matching the subsequent Bloor–Danforth line, and the other two combining parts of the Bloor–Danforth line with the Yonge–University line. The experiment was deemed a failure, largely because delays anywhere quickly cascaded to affect the entire system. Also, as the stations had not been laid out effectively for cross-platform interchange, trains travelling east from St. George and west from Yonge alternated between the two levels, leading passengers to wait on the stairs in-between the levels, since they were unable to tell which platform would receive the next train.
A piece of Canadian trivia/gossip, the host on this video is Ben Muloney, the oldest son of former prime minister Bill Mulroney. And he is married to Jessica Brownstein, daughter of Brown's Shoes founder. She happens to be a close friend of Megan Merkle, Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle). In 2018, she and her husband attended Markle's wedding to Prince Harry, and their children participated as page boys and flower girl.
Bay station has several exits and entrances on Cumberland, Bellair, and Bay, and this beauty store location is right next to the entrance on Bellair.
Dr. John G.C. Adams is regarded as the father of public health dentistry in Canada. His Methodist faith inspired him to become Canada's first resident dental missionary. He funded and operated the first free dental hospital on the continent in 1872, primarily treating poverty-stricken children and their mothers. Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children opened three years later and, in 1883, Dr. Adams became its first dentist of record.
In the building here, Dr. Adams operated Christ's Mission Hall and Dental Institute from 1897 until 1899 when the city closed it, for nonpayment of taxes. A champion of preventive dental health through education, Dr. Adams advocated for dental checkups in public schools and free dental treatment for underprivileged children. His recommendations were finally realized in 1911 with the beginning of the dental checkups in Toronto schools. Canada's first publicly funded free dental clinic opened two years later.
Plaque is at corner of Bay and Elm in front of this building where he had his practice.
This building was constructed as the Toronto dealership of the McLaughlin Motor Company, subsidiary of General Motors of Canada, founded by R.S. McLaughlin of Oshawa. It is a rare Toronto example of an early 20th-century-automobile showroom. The architecture firm of Hutton and Souter designed the building in the Neo-Gothic style. It's main entrance features a stone arch and pediment above the oak French doors. The east façade, which follows the curve of Bay Street, includes full height stone lintels and pilasters that define the large showroom windows. From 1955 until 2007, the Addison on Bay Cadillac dealership occupied the building.
In 2000, Ontario Realty Corporation sold the site to Addison Properties Ltd. for what some claim was one-third of its value.
The building was removed to make way for the Burano high-rise condominium, with plans to retain the facade and other historic elements of the original structure and incorporate them into the Burano's lower three floors. Because of the soft soil at the site, and to facilitate excavation, the historic facade was dismantled and stored off-site during construction of the seven-floor underground garage. After the garage and foundation appropriate for the fifty floors above ground were completed, the facade was reconstructed, incorporating the important heritage components.
The Graphic Arts Building is located at 73 Richmond Street, a short distance west of Yonge Street. Built in 1913, for over a century is has survived, and is now nestled among the high-rise towers of the financial district. The amazing Graphic Art Building would not appear out of place amid the temples of Rome or Athens. Its classical facades contains Ionic columns and the cornice has classical designs. The four-storey building has a limestone base, the same stone employed in the cornice. Its architect was Francis S. Baker.
For many years, the building was the headquarters of “Saturday Night” magazine, originally founded in the 1873 by a cartoonist, J. W. Bengough. At one time he had been employed by the “Globe” newspaper, which in later years became “The Globe and Mail.” “Saturday Night” was a satirical weekly publication that became known as the voice of Liberalism in Canada. Bernard Keble Sandman was its editor in 1932, and remained in this position until 1952.
An historic plaque on the building commemorates his tenure as editor. The magazine featured such writers as E. Pauline Johnson. Archibald Lampman, Stephen Leacock, John McCrae, and Robertson Davies. Margaret Atwood received her first national exposure through stories published in the magazine. Robertson Davies began his literary career at “Saturday Night,” and was its editor during the 1940s. Later, Robert Fulford was an editor. Such artists as C. W. Jefferys, Tom Thomson and other members of the Group of Seven worked at “Saturday Night.”
Saturday Night eventually relocated from the prestigious building on Richmond Street. It ceased publishing in 2005, and today the building is a mid-rise condominium, with 65 loft units.
Across the street is the Victory Art Deco Building.
it was built on the site of the old Gaiety Theatre. Following the demolition of the theatre, they planned a 29-storey skyscraper, designed by the architectural firm of Baldwin and Greene. This company also designed the Concourse Building on Adelaide Street. They began work on the Victory Building in May of 1929 and worked feverishly through the summer months and early autumn. However, construction stopped when the stock market crashed in October of that year. It had been completed to about the 20th floor, the bricks reaching as high as the 18th. It remained in an unfinished state for 8 years. One of the the newspapers at the time referred to it as a ghost tower, a reminder of better days. When completed in 1937, it was topped at 20 storeys, shorter than originally planned. The first tenants moved in April 1, 1937, enjoying year-round air conditioning and heating from equipment supplied by General Electric.
The Victory Building in 1936, when construction was halted at the 20th floor, with brickwork complete to the 18th. This was a high as the structure was to extend. When construction resumed, the bricks were simply added to the two top floors. The view looks east on Richmond Street toward Yonge Street. Photo from the City of Toronto Archives.
Chapman and Oxley was a Toronto based architectural firm which responsible for designing a number of prominent buildings in the city in the 1920s and 1930s.
They also were responsible for the ROM or Royal Ontario Museum.
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