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Darkstar416
Guest
Yes, the famous wood-chip house! Although, I think it was "intentional" on the owner's part. The owner actually drives a wood-chipped covered car as well! :eek
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JoeyCuppa
Guest
oooh, also "The House on Coxwell" (which is the only way I've heard it referred to), that I call The Lego House:
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Ed007Toronto
Guest
There's a similar funky modern type house on a sidestreet along the east side of Leslie between Lawrence and York Mills.
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adma
Guest
Actually, the guy who did that "Lego House" (I forgot his name, can anyone remind us) also did that little triangular thing at the NW corner of College & Lansdowne--similar characteristics-on-the-cheap...
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adma
Guest
Rohan! She in "Fleaky Fliday";-)
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adma
Guest
Another thing for this thread: the "LOANS" sign on top of the commercial block on the S side of Bloor E of Dovercourt. Stainless-steel Moderne lettering at its finest--long after whatever function it denoted vanished from the block...
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elook
Guest
Nice article luggee - I was about to freak out on Dave LeBlanc for lifting an entire thread from the forums and turning it into an article, but then I re-read the first post in which you said you were going to do just that.
G12 of the Real Estate section of the Globe today for those who are interested.
A landmark by any other name
Some unique structures, smells and places have become key way-posts. They were never meant to be that. It just happened
By DAVE LEBLANC
Friday, August 12, 2005 Page G12
A long time ago, my brother gave me a brick from the "Bayview ghost," which I proudly displayed on a shelf in my bedroom. The infamous building (real name: the Hampton Park apartments) at the northern tip of the Bayview Extension was halted -- mid-construction -- in 1959 because of a dispute between the developer and the Township of East York, but it didn't meet the wrecker's ball until 22 years later.
It wasn't the "ghostly" aspect of the building that made me keep that dusty old brick for so many years, but rather the loss of something I like to call an "unintentional landmark." I felt a void when it was gone, I guess, and needed a way to deal with that loss.
Unintentional landmarks are all around us; they can be as monolithic as water towers, as tragic as unfinished buildings or as ephemeral as the scent wafting from a bakery that's been operating at the same location for decades. The key, however, is that these structures were never meant to play friendly neighbourhood way-post like a sculpture or a flashing neon sign. . . They just happened into the role.
When our family moved to the Wexford area of Scarborough in 1980, one of the first things I noticed was the slim black sentry at the corner of Pharmacy and Eglinton avenues, officially known as the Bell Canada Pharmacy Avenue Telecommunications Tower.
This 150-metre freestanding triangular mast can be seen for dozens of kilometres in every direction (much to the chagrin of long-time area residents, I've been told). Back then, it was smack-dab in the middle of our suburban picture window. For some strange reason, I found it comforting to become mesmerized by its blinking lights as my teenage brain pondered the meaning of life on summer nights. I'm sure the engineer, Andres Tork (who had worked previously on the Ontario government pavilion for Expo '67) never intended for his tower to serve such a philosophical purpose.
Another structure that has always caught my eye with its playful parabolic arch designs -- and would certainly be missed if it were gone -- is the crown-shaped building sitting regally atop the grassy knoll at the corner of Coxwell Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard East. According to Steve Johnston at the City of Toronto, this is the Mid-Toronto Interceptor Pumping Station, and its actual duty is to pump sewage. It was designed in the mid-1970s by Gore & Storrie Ltd. (now known as CH2M HILL, an engineering firm specializing in wastewater treatment), and put into operation in 1979.
Thanks to my friends at urbantoronto.ca (an on-line discussion group on architecture and urban issues), I now offer you, gentle reader, a random sampling of more unintentional landmarks -- some still around, some existing only in memory.
The Dominion Coal grain elevators that once stood guard at the corner of Mount Pleasant Road and Merton Street. Housing gravel and other assorted building materials in later years, this well-loved, historically designated structure and wonderful reminder of Merton's industrial past is now, as they say, history.
The wind turbine at the Canadian National Exhibition. Since it started whirling in January, 2003, the graceful 30-storey turbine -- a joint project of WindShare Energy Co-op and Toronto Hydro -- has been peppering Lake Shore Boulevard with interesting shadow-shapes in addition to providing 250 homes a year with electricity. Let's hope the city allows many more.
The front lawn of the Manulife building on Bloor Street East. Honestly, how do they do it? The folks at Glen Abbey could learn a thing or two from the crew responsible for this lawn. It has got to be Toronto's most beautiful slice of golf-like green.
For the olfactory, there are many landmarks. Being an east-ender, I think of the Peek Freans cookie factory on O'Connor Drive, cooking up Arrowroots since 1949. For others, it's the Nestlé plant on Sterling Road, Eastern Avenue's Weston Bakery or Etobicoke's Mr. Christie (Christie Brown & Co.) at Park Lawn Road and Lake Shore.
The concrete elevator shaft sitting on top of a parking garage -- all that was ever built of the Bay-Adelaide Centre. Affectionately known as "the stump," this is a tragic reminder of the early 1990s recession. Although tarted up as a billboard, it's not fooling anybody: It's our most embarrassing unintentional landmark since the Bayview ghost.
While I don't know what happened to my Bayview ghost brick, I do have about five other bricks in a lovely pale pink hue (still attached with mortar) from the exquisite one-storey modernist house at No. 73 The Bridle Path, which I profiled in Globe Real Estate on June 6, 2003. Lying abandoned, as it did, for more than 15 years until its demolition this past May, it was a sad reminder, to me anyway, that our city flirted only briefly with the international style and perhaps never fully grasped its meaning.
But that's another story, isn't it?
Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Sunday mornings. Inquiries can be sent to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.ca.
G12 of the Real Estate section of the Globe today for those who are interested.
A landmark by any other name
Some unique structures, smells and places have become key way-posts. They were never meant to be that. It just happened
By DAVE LEBLANC
Friday, August 12, 2005 Page G12
A long time ago, my brother gave me a brick from the "Bayview ghost," which I proudly displayed on a shelf in my bedroom. The infamous building (real name: the Hampton Park apartments) at the northern tip of the Bayview Extension was halted -- mid-construction -- in 1959 because of a dispute between the developer and the Township of East York, but it didn't meet the wrecker's ball until 22 years later.
It wasn't the "ghostly" aspect of the building that made me keep that dusty old brick for so many years, but rather the loss of something I like to call an "unintentional landmark." I felt a void when it was gone, I guess, and needed a way to deal with that loss.
Unintentional landmarks are all around us; they can be as monolithic as water towers, as tragic as unfinished buildings or as ephemeral as the scent wafting from a bakery that's been operating at the same location for decades. The key, however, is that these structures were never meant to play friendly neighbourhood way-post like a sculpture or a flashing neon sign. . . They just happened into the role.
When our family moved to the Wexford area of Scarborough in 1980, one of the first things I noticed was the slim black sentry at the corner of Pharmacy and Eglinton avenues, officially known as the Bell Canada Pharmacy Avenue Telecommunications Tower.
This 150-metre freestanding triangular mast can be seen for dozens of kilometres in every direction (much to the chagrin of long-time area residents, I've been told). Back then, it was smack-dab in the middle of our suburban picture window. For some strange reason, I found it comforting to become mesmerized by its blinking lights as my teenage brain pondered the meaning of life on summer nights. I'm sure the engineer, Andres Tork (who had worked previously on the Ontario government pavilion for Expo '67) never intended for his tower to serve such a philosophical purpose.
Another structure that has always caught my eye with its playful parabolic arch designs -- and would certainly be missed if it were gone -- is the crown-shaped building sitting regally atop the grassy knoll at the corner of Coxwell Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard East. According to Steve Johnston at the City of Toronto, this is the Mid-Toronto Interceptor Pumping Station, and its actual duty is to pump sewage. It was designed in the mid-1970s by Gore & Storrie Ltd. (now known as CH2M HILL, an engineering firm specializing in wastewater treatment), and put into operation in 1979.
Thanks to my friends at urbantoronto.ca (an on-line discussion group on architecture and urban issues), I now offer you, gentle reader, a random sampling of more unintentional landmarks -- some still around, some existing only in memory.
The Dominion Coal grain elevators that once stood guard at the corner of Mount Pleasant Road and Merton Street. Housing gravel and other assorted building materials in later years, this well-loved, historically designated structure and wonderful reminder of Merton's industrial past is now, as they say, history.
The wind turbine at the Canadian National Exhibition. Since it started whirling in January, 2003, the graceful 30-storey turbine -- a joint project of WindShare Energy Co-op and Toronto Hydro -- has been peppering Lake Shore Boulevard with interesting shadow-shapes in addition to providing 250 homes a year with electricity. Let's hope the city allows many more.
The front lawn of the Manulife building on Bloor Street East. Honestly, how do they do it? The folks at Glen Abbey could learn a thing or two from the crew responsible for this lawn. It has got to be Toronto's most beautiful slice of golf-like green.
For the olfactory, there are many landmarks. Being an east-ender, I think of the Peek Freans cookie factory on O'Connor Drive, cooking up Arrowroots since 1949. For others, it's the Nestlé plant on Sterling Road, Eastern Avenue's Weston Bakery or Etobicoke's Mr. Christie (Christie Brown & Co.) at Park Lawn Road and Lake Shore.
The concrete elevator shaft sitting on top of a parking garage -- all that was ever built of the Bay-Adelaide Centre. Affectionately known as "the stump," this is a tragic reminder of the early 1990s recession. Although tarted up as a billboard, it's not fooling anybody: It's our most embarrassing unintentional landmark since the Bayview ghost.
While I don't know what happened to my Bayview ghost brick, I do have about five other bricks in a lovely pale pink hue (still attached with mortar) from the exquisite one-storey modernist house at No. 73 The Bridle Path, which I profiled in Globe Real Estate on June 6, 2003. Lying abandoned, as it did, for more than 15 years until its demolition this past May, it was a sad reminder, to me anyway, that our city flirted only briefly with the international style and perhaps never fully grasped its meaning.
But that's another story, isn't it?
Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Sunday mornings. Inquiries can be sent to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.ca.