St Lawrence Market

[CityPainter]

It's about time that David Crosby Park got updated. Integral to that should be the incorporation of Neil Young into its name.

Ha, I like Neil as much as the next Canadian and I'd be happy if we put a statue of him in the park. But it is, of course, called David Crombie Park, and it's named after a former mayor who was instrumental in helping to transform the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood from an industrialized wasteland of parking lots into a successful mixed community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crombie

 

[slicecom]

Ha, I like Neil as much as the next Canadian and I'd be happy if we put a statue of him in the park. But it is, of course, called David Crombie Park, and it's named after a former mayor who was instrumental in helping to transform the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood from an industrialized wasteland of parking lots into a successful mixed community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crombie

David Crombie is also going to be instrumental in the park's redesign, which is pretty cool.

 

[tripwire]

My dentist is at Wellington and Church. He's awesome.

We might share the same dentist!

Well, I agree it's not particularly exciting, but it's a good sign to see practical amenities like these being provided for the thousands of people who have moved into the area in recent years and will continue to do so. That particular unit has some sort of issue that prohibits commercial kitchen exhaust systems from being installed so it could not be another restaurant, at least not one that actually cooked food on site. This is probably a reasonable tenant in the end.

With all the developments happening in the area, another dentist/medical office isn't the worse thing to have.

 

[JasonParis]

David Crombie is also going to be instrumental in the park's redesign, which is pretty cool.

At least in the western world, it's somewhat uncommon to have a statue on one's behalf, if that person is still living.

 

[pman]

At least in the western world, it's somewhat uncommon to have a statue on one's behalf, if that person is still living.

That’s true. It was pretty bush league of North York to name its square for Mel Lastman while he was still alive, though I suppose it wasn’t all that surprising for either Mel or North York.

 

[JasonParis]

I don't believe there's a statue of Mel in the square though.

 

[pman]

I guess we should be grateful for small miracles.

 

[DSC]

The Jack Astor on Front Street has closed, as has the adjacent Bell store.

 

[CityPainter]

The Jack Astor on Front Street has closed, as has the adjacent Bell store.

This is surprising. I'm not a personal fan of Jack Astor's but I admit they did a pretty nice job with that awkward space that used to be a hideous Tim Hortons/Wendys. There seemed to be a steady flow of customers from Jays/Leafs and Sony Centre events. I wonder what else could possibly fill that space. Maybe larger retail?

 

[DSC]

This is surprising. I'm not a personal fan of Jack Astor's but I admit they did a pretty nice job with that awkward space that used to be a hideous Tim Hortons/Wendys. There seemed to be a steady flow of customers from Jays/Leafs and Sony Centre events. I wonder what else could possibly fill that space. Maybe larger retail?

Yes, I too find it surprising as it seemed to be busy. It certainly looked better than the Wendys/Tims that was there before - THAT was a real relic of the 1980s!

 

[DSC]

This in BlogTO is not, I think totally accurate but the situation is even worse than they say! BlogTO said https://www.blogto.com/city/2019/02/yonge-wellington-construction-toronto/

The current project is a Toronto Hydro one laying new conduit and building new vaults from Church to Yonge and at last word it will end pretty much on schedule in early March. In fact, the City organised the Hydro contractor to also lay conduit for Bell and other telecom contractors so this project was actually handled quite well. It follows a 2017/18 project to lay a new watermain and, of course, the work on Berczy Park and the adjacent block of Scott Street.

The problem is that during this Hydro work they found a major Enbridge pipe between Scott and Yonge that is in a bad location and needs to be relocated - a job that will apparently take 40 days. While this is disappointing it was, until recently, not seen as a huge problem and everyone expected it to go ahead in April with the final streetscape work (including new TTC track) occurring in late summer. Now, we learn that the City wants to postpone the new TTC track and the streetscape work to 2021!

The St Lawrence Market BIA (who are putting $$$ into streetscape improvements) and the St Lawrence Neighbourhood Association are VERY unhappy about this proposed postponement as there has been work going on around Wellington for at least 4 years and a further 2 years of mess is absolutely unsatisfactory.. (The final stages of the project involve new streetcar track, wider sidewalks, more trees and a reconstruction of the Church/Front/Wellington intersection which was approved by Council in 2016).

 

[Northern Light]

This in BlogTO is not, I think totally accurate but the situation is even worse than they say! BlogTO said https://www.blogto.com/city/2019/02/yonge-wellington-construction-toronto/

The current project is a Toronto Hydro one laying new conduit and building new vaults from Church to Yonge and at last word it will end pretty much on schedule in early March. In fact, the City organised the Hydro contractor to also lay conduit for Bell and other telecom contractors so this project was actually handled quite well. It follows a 2017/18 project to lay a new watermain and, of course, the work on Berczy Park and the adjacent block of Scott Street.

The problem is that during this Hydro work they found a major Enbridge pipe between Scott and Yonge that is in a bad location and needs to be relocated - a job that will apparently take 40 days. While this is disappointing it was, until recently, not seen as a huge problem and everyone expected it to go ahead in April with the final streetscape work (including new TTC track) occurring in late summer. Now, we learn that the City wants to postpone the new TTC track and the streetscape work to 2021!

The St Lawrence Market BIA (who are putting $$$ into streetscape improvements) and the St Lawrence Neighbourhood Association are VERY unhappy about this proposed postponement as there has been work going on around Wellington for at least 4 years and a further 2 years of mess is absolutely unsatisfactory.. (The final stages of the project involve new streetcar track, wider sidewalks, more trees and a reconstruction of the Church/Front/Wellington intersection which was approved by Council in 2016).

FFS that is beyond ridiculous.

 

[CityPainter]

Now, we learn that the City wants to postpone the new TTC track and the streetscape work to 2021!

This is even more frustrating if you pull back the lens and look at the longer-term picture. It seems eons ago now, but originally the new Berczy park was supposed to be completed before the 2015 Pan Am games. When delays pushed the work too close to the beginning of that event, they decide to postpone all the work until after the games. All the Pan Am events happened in the sad-sack old park, and roughly a year of delays resulted..

One of the reasons given for these long delays to the Berczy work as well as the refurbishment of Front Street out to the Distillery was always "we want to do all the infrastructure at once, we don't want to have to dig things up again!" Which is an admirable logic, except the reality is that almost all of the long delayed work was gouged up and ruined within months of completion anyway. Walk now from the St. Lawrence to the Distillery and you'll see plenty of expensively bricked sidewalks riddle with construction cuts and cracked by construction machinery and patched with shovel slops of asphault, and so on. Many of the street trees are dead. Many of the new raised planters and benches have been gouged and damaged by sidewalk plows. I wonder how many millions were spent on all that resurfacing and whether it was worth it for perhaps a year of aesthetic improvement.

Now the north side of Berczy park is already like this, a uglified patchwork of asphault and mud after only one full summer of being able to enjoy the new park. By 2021 how will the rest of the park and surrounding streets look? History dictates that they will already be ruined by the time this improved stretch opens.

It becomes incredibly difficult to stay positive in this city. Every step forward feels so hard won and precarious. Even when we find the investment to build nice things it seems other forces immediately conspire to diminish them and make it all feel futile.

 

[Northern Light]

It becomes incredibly difficult to stay positive in this city. Every step forward feels so hard won and precarious. Even when we find the investment to build nice things it seems other forces immediately conspire to diminish them and make it all feel futile.

This is a thing provincially and federally as well.

One could look at the Autism announcement this week as a step back from a recent achievement. But its not just Conservatives, we've seen this issue before .....McGuinty passed a very tough Endangered Species Act...........then gutted it in the regulations.

There's been something of a disease in governments in Canada for a generation, if not two that has resisted tangible progress on any number of fronts.

 

[DSC]

Those of you (us) who are unhappy that the final streetscape project on Wellington St East may not happen, as planned, THIS summer may want to write to the Mayor about it (possibly copying Kristin Wong-Tam). The BIA and SLNA are extremely unhappy about this project being postponement yet again and the more complaints the better!.

Mayor Tory <Mayor_Tory@toronto.ca>

Councillor Wongtam <councillor_wongtam@toronto.ca>