Monthly Archives: May 2011

Why this catch-basin makes me happy

My wife and kids already know I’m weird. No doubt many readers have come to that suspicion as well.

The catch basin in the centre of the above picture makes me happy because … it is located on the future curb line. The sidewalk will be much wider. Life will be better for pedestrians. Crossing the street will be safer. The sidewalk will have three trees in it, which will shade the buildings and make eating more pleasant inside May’s Restaurant.

Inside the new Bridgehead

Bridgehead will be opening their Preston location in the fall. While the building faces Preston, their entrance will be just around the corner, off Anderson, approximately where the Preston&Leif Glass doors are now.

Above: view of building along Preston St

Above: view along Anderson Street. The boulevard along the sidewalk will be much improved and landscaped, and will include a patio.

Bridgehead is proposing some major renovations to the building façade, closing up some doors, opening new ones, extending openings the full height. The mis-matched brick, which apparently is not original to the building, will be reclad in new material.

The coffee shop will be face Anderson; the interior of it will be open to the coffee roasting operation and warehouse beyond. Here is what the gutted but as yet unimproved interior space looks like:

view of future loading dock. When renovated, the space will keep the exposed steel girders and concrete roof. They will store green beans in large walk-in fridges; they will train green staff to be chilled baristas.

 

in the fall, coffee aficionados will be sitting here enjoying their potion of choice

  

Cornerstone Opens

Cornerstone is a sheltered housing building on Booth Street near Somerset. They had their official opening and tours on Wednesday. If you couldn’t be there, here are some shots of what’s outside and inside the building.

I am really pleased with the exterior façade of the building. Streets like Booth are perched on the verge of going downhill (witness Cousin Eddy’s garage empty lots/burned out house,  just down the street) or gentrifying (witness Z6 condos, Cornerstone, and a new condo going up at the corner of Booth/Somerset). A quality exterior, superior landscaping, eyes on the street, diversity of people, make for a better neighborhood.

Inside, there are common spaces:

 

there is a central kitchen, chef, and dining room

the resident computer room allows them to read WestSideAction every day, but only six at a time

There are 40 apartments in the building. Some are for seniors. All units have HUGE windows which make the rooms seem even bigger. The blinds are not installed yet; there will be a filtering roller blind and blackout roller blind.

each room has a kitchenette

each studio apartment has a sitting area, table and chairs, kitchenette, and sleeping nook; plus a really big bathroom. Lots of built-in furniture is cleverly arranged to maximize privacy.

 

 

funky modern sliding barn door to each bathroom

There is a single large shared balcony for each floor, facing the rear garden. The landscapers were still mulching and preparing to build the privacy and security fence. This area used to be the loading docks to the former Desjardins IGA / Loeb on Booth

 Cornerstone is a great physical and social asset for the west side neighborhood.

Trilliums

While out for an after-dinner stroll, I came across this woody knoll of trilliums.

I was fortunate to stumble on them at the height of their blooming glory.

The well-worn path indicates many others have been here before me. There were a few little pot holes too, indicating gardeners have been here to try to take some plants home.

I have three trillium plants in my garden, one I got from a vendor at the Parkdale Market a few years ago. The other two I bought from Artistic Landscape on Bank Street at Johnstone Road (about $7, I think) which has a large bed they propagate their own plants in.

About one in a thousand of the plants in the wood had a red bloom, not to be mistaken for a fading white bloom that developes a pinkish hue as it fades away.

I thought it would be rather easy to Ontarioize Wordsworth’s poem:

“Daffodils” (1804)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Mobile home in Little Italy

This mobile home, a real land yacht, might look normal somewhere else, but parked along Preston Street during the tulip festival it looked huge and oddly impressive. In addition to the two side-extending rooms, the luggage bay also expanded. Awning, door mat, what else could be wanted?

Ahh, the “little” runabout on a hydraulic lift, that by itself is very large:

Is this the marriage of a cottage and car? The modern version of gypsy caravan? Suburbia on wheels? Someone’s houseboat with wheels?

And what of our reaction to seeing this … Would we approve or disapprove of this vehicle if it was a houseboat instead of a bus? If the modest dimensions were a landlocked cottage and not on wheels? Does it matter if it is a recreational property or someone’s primary residence?

The whole perception of what is normal, or extravagant, is warped by the wheels.