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Lost Neighbourhood: Blondin Avenue

Lone Primate said:
Some of the bridges we had at the fringes of the city were Bailey bridges, and I gather they were usually meant to be temporary. There's another one on the abandoned track of Don Mills Road as it descends into the valley; it used to carry traffic one lane at a time over the CN line. It probably replaced a wooden structure; my guess is it was put at in an era when there was already planning in the works for something more permanent.
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I'm not sure whether that particular Bailey actually post-dates the Don Mills diversion, i.e. built strictly as a bikeway/pathway affair (though yes, it does follow the old Don Mills path). And even if it (or a presumably wooden predecessor) did serve Don Mills, remember that we're dealing with a road/rail grade separation, as opposed to a river crossing. As far as I can tell, there was greater leeway for "impermanent" construction with road crossing rail, esp. in rural areas--and you can still find a lot of wooden road-over-rail bridges in rural Ontario (eg. the old Danforth path btw/Newcastle and Port Hope).

Remember, too, that Bailey bridges were a WWII invention, and they have nothing to do with something like, say, Flindon. (Another Toronto Bailey, interestingly enough given another current thread, was that which originally carried Indian Line across the Humber below Claireville Dam.)

Much more typical of river crossings between the wars is just to the south, the concrete arch that originally carried Don Mills over the Don. And take note: Don Mills was just as "minor" as Albion/Flindon, if not more so...
 
adma said:
I'm not sure whether that particular Bailey actually post-dates the Don Mills diversion, i.e. built strictly as a bikeway/pathway affair (though yes, it does follow the old Don Mills path).
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It appears in photos from the mid-1950s prior to the diversion, which I believe was effected in conjunction with the construction of the DVP.


adma said:
Much more typical of river crossings between the wars is just to the south, the concrete arch that originally carried Don Mills over the Don. And take note: Don Mills was just as "minor" as Albion/Flindon, if not more so...
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Most of those predate WWII by a considerable margin; they often date to the first decade of the 20th century. They were typically built to be permanent, predating plans for modern subdivisions that would have made the eventual need for larger bridges much more self-evident.
 
Fascinating thread/research on your part.

Thank you so much! I love stuff like this... it's a little ghost strip...
 
Seeing Old Cummer for myself today, I'm almost certain that bridge is a Frank Barber work, perhaps 1920s or so (why here? who knows).

Interesting thing about Barber is that he was known to collaborate with the architect Claude Bragdon on at least a couple of occasions (Ashburnham Bridge in Peterborough; Leaside Viaduct); given Bragdon's fascinating theosophical/Eastern-tinged approach to design philosophy (did he and Barber share interests in that end?), I'm wondering if his hand or at least his influence is felt here--the X-pattern railings seem to have some vague abstract-pattern kinship with the intertwining railing pattern (now quasi-restored in the recent rehab) at the Leaside Viaduct...
 
adma said:
Seeing Old Cummer for myself today, I'm almost certain that bridge is a Frank Barber work, perhaps 1920s or so (why here? who knows).

Interesting thing about Barber is that he was known to collaborate with the architect Claude Bragdon on at least a couple of occasions (Ashburnham Bridge in Peterborough; Leaside Viaduct); given Bragdon's fascinating theosophical/Eastern-tinged approach to design philosophy (did he and Barber share interests in that end?), I'm wondering if his hand or at least his influence is felt here--the X-pattern railings seem to have some vague abstract-pattern kinship with the intertwining railing pattern (now quasi-restored in the recent rehab) at the Leaside Viaduct...
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Did you go and see it? Charming, isn't it? It's well set apart these days from any of the other roads. I'm happy the city chose to keep it and then rehabilitate it as a pedestrian crossing. Must have been a nice little drive in its time; I only wish I'd been able to see it then. A few years ago, the thing was covered with graffiti, and really poor graffiti at that... but it looks like they've painted over it. There used to be a lot more foliage on the south side, too, but they had to tear out quite a bit of it last year to work on a water main that coincidentally passes by the bridge. When I first saw the work, coming down from the hill, I wondered if the city might not be building a new road to reassume the course of Old Cummer at the bridge! :)
 
SeanTrans said:
Passmore is an interesting study. Other disappeared or endangered concession/side roads in the GTA:

Second Line WHS - in Mississauga now relegated to a minor collector road in favour of Mavis, severed at New Derry Road/407, eliminated in a subdivision nort of Britannia, and soon to be severed again at the 401. In Brampton, Mavis merges into Chinguacousy, where Second Line WHS is much more important.

Third Line WHS: Creditivew Road. The opposite - still relatively important in Mississauga, but also severed by New Derry Road and the 407. In Brampton, has disappeared south of Highway 7, in favour of something called James Potter Road.

Related, in Mississauga, I think Purivale/Rathkeale served a more important purpose than it does now - another road that looks really out of place. I wonder if it was an old road to Streetsville or something.
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I mentioned Creditview and Second Line West in a different thread, not realizing they had been brought up in this one.

I live right by Creditview and Britannia, and it's hard for me to remember now when Bancroft and Creditview weren't signalized. Creditview is still well-used in my area, and there always seems to be a steady stream of traffic on it north of Britannia, considering it doesn't really go anywhere anymore. My aunt lives near Old Creditview and Old Derry. We used to drive up Creditview to go strawberry picking, but even when we did, you had drive briefly down Derry to follow Creditview the rest of the way up. I think the jog was due to the railroad there. My aunt's house sides onto that railroad in fact, and in the fine print of the purchase there was mention that GO may run trains along it in the future (to Bolton/Orangeville?).

So Credtiview, Second Line and Derry all got butchered, but I can't imagine why? Isn't a perfect grid system better than the squiggly lines that roads like Mavis and New Derry Road are?

PS It's Perivale not Purivale. I drive by it all the time. :)
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
So Credtiview, Second Line and Derry all got butchered, but I can't imagine why? Isn't a perfect grid system better than the squiggly lines that roads like Mavis and New Derry Road are?
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Well, better to butcher the perfect grid system than to butcher Old Meadowvale through road widening, i.e. think of it more as a "bypass"...
 
adma said:
Well, better to butcher the perfect grid system than to butcher Old Meadowvale through road widening, i.e. think of it more as a "bypass"...
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Indeed in some old maps it was called "Derry Rd Bypass". I can understand the desire to not butcher places like Old Meadowvale, but if you kept all the grid streets intact, then the traffic would get diverted along them equally, and you wouldn't need these big massive roads that Mavis and Hurontario are. Or at least, I would think. Instead of being forced to take Mavis up into Brampton, you could take Creditview or Second Line and Mavis (assuming they'd extended Mavis to not line up with Chinguacousy).
 
It may be of interest to know that Old Meadowvale was Ontario's (yes, Ontario's) first officially designated Heritage Conservation District, back in 1980...
 
I really don't know what's so special about Old Meadowvale. And why is there a street called Meadowvale in Toronto?
 
I was just looking at Google Maps, and my curiosity was piqued when I looked at the 407-Yonge Street area. What's the deal with Langstaff Road? It curves around to meet Boyle Drive, but there is a court right there at a 90 degree angle named Langstaff Road, and it ends in a short path to Yonge Street. Then, across Yonge and the 407 is Langstaff again, curving upwards and running east on the south side of the 407. What was the alignment of Langstaff like before the 407 was there? Or was it the same?

EDIT: Also, what's going on here? Was that ever some sort of road, or is it just related somehow to the cemetary off to the east? http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=f...79.416218&spn=0.003653,0.007296&t=h&z=17&om=1
 
The present Langstaff alignment is, indeed, the old concession-road alignment which Hwy 7 weaves across. Hwy 7 from Yonge to Bathurst was built in the 60s as a Thornhill bypass (the curved part W of Bathurst wasn't built until a quarter century later; in the interrim, 7 "jogged" south at Bathurst to Centre St). I believe the grade separation E of Yonge might be 70s or so...
 
An article in the Toronto Star, Sunday September 23 1984 talks about the remaining homes on Blondin Ave that developers wanted to pick up for the land for commercial development. Toronto Star's pages of the past is a great way to look up old articles and print them out, really brings back memories from years ago looking at old ads, beats going through the Microfiche at the reference library lol,


Friday November 16 1984 is another article as well as..
among many others that year, as well in '85
 
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