Weekend Roundup

  Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveler

Starts with E

Favourite

ELEPHANT - chosen by Tom

TATS and TOTES

I'm going to feature the many Toronto tattoo and cannabis outlets that are proliferating around the city. 

Starts with E

ELEVATOR Gladstone Hotel Toronto ON

FAVOURITE

ELEGANT book shop café Budapest Hungary

ELEPHANT

St. Thomas ON

FRINGE BENEFIT - MURAL

EXIT Atomic Bar Las Vegas NV2015

inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!  


Another 2014 church that was languishing on my external hard drive.

Slavic Evangelical Baptist Church Славянская Евангельско-Баптистская Церковь Торонто

inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!  

Going through some files and came across this church that I've always wanted to see the inside. I took these photos in 2014!

Note to self - We offer a one-hour guided tour on the first Sunday of each month, immediately following the 10:30 a.m. worship service. The tour starts at approximately 11:45 p.m. at the back of the church. Plan to come for worship and stay afterwards or just join us for the tour. Our tour leaders are helpful and knowledgeable. You are welcome to take pictures.


St. Anne's, Gladstone Avenue (in earlier documents, St Anne's, Brockton and popularly the Group of Seven Church)  is a National Historic Site and parish of the Anglican Church of Canada. It was established in 1863 as the parish for the hamlet of Brockton and is one of the seven (formerly 12) parishes of Parkdale Deanery. The current building, dating to 1907-8 and overlooking Dufferin Street, is noted for its distinctive design, based on the architecture of the Hagia Sophia of Istanbul (click to see our visit to the Hagia).

The interior of the church is decorated by artwork by members of the famous Group of Seven circle of painters, depicting events of the Old and New Testaments and dating to 1923. The artwork by J. E. H. MacDonald, Frederick Varley, and Franklin Carmichael is religious iconography, something they are not generally known for.

Tuesday Treasures

Travel Tuesday

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

The Gladstone Hotel is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Toronto. Architect G.M. Miller designed the building in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It features arches over the windows and porch entrances, in addition to curvilinear and animal ornamentation in stone and terracotta. The hotel was a highly visible Parkdale landmark, with its three-storey tower and a cupola (removed in the 1940s). Across the street from two railway stations (since demolished) the Gladstone Hotel frequently hosted commercial travellers, as well as exhibitors from the nearby Canadian National Exhibition. It also once accommodated long-term guests, particularly railway employees and workers in nearby factories. The hotel has been given new life by its owners over the years.

The plaque reads:
Named after British Prime Minister Wm. E. Gladstone, this 60 room hotel was built in 1889 adjacent to the Parkdale train stations. The original owner, Mrs. Susanna Robinson, had been left a widow with 13 children. It was designed in a decorative Romanesque style by G.M. Miller, a distinguished Toronto architect. Its three-storey steeple dominated the skyline until the 1940's. Accredited by the Royal Winter Fair, it was considered "the only safe place for one's Great Aunt to stay alone." It was originally used mostly by commercial travellers based in the heavy industry in the area. The building was restored by the Appelby family in 1989 in memory of their late father.

During the renovation, a worker inadvertently knocked a hole in a wall, revealing the stunning Otis elevator, installed when electricity reached Toronto in 1904.
It took nine months for experts to refurbish its ornate fittings and mechanical system.

In a nod to its barely bygone seediness, the Gladstone lured Hank Young from his attendant's job in the parking lot across the street, and made him the elevator operator.

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Hank was no stranger to the Gladstone.
In 1961, a young country singer by the name of Hank Young played his first gig at the Gladstone Hotel. Known as the Gladstone Cowboy, Hank, adorned in his signature cowboy getup, thrilled guests at the Gladstone, performing Hank Williams' Hey Good Lookin, a song staple for karaoke night at the hotel's Melody Bar. He passed away in 2009.

Image Source

With just four floors to serve, Hank had to keep his stories brief. Still, in just a couple of years, he had managed to make himself as much a fixture as the old lift itself.

They called him the Gladstone Cowboy, for the western hats (he has 20), bolo ties (45) and boots (30 pairs) he wore as a condition of his contract.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge - JUST FOR FUN

Lens Artists

Here are the guidelines:
Lens-Artists Photo Challenges are published every Saturday at 12 noon EST by one of our moderators. Post your reply any time before the next challenge is announced.
Tag your post with lens-artists so others can easily find it in the WordPress Reader.
Remember to create a link to this post.
Subscribe to all 4 moderator blogs to receive the challenge each week.

Week 1 – Patti of https://pilotfishblog.com/ JUST FOR FUN
Week 2 – Ann-Christine aka Leya of https://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/
Week 3 – Amy of https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/
Week 4 – Tina of https://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/


A few years ago I attended a charity dinner event at the Gladstone Hotel here in Toronto. Along with delicious food, there was entertainment, samples and artwork.

Fruit Flyswatter                          The Nutcracker           Swiss Cheese Army Knife

Thursday Doors

Linking up at Norm's Thursday Doors.

Toronto ON


The Gladstone Hotel was built in 1889 and named after Gladstone Avenue, next to the hotel. The Parkdale area hotel is a west Toronto landmark designed by local architect G.M. Miller in the Romanesque Revival style.


The Gladstone Hotel is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Toronto. It was originally built in 1889 as a stylish hostelry across from the then existing Parkdale railroad station which serviced the Grand Trunk, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), and the Canadian National Railway (CNR) companies. In addition to serving the three major railway companies it also provided visitors attending the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) a place to stay.


The original owner, Susanna Robinson, was a widow who operated and lived at the hotel with her 13 children.


A report appeared in the Toronto Star on October 3rd, 1911, indicating that the Gladstone was soon to become the property of an incorporated company. The owner at that time was Mr. Victor E. Gianelli. Interviewed by the Star, Mr. Gianelli stated that the deal had not yet been closed, but the plan was to increase the size of the hotel and improve the facilities.


An article published in the Star on December 27th, 1912, indicated that the Gladstone Hotel had changed hands again, and that the Gladstone Hotel Company, of which Mr. Thomas Slattery was manager, had purchased the Gladstone hotel property from Mr. Gianelli for $110,000. Mr. Slattery had earlier purchased the license for $60,000. It was reported that extensive alterations were to be made to the property.


Throughout the years the hotel was passed from owner to owner and gradually deteriorated in both status and physical appearance. In 2000 a group of developers decided to attempt to rescue this once-luxurious hotel. The Tippins and the Zeidler families combined forces but arguments between the two families regarding how to approach the restoration project resulted in the Zeidlers becoming sole owners of the hotel in 2002.

Among the old fixtures that grace the lovingly restored Gladstone Hotel, the caged elevator best reflects the inn's early grandeur as a high-end railway stopover.

Click here to read about the Gladstone Cowboy.

The hotel often hosts art and photography shows.

Food For Thought

September 2016 - Toronto ON

Saturday is usually our play day, no plans, just whatever you want to do. We did make a quick grocery run and a stop at a Beer Store to check out their gluten beers.

John watched sports and worked out. I binged on My Kitchen Rules, our cable company decided to move my usual channel to another package that we don't and won't subscribe to so I found them online. Also our channel is a season behind, so I am watching the latest season. Bell, thumbing my nose at you!!

Saturday baked these no bake chocolate coconut cashew bars and this recipe immediately went into my recipe box.

Sunday was another lazy day.

Monday John golfed and I did some errands.

Tuesday we headed out for Toronto Islands and a long day of walking, over 19,000 steps.
Click here for details. 

Gorgeous day gorgeous view as we step off the ferry.

Entrance to Clothing Optional Beach.

fisheye view of the amusement park.

Wednesday is John's weekly golf game and I did household chores before heading out to my a niece for a Harvest Wednesday dinner at the Gladstone Hotel. Click here for lots of food.

I walked to the Humber Loop as there is a disruption it the streetcar tracks so it was just easier. I waited over fifteen minutes and no streetcar came, so I walked up to the shopping mall and called a cab using a taxi app. When I got in the cab, my niece messaged me saying she was also being delayed by the streetcar (from the opposite direction).

We got there and checked in. The evening was hosted by the hotel chef and celebrity chef Bob Bulmer of Surreal Chef fame. We had plenty of food to sample, one of my favourite was this rice with chili oil miso.

Thursday I headed downtown to meet a friend for lunch.

Hockey fever is alive all around town. Banners decorate Union Station for the World Hockey Cup starting on Saturday.

We go to an Irish pub in her office building.

I snap some photos on my way home.
A 1989 Toronto Historical Board plaque, located here on the south side of Front Street West at the entrance to Isabella Valancy Crawford park, tells us about this poet.Isabella Valancy Crawford (25 December 1846 – 12 February 1887) was an Irish-born Canadian writer and poet. She was one of the first Canadians to make a living as a freelance writer.

Considered among our finest poets, Isabella Crawford was born in Ireland and came to Canada with her parents about 1858. After settling first in Paisley, Ontario, the family lived later in Lakefield and Peterborough. As a young woman Isabella became fascinated by backwoods life and Indian legends. Following her father's death, she and her mother moved to Toronto. There they subsisted on her meagre earnings from light verse and 'formula fiction' that appeared in Canadian and American newspapers. One privately-printed book of serious poetry, 'Old Spookeses Pass, Malcom's Katie and Other Poems' appeared before her untimely death at 57 John Street. Full recognition came later, however, with the publication of her collected poems, which were admired for their evocative images of the lush and sparkling wilderness.

'Darkness built its wigwam walls close around the camp'

Terry Fox statue in Metro Hall.

John and I then headed out to a walk Lost Breweries of Toronto hosted by Heritage Toronto. I didn't take a lot of photos as most of these breweries have been replaced by new buildings. Some have been repurposed.

We started out meeting at a rather dodgy corner Sherbourne and Queen.
The earliest breweries in Toronto arose from a need to provide the city's British soldiers and Canadian militia with their daily rations of beer. By the mid 1800s, however, brewing in the city had really begun to take off and the industry was beginning to help shape entire neighbourhoods, like Corktown in Toronto's east end.
We walked and stopped at several locations of various breweries and heard a lot of stories in the two hour walk.

We stopped at the location of the Korman Brewery which lead to an interesting story about the husband of one of the Kormans, Ambrose Small who disappeared.

Brewing in Corktown is also indirectly responsible for the city's first "free school." In 1846, the Common Schools Actwas passed, giving municipalities the ability to collect taxes for the purposes of providing public education. However, when municipalities proved reluctant to do so, it was a local brewer, Enoch Turner, who provided the funding to build a school on land donated by Little Trinity Anglican Church.

These photos are from a previous visit to this area.

School House

Little Trinity Church

Turner put up the funding to ensure that the poor, immigrant families that lived in the area surrounding his brewery could go to school and he continued to pay the operating cost of the school for the first three years of its operation. Today, Enoch Turner School still stands at 106 Trinity Street--as does the adjacent Little Trinity Anglican Church, the oldest surviving church in Toronto.
We were surprised to find a street called Old Brewery Lane tucked behind the Animal Shelter.


In 1849,Thomas Davies established the Don Brewery, which was built on the Don River and drew from it for brewing and malting.

One of the buildings has been turned into condos.

Davies operated the Don Brewery with his son, Thomas, Jr. until Davies died in 1869. At that time Thomas Davies Jr. was joined in running the business by his brother Robert Davies in 1871. Seven years later, Robert left the family business to found his own brewery, the Dominion Brewery down the road from the Don Brewery on Queen Street East in Corktown.
Davies provided housing for his employees across the street from the Dominion Brewery.

We then walked to the Distillery District and attended a beer sampling.

A fun beer label.

We did 14,553 steps or 6.2 miles.

Friday we headed downtown. TIFF is in full swing.

We went to lunch at Wurst on King St W at Bathurst. Wurst is a sausage beer hall
You line up and place your order and a server then brings it to your table.

We sat at the bar.

We ordered flights of cider 6 X 5 oz for $14. We had a great conversation with the owner/manager and learned about other ciders that they are importing.

We shared duck fat fries, because you have to, right? They came with two dipping sauces of your choice, we chose jalapeno cilantro which claimed to be spicy, nope, no at all and buttermilk ranch.

I had elk in a delicious bun.  They currently have twenty five gluten free sausages on the menu. The bread is not gluten free.

John chose chorizo served currywurst style. I "borrowed" this photo from BlogTO as we forgot to get one.



A mural hidden down a lane as we head home.

DINNER
My freezers are stocked completely. I am not buying any meat until we can use up some of what we have. I also need to be better at labeling and should will make (maybe) an inventory for my phone to track what we have. I am looking for a good app for managing this.

Saturday - Thai meatballs but I used beef instead of pork because that's what I had. Served with salad and pita. The dipping sauce was absolutely delicious!

Sunday - mystery meat I thought it looked like pork but it was chicken thighs so we had Spanish chicken thighs, a recipe I go to many times, I used up some corn on the cob that we had, the last carrot and made mashed potatoes.

Monday - I planned on Greek lamb meatballs in pita but couldn't get any gluten free pitas so came home and defrosted some lamb and made curry instead.

Tuesday - steak sandwiches with green peppers and onions.

Wednesday - I made Lamb Patties with Pita and Yogurt to use up the defrosted meat for John as I was out. This recipe is not going in my recipe box, it was good but the yogurt dip could be improved upon.

Thursday - out again so we came home and had cheese and crackers.

Friday - leftovers because I am determined to use what we have

Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.

Make My Saturday Sweet

 Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy. 

Weekend Snapshots