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West Don Lands

Thanks for the very interesting maps, I think the 1912 bridge is the Queen Street Bridge. In my opinion the entry in Wiki on Toronto Bridges is TERRIBLY wrong. (Among other errors, they call the Queen Street Bridge the Queen Street Viaduct! A viaduct is a bridge consisting of a series of arches supported by piers used to carry a road (or railroad) over a valley.)

From the 1833 map King did cross the Don a bit south of Queen/King but not nearly as far south as where Eastern Avenue now runs. (Palace Street is the old name for Front Street) There is now no King Street Bridge over the Don because King does not go over the Don, it joins Queen just to the west of the river. The existing Queen Bridge was built in 1911/12 and was refurbished about 5 years ago. Goads Atlas of 1910 shows King meeting Queen about where it does now so I think the "King Street Bridge" in the 1923 book is really what we now call the Queen Street Bridge.

The old, unused, bridge at Eastern Avenue looks to be about the same age as the Queen one (1911/12) and Eastern used to go right through before they built the Don Valley Parkway. (Goad is not clear enough, to me anyway, to see if there was actually a bridge in 1910 but the street is certainly on both sides of the Don. Until the West Don Lands work started a couple of years ago Eastern Avenue used to go up to the rail tracks at that point, I am not sure if the new layout will bring it so far east. The 1884 Goads map shows Eastern had no bridge at that date.

The bridge north of the (unused) Eastern Avenue Bridge is an Enbridge Gas bridge - there used to be many gas plants and storage tanks on both sides of the Don in that area (the western ones are now City offices on Eastern Avenue near McGeee/Booth. The eastern ones are now the police station and the Canadian Opera building on Front at Berkeley.)
 
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DSC said:
The old, unused, bridge at Eastern Avenue looks to be about the same age as the Queen one (1911/12)...
Click to expand...

Goad's 1890 plan shows a bridge at Eastern (wooden, demolished in 1899, probably built around 1889/1890 after the channelization):

http://www.distilleryheritage.com/PDFs/maps/1890_a.pdf

Eastern Ave. old steel truss bridge under construction, December 1899:

https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.co...esource/ser376/fl0002/s0376_fl0002_it0044.jpg

Completed:

https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.co...esource/ser376/fl0002/s0376_fl0002_it0046.jpg

Consumer's Gas bridge collapses, July 1929:

https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.co...esource/ser372/ss0084/s0372_ss0084_it0555.jpg

New Consumer's Gas bridge and old truss bridge (since replaced with the current structure), August 1932:

https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/fo1231/f1231_it1956.jpg
 
Layin' pipe

New action for the first time in a month or two today -- looks like concrete sewage pipes being put in under what will be the River Street extension. Still haven't seen hide nor hair of the RiverCity sales office they keep talking about, but Streetcar seems to have relocated their sales office to Edgeloft.
 
They have actually been laying water and sewer pipes on the section of Mill Street just east of Cherry Street for the last month or so and I am not surprised they are now linking up to the extension of River Street and, I guess, to Front Street east of Cherry Street. I assume that the pedestrian walkway / ramp from St Lawrence Street to Eastern will soon be demolished - which is too bad as it's a great vantage point. (The new pedestrian ramp is largely built but I doubt it will be opened until all the roads are done.)
 
UNDERPASS PARK sounds amazing! What a great way to work in the existing overpass!
 
If all the parks come to fruition as planned, I think one of the most interesting ideas is the 'triangle park' that will fill in between King & Queen. It means that Bayview extension cars will run right down into WDL to get to downtown, but will miss the River Street extension in favour of a more southerly route. Will this cause a major traffic headache? Lots of cars? Less cars? It'll definitely mean that WDL will be connected to the neighbours in a way Regent Park or even Liberty Village are not.

Underpass Park, the skateboard park, and the berm park/bicycle path underpass/verhoofs all have the ability to be either fantastic public venues or rapidly deteriorate into troublespots. I'm an optimistic guy, so I'm betting on the former -- but I can see the possibility of the latter, particularly with the underpass.
 
Eug said:
Architect quits in frustration

He thinks the city is destroying the space by cramming too much sports complex space into it.
Click to expand...

Does anybody here know about this complex? I can't find pics of it anywhere. I was just concerned, will it be 4 rinks layed side by side or all on top of one another? With a huge surface parking lot, that could be quite the disaster for a waterfront. If it was one large complex with the four rinks on top of one another and all parking underground, along with other uses, I could see it fiting in but a typical suburban style rink on the waterfront, WTF! I need to find out what that's going on. Anybody here got the inside scoop?
 
DSC said:
Stay tuned because that will NOT be happening. As it is primarily a flood control structure the Don berm cannot have plants on it if they have deep roots. There is a description of the vegitation planned in the EA study at http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/dbdocs//447e5a85d179a.pdf See page 15 and Section 6.13.
Click to expand...

The Dutch routinely cut down dike trees that are just reaching the size where people start to love them: every trip over is punctuated by a visit to sites where the waterschappen (water boards) have ordered trees cut down. Hydraulic engineers have an issue with deep roots.
 
They have had that website for years. Before Waterfront Toronto had web cams it was the only place to see pictures with updates. Now with the web cam Waterfront Toronto's site is the place to watch this area grow.
 
Hoarding has come down at King

Replaced by a metal fence barrier that's easy to see through. Some serious earth moving happening on the north side of WDL now, and the sewers seem to be complete under what will be the River Street extension. I assume the next step will be curbs and asphalt for River, to define the various development blocks?

Anybody been to the River City showroom lately? Any update on how the sales are going? Will the TCHC building get built first or will River City take precedence?
 
Eug said:
Architect quits in frustration

He thinks the city is destroying the space by cramming too much sports complex space into it.
Click to expand...
From his description, it sounds like he's absolutely right. It sounds terrible!

Who decided that a bunch of sports stadiums with huge surface parking lots were a good idea for the waterfront? I thought we were trying to get away from that.
 
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