Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I'll add this again in a separate post, since the 'challenge' is far more than LaFarge: https://cases.legal/en/act-ca1-414012.html

Meh - some of those (e.g. 3C) doesn't even involve the main challenges (i.e. the new river channel), and floodproofing is a requirement before they can even build in the Lower Don area.

AoD

 

[Edward Skira]

As for "Canary" (I presume you mean Canary Wharf, not the Canary Restaurant, where I used to eat breakfast regularly for years, but is now 'nouveau gauche'):

Canary District, Pan Am Village, West Don Lands or whatever you'd like to call it. This area can certainly be cleaned up.

 

[steveintoronto]

Canary District, Pan Am Village, West Don Lands or whatever you'd like to call it. This area can certainly be cleaned up.

Of course it can, money can do many things. I say it again: I'll believe it when it happens. London put massive amounts of investment into the eastern lands (Stratford, East Ham, etc) and the national gov't (along with a property assessment charge and London itself) has underwritten London's Crossrail, the largest project in Europe. Sorry to be so skeptical, but this is Toronto, like it or not. I love this city, but I do get tired of all the gushing over the 'next greatest theory'.

I'm far from being the only one:

Wed., Oct. 19, 2016

There’s been a lot of talk about building city parks lately, but, sadly, not much action.

In early August Mayor John Tory unveiled ambitious plans for a 21-acre Rail Deck Park to be built over downtown train tracks between Bathurst St. and Blue Jays Way. But just as everyone got excited, he made it clear the city didn’t have the more than $1 billion it would take to build it. He hoped donors would step up to the plate to make it a reality.

Now the city is turning to private donors to kickstart creation of a new 200-hectare Don River Valley Park that would stretch 4.7 km from Evergreen Brick Works south to the mouth of the Don. So far, Tory said this week, $3.4 million out of a hoped-for $5 million has been raised for initial steps to build entry points, bridges and signs to improve access to the valley.

The generosity of those donors is admirable. But it’s not good enough for a city as big and ambitious as Toronto to rely on private sources to create much-needed parkland in the downtown core. Green space isn’t a luxury in a city of 2.8 million people. It’s a necessity. Without it Toronto isn’t viable, never mind livable.

Indeed, it would be a tragic waste if the city can’t come up with the money needed to act on the opportunity presented by the proposed Don River Valley Park. Unlike the proposed Rail Deck Park, which must be built from scratch, the makings of the Don Valley park already exist with a mature tree canopy, roughed-out woodland trails and wetlands that are home to an impressive array of wildlife including egrets, mink, deer, coyote, beaver and salmon.

Now it needs a helping hand to make it into a great city park that would serve millions of residents and visitors on the scale of Vancouver’s Stanley Park or New York’s Central Park. Indeed, the neighbourhoods bordering it already house 250,000 people. And with the new developments in the West Don Lands, East Bayfront, Central Waterfront and downtown there will soon be another 60,000 in the “park’s” backyard.

Much of the visionary work for the park has already been laid out by the city’s creative partner in this venture, Evergreen, which has been holding consultations with landscape architects, urban planners and artists for the last two years. As envisioned, a new park could include paths for cycling and commuting, a contemporary art trail, bridges to join communities, and the creation of access points to make the Don River itself more accessible.

Now the city must find the means to fund this great idea for a “super park” in the city. The mayor should head back to the drawing board and find a way to make it happen.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/edi...a-great-park-in-the-don-valley-editorial.html

 

[Edward Skira]

Of course it can, money can do many things. I say it again: I'll believe it when it happens. I'm far from being the only one:

Come on! Corktown Common is sitting there in plain view nice and completed.

 

[steveintoronto]

Come on! Corktown Common is sitting there in plain view nice and completed.

At this point, I don't know whether you're being facetious or serious. I cycle through it twice a week on my way to the jams on Polson and more when accessing the waterfront trail.

It has spots that are pleasant. Mostly it reminds me of an Anthony Burgess scenario, oh my Droogies...Perhaps I'm far too 'alternative' to the mainstream? I had a studio in Berkeley Castle long before it was sanitized...a lot of talent came out of there, including some noted Architectural Pros and Profs some I'm working with right now...

 

[Edward Skira]

You are saying they can't or won't be able to clean up the Lower Don Lands. I'm pointing out that they did just that in the West Don Lands. What am I missing here?

 

[steveintoronto]

You are saying they can't or won't be able to clean up the Lower Don Lands. I'm pointing out that they did just that in the West Don Lands. What am I missing here?

Well for a start you're missing this:

Of course it can, money can do many things.

And as it stands right now, the river itself.

Yes the tannery and other buildings are cleaned off. Nice and sanitary like. It's cleaned up, but it's far from inviting. The tunnel under the tracks is a nice touch. I've even stopped by the park bench there once to fix a flat.

[...]
The State of the Water
There have been improvements. For instance you can’t light the river on fire these days. It doesn’t turn from pink to blue anymore as dye factories stopped pouring their potions into the water. What’s more promising is that wildlife is managing to etch out a life in and from the river: Birds, waterfowl, beaver, turtles, even salmon have ventured back to the river.

While many of the industries no longer drain contaminants into the Don, historic pollutants continue to challenge the river’s waters, which have not been healthy since the mid 1800s. Stormwater runoff and wastewater from combined sewers are significantly impacting the river’s water quality. North Toronto’s Wastewater Treatment Plant also sends overflow from CSO tanks into the Don (there were 21 such events reported in 2013).

Rainwater and snow melts flow directly into the river, and with it come contaminants ranging from dog poop and cigarettes, to road salts and chemical de-icers, heavy metals from emissions and vehicle corrosion, soaps and household cleaning products, fertilizers, and tons of garbage. [...]

http://www.waterkeeper.ca/blog/2015/5/15/paddling-the-upside-and-the-downside-of-the-don-river

 

[ADRM]

$65M? What more do I expect? Real action, as I stated prior. There's been all sorts of projects touted since long before Dennis Mills' being in office, and with all credit to the man, he made a real effort to move things along. It was ultimately not much more than futile.



Canary Wharf? You can't be serious. There next to no similarity other than the Thames.And when Toronto cleans up the upper and middle Don like London did with the Thames, you have a starting point:
[The River Thames is the cleanest river in the world that flows through a major city. This is a major feat considering that fifty years ago the river was so polluted that it was declared biologically dead. From 1830 to 1860 tens of thousands of people died of cholera as a result of the pollution in the Thames.
Pollution on the River Thames - Primary Homework Help]
primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/riverthames/pollution.htm

As for "Canary" (I presume you mean Canary Wharf, not the Canary Restaurant, where I used to eat breakfast regularly for years, but is now 'nouveau gauche'):

Be very careful what you wish for....


I remain skeptical, for good reason, watching project after project to clean the soil, get rid of the most polluting industries, try and form a modicum of tri-partite governance (it's still not be made clear) and finance something of scale to transform the area.

$65M is real action any way you shake it, plain and simple. Would you prefer they skip the necessary environmental assessments, due diligence, costing, planning, and project development? If so, that's obviously a silly argument in the remarkable extreme.

You can't just "get shovels in the ground tomorrow" on a complicated, billion-dollar project. It's really as straightforward as it gets.

And I think there's a simple confusion across multiple posters here as "Canary" was originally intended by Ed to refer to the area in Toronto (i.e. "Canary District") that has now become part of the area called the "West Donlands."

 

[steveintoronto]

I'll get back to the aspect of rehabilitating the Don later, but for now:

And I think there's a simple confusion across multiple posters here as "Canary" was originally intended by Ed to refer to the area in Toronto (i.e. "Canary District") that has now become part of the area called the "West Donlands."

(Not mentioned in the following is the use of this building as the Cdn Northern Ry Toronto Passenger Station for some years, but I digress)[...]
Yet in the midst of blight and suffering there were some bright spots including one my favourite buildings in Corktown, the former Palace Street School, built in 1859, which many of us remember as the Canary Restaurant at Front and Cherry streets. The school, one of the earliest free schools in Toronto and the first school to hire a female principal, is the only one remaining of the original schools built by the Toronto Board of Education.
It’s also one of the few surviving buildings built by Joseph Sheard, who as a young 25-year-old apprentice to the great architect Thomas Storm, refused to build the scaffold to hang Lount and Matthews in the aftermath of the Rebellion of 1837. This act of defiance made Sheard a folk hero to the people of Toronto who would eventually elect him mayor in 1871.

The school moved out in 1890, the school vacated its premises and the building with its additions became home to the Cherry Street Hotel.

The original Tippet-Richardson building and it’s two later incarnations

In 1893, the publication Toronto, the Queen City of Canada wrote: “A well known and popular hotel in this city is the Cherry Street Hotel, Mr. J.J. Darcy, proprietor, situated at the comer of Cherry and Front Street. The building, a commodious brick structure, was originally a school house for a period of 45 years.

The hotel contains upwards of 40 neatly furnished sleeping rooms, a well equipped dining room and office. The very best to be obtained in the market is served daily in the dining room, and in the well kept bar can always be found the choicest imported wines, liquors, ales, beer, porter, stout and cigars.”

Over the next few years the hotel changed hands and names including the Irvine House and the Eastern Star Hotel. Then it became the General Steel depot, the Tippet-Richardson warehouse; then in 1965 Canary Restaurant moved in. This summer Toronto and Corktown in particular will host the Pan American Games with the former Palace Street school being very much at the centre of the action as it has just completed a massive top to bottom renovation. The whole area surrounding the former school has transformed into the Athletes Village. Then upon completion of the Games the area will be given back to the city.

The Canary Restaurant, owned and operated by the Vlahos family for 42 years, closed in 2007. However the neighbourhood that surrounded it has been given the name Canary District after the historic eatery.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/01/...can_it_survive_the_wrath_of_the_pan_am_games/

At least the Cherry St Diner is still open, albeit the clientele there now are stuck to their iDevices like zombies.

Edit to Add: Getting very difficult to find this reference now: (and this is historically inaccurate too, but I digress yet again):

Railway Heritage Footprints in the West Donlands – Part 2 of 6
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
Click on each image for a closer look!

On the southeast corner of Front and Cherry streets are two attached buildings that will also be preserved. The best known of these was the Canary Restaurant on the corner, a legendary local diner that moved into the building in 1965. (IMAGE #9, photograph by James Bow, from Remembering the Canary). The building attached to the restaurant on the south is seen in IMAGE #10. This structure was originally erected in 1859 as the Palace Street School (the name of the eastern end of Front St. at the time). The school was built partly because there were some who objected to the fact that the nearby Enoch Turner Schoolhouse was too close (both physically and spiritually) to the Little Trinity Church and that boys and girls were mixed together in the same classroom. After the area became less residential and more industrial around 1890, the school moved out and the corner building was erected as a hotel, touted for its proximity to the Grand Trunk Railway’s Don Station and presumably the CPR Don Station, when that opened in 1896.

For a time, the old schoolhouse was the Thomas Davidson Manufacturing Company. The Montreal-based firm manufactured enamelled sheet metal products and in 1927 became part of General Steel Wares. Both buildings were extensively modified and enlarged over the years to suit their industrial purposes. IMAGE #11 shows the structure in 1954, when the moving company Tippet-Richardson occupied the south building and the north building was seemingly vacant. The loading dock on the south side of the building was served by a Canadian Pacific Railway siding. IMAGE #12 shows all three buildings looking north on Cherry Street and dates from 1981. [...]

http://torontorha.blogspot.ca/2012/02/railway-heritage-footprints-in-west_29.html

And finally, found a reference that gets the history correct:
[...]Among the remaining buildings from this period of growth are the Palace Street School and the Canadian Northern Railway office building, which create a historic gateway at Front and Cherry Streets. Built on the southeast corner, Palace Street School (1859) was one of the first free schools in Toronto, and was said to have been the first school in the Toronto Board of Education to have a female principal.][...]

From Derelict to Desirable: The Revitalization of the West Don Lands
Posted by Ronnie Chatterjee on July 2, 2015
| Architecture, Arts & Culture, Charity, Communities
The West Don Lands, recently rebranded as the Canary District, is an area that has been prone to change. Bordered by the Don River, King Street East, Parliament Street and the rail line adjacent to the Gardiner Expressway, the area is undeniably an up-and-coming neighbourhood. Like many neighbourhoods in the city’s core, the West Don Lands have experienced change to both its natural landscape and built environment, but on a scale and over a period time not seen by most. The area began as a thriving wetland and marsh before being developed into a hub of industry in the 19thcentury, which declined with the fall of rail transportation. Over the past decade, the area has been reinvented as the Athletes’ Village for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am & Parapan American Games, and revitalized into an emerging urban community. [...continues at length...]

http://harveykalles.com/from-derelict-to-desirable-the-revitalization-of-the-west-don-lands/

 

[interchange42]

The Cherry Street Diner has reopened? Really? When did that happen?

42

 

[steveintoronto]

The Cherry Street Diner has reopened? Really? When did that happen?

42

Re-named the "Cherry Street BBQ". They even have a patio on the north side of the building.
"When did that happen?" Don't know, I've been absent Toronto for six years, but it's been open for at least the almost year I've been back, open every time I cycle down to jam at Polson Street.

For clarification, the Cherry Street Diner was a left over name from a previous iteration of the Cherry Street Restaurant. Most of the locals (mostly workers) used to go there to drink, the eating was to keep them alive between drinking bouts. Knob Hill was where the more 'presentable' locals went. There were live-in studios, ship workers and people living on their boats down there years back. This is decades before the cancer named "The Docks" opened. Polson St has hosted jam studios for...damn...close to forty years. I even remember the scrap yard behind and the rail tracks front and back of the building. A lot of talent went through that building and Berkeley Castle before it was sanitized for the gentry.

Photos by Jesse Milns



Cherry Street Bar-B-Que - blogTO
www.blogto.com/restaurants/cherry-street-bar-b-que-toronto
Jul 27, 2016 - Cherry Street Bar-B-Que takes a reverential approach to this famous Southern-style food. A short jaunt from Cherry Beach, the Docks drive-in ...
Cherry St. Bar-B-Que brings patio, pork to Portlands | Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com › Life › Food & Wine
Jul 13, 2016 - Pit boss Lawrence La Pianta smokes ‘em dead on the busy Portlands patio of new Cherry St. Bar-B-Que. ... But there’s more to recommend the new Cherry St. Bar-B-Que than its pleasant outdoor space, where the shipping-container bar makes a mean smoky habanero margarita ($9).
What's on the menu at Cherry Street Bar-B-Que, a massive new ...
torontolife.com/.../whats-on-the-menu-at-cherry-street-bar-b-que-the-portlands-new-s...
Jul 26, 2016 - With over a decade dedicated to the craft, La Pianta spent the last four years on the competitive circuit, working with many American barbecue ...

 

[ADRM]

Re-named the "Cherry Street BBQ". They even have a patio on the north side of the building.
"When did that happen?" Don't know, I've been absent Toronto for six years, but it's been open for at least the almost year I've been back, open every time I cycle down to jam at Polson Street.

For clarification, the Cherry Street Diner was a left over name from a previous iteration of the Cherry Street Restaurant. Most of the locals (mostly workers) used to go there to drink, the eating was to keep them alive between drinking bouts. Knob Hill was where the more 'presentable' locals went. There were live-in studios, ship workers and people living on their boats down there years back. This is decades before the cancer named "The Docks" opened. Polson St has hosted jam studios for...damn...close to forty years. I even remember the scrap yard behind and the rail tracks front and back of the building. A lot of talent went through that building and Berkeley Castle before it was sanitized for the gentry.

Photos by Jesse Milns



Cherry Street Bar-B-Que - blogTO
www.blogto.com/restaurants/cherry-street-bar-b-que-toronto
Jul 27, 2016 - Cherry Street Bar-B-Que takes a reverential approach to this famous Southern-style food. A short jaunt from Cherry Beach, the Docks drive-in ...
Cherry St. Bar-B-Que brings patio, pork to Portlands | Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com › Life › Food & Wine
Jul 13, 2016 - Pit boss Lawrence La Pianta smokes ‘em dead on the busy Portlands patio of new Cherry St. Bar-B-Que. ... But there’s more to recommend the new Cherry St. Bar-B-Que than its pleasant outdoor space, where the shipping-container bar makes a mean smoky habanero margarita ($9).
What's on the menu at Cherry Street Bar-B-Que, a massive new ...
torontolife.com/.../whats-on-the-menu-at-cherry-street-bar-b-que-the-portlands-new-s...
Jul 26, 2016 - With over a decade dedicated to the craft, La Pianta spent the last four years on the competitive circuit, working with many American barbecue ...

These are two different institutions; the Cherry Street BBQ is down south of the Keating Channel at the corner of Cherry and Commissioners. It is not the former restaurant in the West Donlands.

 

[steveintoronto]

These are two different institutions; the Cherry Street BBQ is down south of the Keating Channel at the corner of Cherry and Commissioners. It is not the former restaurant in the West Donlands.

lol...as someone who frequented the Canary, the Cherry and the Knob Hill for years, I say "no kidding". There was also a trailer restaurant that was set-up for more than a year by a chef who became famous in Toronto called "Jamie" (I conveniently forget his last name) in the parking lot here:

Even the last iteration of the Cherry Street Restaurant was more recent than the one there for God only knows how long, a generation at least:
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/cherry-street-restaurant-toronto

The "former restaurant in the West Donlands" was the Canary. Anything you'd care to know about it? The films shot there? The dogs across the street at the wrecking yard perhaps? (The one with the sign on the gate: "Please do not feed dogs"...and they were so famous that people in Cadillacs stopped their cars to feed them prime cuts) The studios behind The Canary? Caribana's tenancy there some...Geez thirty plus years back? (Used to go in to look at all the incredible float displays being assembled there)

I rented studio space on an area of Eastern that is now gone, great place, Acme Environmental got their start there, (did some work with them) but I digress. I had studio space on Polson for decades too, in fact laid blocks and built some others there. That was after having space in Berkeley Castle before it was gentrified (At that time, a Jack Diamond owned building)(might still be)(Jack was a pretty decent guy, btw, great guy to talk architectural concept with, he was far ahead of most of the crowd in TO at the time)

interchange42 said: ↑

The Cherry Street Diner has reopened? Really? When did that happen?

42

 

[ADRM]

lol...as someone who frequented the Canary, the Cherry and the Knob Hill for years, I say "no kidding". There was also a trailer restaurant that was set-up for more than a year by a chef who became famous in Toronto called "Jaimie" (I conveniently forget his last name) in the parking lot here:

View attachment 89745

Even the last iteration of the Cherry Street Restaurant was more recent than the one there for God only knows how long, a generation at least:
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/cherry-street-restaurant-toronto

The "former restaurant in the West Donlands" was the Canary. Anything you'd care to know about it? The films shot there? The dogs across the street at the wrecking yard perhaps? (The one with the sign on the gate: "Please do not feed dogs"...and they were so famous that people in Cadillacs stopped their cars to feed them prime cuts) The studios behind The Canary? Caribana's tenancy there some...Geez thirty plus years back? (Used to go in to look at all the incredible float displays being assembled there)

I rented studio space on an area of Eastern that is now gone, great place, Acme Environmental got their start there, (did some work with them) but I digress. I had studio space on Polson for decades too, in fact laid blocks and built some others there. That was after having space in Berkeley Castle before it was gentrified (At that time, a Jack Diamond owned building)(might still be)(Jack was a pretty decent guy, btw, great guy to talk architectural concept with, he was far ahead of most of the crowd in TO at the time)

interchange42 said: ↑

I thought a previous poster was asking about the Canary (because it is often mistakenly referred to it as the Cherry Street Diner) and was simply pointing out that it is a different restaurant from the Cherry St. Diner (and Cherry St. BBQ for that matter). I'm not contradicting you.

 

[steveintoronto]

I initially thought same, but persons familiar with the area would also know about the Cherry St Diner, also had its share of movies shot there, but lacked the ambience of the Canary.

I'm really torn on whether the whole West Donlands is an improvement over its former slovenly self. At least it was real back then (forty years ago), albeit Gooderham and Worts (of which I also had a tour, as I had a proposal they liked to turn one of the cask sheds into practice studios) was still alive for its designed purpose, although just blending and storage, as distilling production had been moved, and Allied had just purchased them. (They were making good use of the empty space for film shoots at that time, every other movie shot in TO at the time had footage from there, but they soon had to have the Location Managers sign for all losses, as the walls were stripped bare of artifacts)

It's a bit like someone taking away the neighbourhood you knew, bleaching and sanitizing the real culture out of it, and then selling the plastic wrapped result back to you as something superior, as "it's all the rage you know".

I'm not impressed. Milton Keynes started the same way, albeit it was greenfield. Roundabouts to nowhere...Oh my Droogies...