News   May 15, 2024
 557     0 
News   May 15, 2024
 563     0 
News   May 15, 2024
 417     0 

Unintentional landmarks?

"SOLD BY LANCE TRUMBLE" the grain elevator down at cherry and lakeshore
 
The lights on the Don Valley Parkway(the old ones). I remember when I was a kid and going downtown with my parents and stuff. Those lights on the DVP were a hit along with going under the Bloor Bridge.

In East Scarborough the huge watertower on Lawrence East near Scarborough Golf Road, is a landmark in this area.
 
another landmark watertower is on warden south of eglinton. i remember being fascinated by it when i was a kid. i thought it was a spaceship
 
More modestly, there's the Christie plant watertower (or the Christie plant, just in general) over by the mouth of the Humber...

...to say nothing of the *smell* of the Christie plant, if you want to get beyond the physical into the olfactory...
 
Guys, these are great...keep 'em coming if you think of any more.

Is everybody here cool if I use a few of your responses as quotes? I may not, but always like to check first...I'll use the pseudonyms, too, if that suits all of you better.
 
Arguments over 2 Carlton?
Do tell

Just someone seeing absolutely no merit in it, and my countering with a standard late 50s pop-architecture argument on its behalf.

That's definitely a landmark, however intentional.
Even after the (ill-advised] alterations.

Perhaps it's more incredible how much of its spirit has survived the clock removal, the various signage (and sign-removal) hijinks, vacillating paint jobs, ground-floor alterations and mosaic cover-ups. Just compare the grotesque fate of the Westbury to the north and you'll know what I mean. 2 Carlton's an acquired taste, perhaps, but nevertheless a passionately urban building--not surprising that it comes across best when Pride parade spectators are peering out of its garage holes, it may not be the best large 50s office building in Toronto, but it's surely the campiest...
 
Another "unintentional landmark", which is seldom if ever mentioned in rundowns of Toronto's folk landmarks: the mammoth (and mammothly grotty) moose head in the front porch of that house on Concord S of Hallam. (Across from where that post-partum-depression woman went murder-suicidal last year...)
 
Perhaps it's more incredible how much of its spirit has survived the clock removal, the various signage (and sign-removal) hijinks, vacillating paint jobs, ground-floor alterations and mosaic cover-ups. Just compare the grotesque fate of the Westbury to the north and you'll know what I mean.

Indeed. Or the Park Plaza.
Between the pseudo-balconies, the white brick and the playful massing, 2 Carlton survives any and all assaults. Even from Pizza Pizza.

an acquired taste, perhaps, but nevertheless a passionately urban building--not surprising that it comes across best when Pride parade spectators are peering out of its garage holes, it may not be the best large 50s office building in Toronto, but it's surely the campiest...

Well said.

Speaking of camp, I don't think this thread has brought up the more exuberant Uno Prii buildings in the Annex -- the swoopy one on Prince Arthur or the one with the arches on Walmer. I'd count both.

Another landmark: that weird evangelical church right at King and Bright St: the one with the sign facing the Richmond St. DVP exit. That always seems very un-Torontonian.
 
I was going to mention Uno Prii. As usual, I've got too little, too late.

Speaking of the Annex, though, a recently departed landmark was 44 Walmer, the incredibly garish apartment building that was redone a couple of years ago and now looks kind of decent. But before then it had the potbelly-shaped balconies that were covered in giant circles, like life preservers or outsized fruit loops.

This might not be unintentional enough, but the restored fire tower south of College and Borden (is that belleview?) was always a subtle landmark for us. We called it the "moon clock" when we lived there.

There is the insane decorated house on Clinton Street.

And down the street closer to Bloor is my very small, very personal, most beloved unintentional landmark of them all: some old aluminum pay-phone stands, all over which somebody has graffitied the most unfortunate gang name in Toronto: "ESL CREW"
 
...or, was 44 Walmer what you meant by "the one with the arches"? They're all kind of archy and swoopy.

Let's get our terminology straight here:

44 Walmer / kinda archy
(from the glory days! I lived there...)

uno_1.jpeg


35 Walmer / kinda bulgy

uno_3.jpeg


100 Spadina / kinda swoopy

to100spadina.jpg


20 Prince Arthur / just plain cool

uno_2a.jpeg
 
Sam the Rocord man on Yonge.....

Citytv building with the car breaking out of the wall....
 
Something that dawned on me was the little cantilevered Miesian operations cabin for the Cherry Street bascule bridge over Keating Channel.

Unfortunately, it was some time recently given a total beige-ing; thus effacing its 60s colour scheme (white steel, black spandrels, something like that)
 
Oh yeah, another absolute absolute absitive posolute must in this thread: the LuCliff Place sign. (Coupled with the Enwave chimbley next door, perhaps; but anyone would think of that one....)
 
Luggee mentioned the water treatment building at Coxwell & Lakeshore in the first post of this thread... I was riding around and snapped a couple pics of it:

24367832_18c475b23e_m.jpg


24367827_bd6a582d8e_m.jpg


24367823_54f03e99f5_m.jpg


Plus the Carlton building:

20346997_bb385cf872_m.jpg
 

Back
Top