(no subject)

[chickenfeet]

Our neighbourhood is interesting. Twenty five years ago it was derelict industrial land which became the site of a huge social engineering experiment. The city, province and feds funded a redevelopment that mixed social, market rent and condo housing supported by schools, parks and rec facilities. Much more recently, the old Gooderham and Wort's distillery was revamped into a complex of galleries, retail, eating and performance spaces with a bunch of condo towers around it. Despite these developments, much of the land to the east and south east of here is still wasteland or low grade industrial. They are just starting to develop some of it though exactly what the plans are I'm not sure. Anyway, today I went for a walk with the camera to record some of the renovated/restored areas and some of what's left to do.

Chez chickenfeet2003, though in fact we live around the other side.

Looking west over the neighbourhood to the downtown core

The Distillery complex from the west

and from the southeast

and across the road on the east side

A derelict silo south of the Gardiner expressway, from the north

More derelict land close by

looking east to the Don river

The silos from the east

Looking from the railway northwest towards the Distillery

New condos at the Distillery from across the railway

Looking east from the Distillery. Construction is just beginning.

A local landmark, the Canary Restaurant, is now surrounded by cleared land. I'm wondering how it fits into the overall schemme of things.

This is our local police station which until recently was a derelict and roofless Toronto Hydro building.

The cop shop from another angle.

In the foreground, the Porsche dealership stands on what is probably the site of Upper Canada's first Parliament buildings. Not one of our finer heritage moments. In the background is a really good conversion of former industrial to create a rehearsal space for the Canadian Opera Company.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

This entirely confirms my idea of Canada: it's like America, except manicured. Even your wasteland is cute!

And what, no kitten pics for two days? I'm smoking the carpet here!)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

And what, no kitten pics for two days? I'm smoking the carpet here!)

I've been resting the urge to overdo the kitten thing because I would start babbling about the consistency of kitten poo and I'm sure you have enough friends with babies not to need me to do that!

[gillo]

Fascinating mixture. The cop shop really looks like a high Victorian Methodist chapel to me. Somewhere like Dewsbury. *g*

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of Toronto that looks very redbrick.

[gillo]

Built at about the same time?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's not much of pre-Victorin Toronto left but there's a lot from say 1850-1914 in all the styles one expects in a major city of the empire. We have a "romanesque" old city hall, two "gothic" cathedrals, the neo-classical Royal York hotel and Union Station and so on.

[gillo]

They built sturdily, but plagiarised styles from everywhere, those Victorians.

I'm intrigued by just how much derelict land there is - it's not exactly a common sight in London or even Brum these days.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

It's a typically Canadian balls up. It needs the co-operation of all three levels of government to get anything done. Being government, they each want a flashy vote winning mega project but each has a different idea about what that should be. The result is paralysis.

[gillo]

That sounds not unfamiliar - but here there's just too much pressure on vacant land for it to stay that way very long.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Do you ever read Gregory Morrow's blog at http://democraticspace.com/blog/ ? In addition to blogging on Canadian politics and advocating proportional representation and democratic reform, he is an urban planner who has done work on Toronto and has recently blogged about some alternate proposals for dealing with the Portlands.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I checked out his election stuff but I've never followed it on a regular basis. I'll go take a look.

[violetsaunders.livejournal.com]

Looks interesting. Cityscapes are my favourite. Would like to visit Toronto - possibly en route to K'zoo - trouble is I'm not so keen on the 'zoo as I once was ...!

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued that there's a lot of urban regeneration going on on Canadian cities. Here, you would barely recognise most city centres based on how they looked ten years ago. People living in cities is good, IMHO.