Toronto Viewpoints

I left off yesterday close to this location. Campbell House dates to 1822, built for Sir William Campbell and his wife. Campbell was chief justice of what was Upper Canada at the time. The house was moved here in the 1970s and turned into a local history museum.

I kept heading west along Queen Street. One of the side streets looking south has a good view of the iconic CN Tower, looking quite brooding against that sky- but the clouds weren't going to last long.

Then I started heading back the way I came. This utility box on Queen Street caught my eye.

I headed in the general direction of Trinity Square, which neighbours the Eaton Centre. This sculpture is inside an office building that borders the square.

And this one is right outside that office building.

Trinity Square includes some historic architecture, such as the Church of the Holy Trinity.

Here we have a view elsewhere in the square of a heritage building here.

It was time for me to get back to Union Station for my train. Here in the station (which is still seeing some renovation work being done) I paused to photograph some of the details.

I stepped back out front. The Royal York Hotel is across the street from Union Station. This fierce looking fellow guards one of the access points.

And so I had another perspective of the CN Tower, much brighter under mid-day sunlight. Union Station is down at lower left. Tomorrow I'm starting with Winterlude here in the national capital region.

Older And Newer

Carrying on with where I left off yesterday. The Canada Life Building was built between 1929-31 as a headquarters for the insurance company. It is in the Beaux-Arts style.

Historic plaques caught my eye as I went along the street, including this one.

This house stands nearby. Campbell House dates to 1822 in the Georgian style, and was moved here to its present location. It was built for Upper Canada Chief Justice William Campbell and his wife, and today houses a local history museum.

On the grounds outside Campbell House are stone fragments of old Toronto, derived from buildings being demolished back in the 1960s and 1970s.

A short walk away I took in a good viewpoint of a newer iconic piece of architecture, the CN Tower. This view is from Queen Street, one of the larger east-west streets in this part of the city.

Heading back the way I came, this building caught my eye. The Rex is a jazz and blues club along Queen.

Into The Big Smoke

Toronto is the capital of the province of Ontario, and business central for the country. It bears its share of nicknames, including the Big Smoke and Hogtown. This is actually the first shot I took on the road trip, in an area beneath the downtown core. This being late on a Saturday afternoon, the area was largely deserted.

Pretty much the same view, but on the morning that I was getting into Toronto to return home. The PATH network is a system set beneath the downtown core linking numerous office buildings and landmarks. Retail stores abound here, and it's particularly busy at rush hour. I was here around nine thirty in the morning, so rush hour was over. 

I had arrived in Toronto around a half hour earlier in Union Station, which is linked to PATH. The station is a grand one, constructed between 1914 and 1920 and is the third of its kind. The last time I was in Toronto it was under the siege of renovations. That appears to still be the case, as pedestrian detours and construction cladding was still to be found. This transportation hub handles passenger trains, city transit, and GO commuter services.

Here we have a view of the building from the outside.

I had time on my hands, so I decided to get some walking and photography in. The Eaton Centre is a large mall downtown with a glass roof overhead. It also features a set of life sized sculptures of Canada geese hanging from above. Flight Stop is a 1979 installation of fibreglass that is an institution in the city, by the artist Michael Snow.

This particular monstrosity is called York-Dundas Square. This was deemed a revitalization effort and a public square, finished in 2002. The fountains are a nice touch. But the place is surrounded by endless billboards and corporate logos, which leads me to muse on strangling the bloody prat who came up with the idea.

Nearby a street view includes a glimpse of the iconic CN Tower.

And for today I finish with something that's iconic in a way that would shock the Sisters Of Little Or No Mercy. Zanzibar is a nightclub that goes back decades along Yonge Street, and which has been a strip club since at least the 1970s. More from Toronto to come.

Looking Forward To The Games

For a look at people using an ice sculpture to pose for pictures, check out this post from last year that featured an example.

Each year at Winterlude, at least one large ice sculpture is erected by a team of carvers, at the request of a government ministry. This year a sculpture was erected for the Pan Am Games, which will be held in a few months in and around Toronto (side note: it is a great relief that a certain crack smoking incompetent drunkard former mayor of that city is no longer the mayor and thus will not be able to make an ass of the entire city on the international stage). This sculpture incorporates athletes and the CN Tower into it.

The Big Smoke

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario. It's a busy city throughout the week, particularly in the core. And it's a city filled with delusional fools devoted to a hockey team doomed to never win a championship again (hi, Leafs fans!). It's gone by some nicknames down through the years since its founding, including Hogtown and The Big Smoke. These days the city is plagued by a drug addled incompetent alcoholic rage machine who thinks he's the mayor, and who has turned the city into an international joke. Incidentally, in person, the man is even more obnoxious than you see him on the news.

Coming through the city on Christmas Eve, I had enough time to stroll about the downtown core and take some shots. This one is near City Hall. I just liked the look of the building, a hydro-electric building dating back to the twenties.

The Eaton Centre is a shopping mall in the downtown core, the huge glass ceiling a signature of the place. There were very large glass and steel frame reindeer mounted in several places inside, lit with multicoloured lights for the season.

Their scale when seen with people passing by is impressive. I found myself wondering how long it took to put these together.

Outside, I paused for this shot. The Canada Life Building is down the street on University Avenue, a Beaux-Arts tower that was opened in the early thirties. Beyond it is the one building in Toronto that most anyone the world over knows: the CN Tower.