All posts in Heritage

Best report design this blog has ever for a Junction Development.

Bousfields Inc. PLANNING & URBAN DESIGN RATIONALE for  produced in Feb. 2016 to rationalize for city approval the development companies conversion of 248 & 260 HIGH PARK AVENUE is a triumph of design and information presentation. The quality of the report in providing urban design and heritage information, as presented data and throughly thought thru “worded data” makes the report much more important to the community than a mere report as part of a development proposal.

Just take a look at this graphic from the report, depicting our areas LAND USE DESIGNATIONS. Beautiful with clear information.

click for full size

You may not need to regularly, read development texts submitted by developers, as this blog author does, be sure if you want a good balanced view of issues and needs of planning in the Junction and High Park this is a great report to read. It is also a visual coup of report design for those of you interested in the graphic communication of data.

Yep, the blog has no commercial or any other conflicts of interest that would could this opinionated post.

The cover of the report. Salivating.

 

click image for full size image of the reports cover.
The full report click here, Bousfields High Park

 

Bousfields Inc.
3 Church Street, Suite 200
Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2

Runnymede Healthcare Centre hidden orig. facade still rests in place

625 Runnymede Road, Formerly 274 St. Johns Road

 

A pic from the time of the demolition,

 

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PICTURESQUE IMAGES FROM DEC 1ST 2016

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A picture of the centre from their website

 

click logo to visit their site.

click logo to visit their site.

 

The images below are saved parts of the hospitals older building prior to the construction of the new one

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Old time trains web site updated March `1st, a site with much about the Junction railroad history

screenshot-www.trainweb.org 2016-03-02 17-26-27

 2016 is the 16th years for the site

 

My all time favorite article on the site is the HISTORY OF PRIVATE SIDINGS article which lists private railroad sidings of the past for the city, the article lists a lot of sidings that were in the Junctions.

Here is a link to their update page.

 

Canadian Pacific Railway gets agreement from US unions, that brings an end to a mileage-based wage system from the steam locomotive era.

DM&E employees join those from CP’s U.S. Class I, Soo Line, who ratified.

 

all text below the railroad

 

The new hourly-rate agreement brings an end to a mileage-based wage system from the steam engine era and provides CP with increased flexibility and transparency, the employee with a cycle with two consecutive days off and the best wages in the industry.

“This negotiated agreement is a major step forward for both parties and represents the biggest win-win that a railway, its employees and operating unions could have,” said Keith Creel, CP’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “The benefits it will provide to all parties, including – at the center of it all – our customers, are immediate and will build month by month and year by year.”

The agreement – which also gives BLET members the ability to participate in the employee share purchase plan – spans three years with an option for either side to revert to the former agreement if written notice is given prior to the beginning of the third year. If neither party reverts, the agreement is extended for two more years.

click image to view their site.

click image to view their site.

The Symes Rd train Wall

“When the wall was built originally it suppose to serve as a sound wall. Now that there is no track behind it something should be done to reduce its height. 100 Symes now has 15+ businesses including a brewery (Rainhart) + Sports gym (Monkey Vault). People are getting lost driving around trying to figure out how to get across. A simple rail will do to prevent traffic.”

As a sound barrier wall from the train noise, the wall had a a very short life. The land that was the rain tracks was then sold to St Helens Meat packers which uses it as a parking lot for their employees. The wall most probably belongs to the City of Toronto, or the development if the houses built on the sound side of the wall at are some type of condo development.

The best solution to increased traffic on the south side of the wall now that is looking for 100 Symes Rd. would be directional signage.

However the wall does present a rather special iconic reuse that retains the memory of the tracks that once fed the Canada Packers site.

 

 

Canadian Pacific Railway CPR Folk Festivals, 1928-1931 (a history post)

“While there is Still Time…” :

J. Murray Gibbon and the Spectacle of Difference in Three CPR Folk Festivals, 1928-1931

 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_canadian_studies/v039/39.1henderson_fig01.html

click image for full size view

Abstract
Between 1928 and 1931, a series of 16 Folk music and handicraft festivals were staged across Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The principal architect of the festivals, John Murray Gibbon, would later popularize the now-ubiquitous and immeasurably influential phrase “Canadian Mosaic” to explain his vision of a united Canada comprised of distinct identities. This article establishes the foundational role played by the category “Folk” in Gibbon’s construction of the mosaic metaphor for Canadian cultural identity. It examines the construction of three major festivals and interrogates the very category “Folk” around which they were designed. It establishes connections between the structures of the festivals and the race, class, and gender-based cultural assumptions and ideologies that informed their organizers and participants. Finally, it explores the relationship between Gibbon’s emphasis on antimodern Folk identities and an increasingly intricate Canadian cultural matrix under the conditions of modernity.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_canadian_studies/v039/39.1henderson_fig06.html

Click image for larger view

Between 1928 and 1931, a series of 16 Folk music and handicraft festivals were staged across Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Pacific Railway.1 Largely the conception and design of enterprising CPR publicity agent J. Murray Gibbon, the festivals were structured in such a way as to reflect a deliberate vision of Canada and Canadians. A great believer in the power and primacy of the Folk, Gibbon conceived of the festivals as a means to promote cultural communication among immigrants and French and British “natives” in Canada.2 The category “Folk” operated for Gibbon on the level of primary, essential identity—he believed in particular racial groupings, or categories, and contended that the essential expression of any racial category was evident in its Folk culture. In developing the series of festivals, Gibbon was reflecting his growing concern that Canada (as a nation comprised of many racial categories) suffered from a paucity of cultural communication and interconnectivity. What was worse, the essential Folk practices and beliefs of each far-flung racial group were seen to be under sustained and concentrated assault as modern Canada moved away from its agrarian beginnings. The fear was thus two-fold: not only were racial groups failing to interact with one another and engage with a cohesive national identity, but the essential identities, the very meanings of each group, were disintegrating through the relentless process of modernity.

The wide success of the 16 Folk festivals did not entirely quell these immediate fears, but did serve as a foundation for a new understanding of cultural difference and community in Canada. Gibbon, who went on to explore the role of racial groups and essential identities more fully in his enormously influential book Canadian Mosaic (1938), stands as a key figure in the development of Canadian cultural identity.3 As the master mosaicist, Gibbon endeavored to impose order on an otherwise disordered cultural landscape through his various constructions of an inclusive Canada. His books, his countless speeches, his radio addresses, and the succession of CPR Folk festivals discussed below all demonstrate the master mosaicist at his life’s work of developing a participatory vision of Canadian identity and culture.

This ideal of the mosaic, apparently evocative yet ultimately imaginary, appeared to Gibbon in 1938 as “a decorated surface, bright with inlays of separate coloured pieces, not painted in colours blended with brush on palate. The original background in which the inlays are set is still visible, but these inlays cover more space than that background, and so the ensemble may truly be called a mosaic” (Gibbon 1938, viii). As he placed the tiles onto that background, arranging his festivals, his first large-scale experiments at the representation of a pluralist Canada, Gibbon may have been aiming towards just such a goal; but it was a pluralism built upon a stable foundation, an immutable background of [End Page 141] white Anglo-Celt (male) hegemony onto which he could manufacture his mosaic. His vision of the mosaic as an immovable surface bedecked by garlands suggests the inevitable unevenness in the power distribution he would develop.

For Gibbon, the work was imperative and pressing. “While there is still time,” he worried in 1938, “let us make a survey of these racial groups—see where they came from, what relationship, if any, they had with each other in Europe, what culture they enjoyed and how much of that culture they have been able to bring with them” (1938, viii). He believed that the representation of racial categories through primitive, archaic Folk expression would simplify cultural communication by breaking down the balkanizing barriers of foreign language, appearance, and values. In brief, Gibbon surmised that all European Folk cultures, when refined to their primitive, pre-modern essences, looked and sounded very much alike.4 The tactic, then, was to celebrate the differences in order to recognize the similarities.

Read the HTML version of the full article here

Who is Adam The Woo – A Documentary – more Junction than you think

 

 

This post is about places. Adam the Woo is an urban adventurer who documents his visits disused and abandoned places on a YouTube channel. His efforts to communicate the importance of places in communities and visitations to various disused industrial buildings all have a real connection to the Greater Junction Area. Our area has some very hard-core urban explorers. Some simply visiting out of interest, while others seek the history and value to our community from their visits. We also have so many places and things that need to explored and documented.

Adams commitment to produce videos of so many places – even Toronto – is great and his methods are simply wonderful.

Below is a documentary by Kenny Johnson with Adam the Woo which provides a glimpse into a staggering body of work.

If above embed is not working on your devise here is the direct URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90fxDxv5r9Y&feature=youtu.be

Adams web site Http://www.adamthewoo.com/

 

 

A loss to great too bear… West Toronto Junction Historical Society

 

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The Toronto Public Library is asking the  West Toronto Junction Historical Society (WTJH) to “pay approximately $1,900 a month according to Ross.”… Neil Ross in an interview to insidetronto.com. This amount is for a space of 304 square feet shared the district librarian one day a week, the shared part apparently to ensures hat the TPL rule about exclusive use is not violated.

Losing the West Toronto Junction Historical Society is a loss this community and the whole of the Greater Junction Area cannot a tolerance for. The relevance of this organization to a community which ties so much of it’s current identity to it’s past would be such a great loss to the Junction that as a community we would be much less.

Below is snippet of  text from one the TPL web sites about the current building the TPL’s Annette Public Library Branch occupies.

The Toronto Junction Library Board was awarded a Carnegie grant of $20,000 on April 6, 1908. Ellis & Connery, a local architectural firm, designed the library with features of Edwardian Classicism. Clad with orange-red brick and embellished with Ohio sandstone, the library features Corinthian columns, a projecting entrance block with a parapet, and stone quoins, cornice, band courses and keystones. Before the building was completed, the City of West Toronto was annexed to Toronto. The library opened on September 1, 1909 as Western Branch of the Toronto Public Library. The branch was renamed Annette Street in 1962.

Click here toi read the enrite article by Lisa Rainford at insidetoronto.com

108 Vine Ave at the height of operations of the Dr. Jackson Foods Ltd

The_Montreal_Gazette_

Click on Image for full size view

 

GovanBrown Construction Managers Canada is revitalizing the iconic Junction industrial buildingsat at 108 Vine Ave. Most recently the long term home of Canadian Rogers Eastern Limited, the building was build by and for the Dr. Jackson Foods Ltd.

Above is an image of the building at the height of the Dr. Jackson Foods Ltd use of the building.

 

Below is part of a Dr. Jackson Foods Ltd. advertisement.

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What now for 150 Symes Rd now that it has been sold? (heritage incinerator building)

Build Toronto has stated it has sold the Symes Rd heritage incinerator building, this blog stuttered at the prospect of what could happen to the building and site.

It appears Build Toronto has brokered a deal and provided funding for the development by way of a vendor take back mortgage.

here is part of Build Toronto’s statement on the sale,

The investor’s vision to retain the entirety
of the building for adaptive re-use was articulated
to Heritage staff, who threw their enthusiastic
support behind this project. Where development
proposals for heritage buildings typically involved
maintaining only the façade of a building and
constructing new within, this was amongst
the only development proposals presented to
Heritage staff that intended to preserve the
architectural integrity of the building in its entirety.

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Backing from all of these stakeholders as well as
Councillor Frances Nunziata ultimately helped
move this deal forward. BUILD TORONTO is also
offering flexible financing for this site through
a Vendor Take Back mortgage, taking on some
of its risk to demonstrate its firm belief in this
adaptive reuse development

Full case study from Build Toronto hosted here at the blog and here at Build Toronto.

 

Council to consider placing Symes Road Incinerator on City Inventory of Heritage Properties – yea

This item will be considered by Etobicoke York Community Council on June 18, 2013. It will be considered by City Council on July 16, 2013, subject to the actions of the Etobicoke York Community Council.

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Description from the file, http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2013/ey/bgrd/backgroundfile-58639.pdf

Statement of Cultural Heritage Value,

The Symes Road Incinerator is a well-crafted excellent representative example of a public works building designed with Art Deco features, which is particularly distinguished by its pyramidal massing, banding and linear decoration that are hallmarks of the style. It is part of a collection of civic architecture in the former City of Toronto with Art Deco styling that dates to the early 1930s and includes the landmark Horse Palace at Exhibition Place. The Office of the City Architect designed the Symes Road Incinerator in a collaboration between Chief Architect J. J. Woolnough, his assistant and successor K. S. Gillies, and their chief designer, architect Stanley J. T. Fryer. During the early 1930s, this team produced an impressive series of civic buildings that were characterized and distinguished by Art Deco styling and included the Symes Road Incinerator. Contextually, the property at 150 Symes Road is historically associated with its surroundings as a notable survivor from the industrial enclave anchored by the former Ontario Stockyards that developed in the early 20th century along St. Clair Avenue West, west of Weston Road in West Toronto. Heritage Attributes The heritage attributes of the property at 150 Symes Road are: The Symes Road incinerator The materials, with brick cladding and brick, stone, metal and glass detailing The scale, form and massing of the near-square three-storey plan, with the two- storey section set back from and rising above the single-storey podium that is angled at the northeast corner The base with window openings, which is raised on the rear (west) elevation with ramps and openings for cargo doors, The cornices along the rooflines of the first and third stories and, at the east end, the chimney On the principal (east) façade, the entrance block where the main entry is asymmetrically placed The main (east) entry, which is set in a stone frontispiece where paired doors and a transom are flanked by narrow sidelights and surmounted by a metal canopy, the datestone incised “1933”, and linear stone detailing The secondary opening at the north end of the east façade The fenestration on all elevations, with flat-headed openings and, in the third storey, distinctive round windows The Art Deco detailing that includes the distinctive horizontal banding The original placement and setback of the Symes Incinerator near the southwest corner of Symes Road and Glen Scarlett Road where it is viewed from both streets.

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Symes Road Incinerator As the City of Toronto grew geographically through annexations that included West Toronto and its population increased with the immigration boom after 1900, the need for municipal services intensified. This “rapid growth generated more garbage while reducing the areas available for dumping,” the strategy the municipality had used since its incorporation.5 However, the City’s first incinerator for burning garbage was in place in 1890 and, after Toronto’s Street Cleaning Department was created in 1910, it commissioned three garbage “destructors” (Image 9). Following the construction of the Island Incinerator on Toronto Island (1916), the Don Incinerator (1917) opened on Dundas Street East overlooking the Don Valley to serve the east part of the municipality, and the Wellington Incinerator (1925) was located on Wellington Street West near Bathurst Street to handle refuse in the west area of Toronto (Images 10 and 11).6 While planning a new facility for the growing northwest sector, in 1931 the City purchased a six-acre parcel of land on Symes Road. The property extended across the border between Toronto and York Township, with the majority of the site in the latter community. Negotiations between the two municipalities resulted in approval of the plant, with the agreement that Toronto would incinerate garbage from the township.7 Before preparing the plans for the Symes Road Incinerator, City staff visited recently constructed garbage facilities in Buffalo and the New York City area and decided to utilize the latest crane-operating technology at the new complex. In June 1932, City Council authorized funding for the construction and maintenance of the “buildings, machinery and plant necessary for a new refuse disposal plant on the west side of Symes Road” (Images 14 and 15)8 Archival records and photographs trace the construction of the Symes Road Incinerator and the adjoining pair of massive brick stacks or chimneys in 1933, with the neighbouring garage completed the next year along with the paving, fences and gates (Images 16-22 and 25).9 Officially opened in 1934, the facility followed the protocol for other incinerators that “were designated by number or location” rather than being named for an individual.

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The Symes Road Incinerator bears the stylistic influence of architect Stanley T. J. Fryer (1885-1956), who was employed as a designer in the City Architect’s office from 1931 to 1936. Fryer received his training in England before gaining experience with leading architectural firms in Boston and New York City. He practiced with partners in Hamilton, Ontario prior to and following World War I, and in the 1920s assisted the internationally recognized architects C. Howard Crane and Albert Kahn with industrial complexes in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.15 This was the period when Kahn was designing in the popular Art Deco style, including Detroit’s landmark Fisher Building (1928) as the headquarters of an auto supplies conglomerate. A past president of the Ontario Association of Architects (1923-24), Fryer relocated to Toronto at the outset of the Great Depression to serve as a draftsman at the esteemed architectural firm of Darling and Pearson.

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1. City Council include the property at 150 Symes Road (Symes Road Incinerator) on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.
The City Planning Division recommends that:

1. City Council include the property at 150 Symes Road (Symes Road Incinerator) on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.

2. City Council state its intention to designate the property at 150 Symes Road (Symes Road Incinerator) under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.

3. If there are no objections to the designation in accordance with Section 29(6) of the Ontario Heritage Act, City Council authorize the City Solicitor to introduce the bill in Council designating the property under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.

4. If there are objections in accordance with Section 29(7) of the Ontario Heritage Act, City Council direct the City Clerk to refer the designation to the Conservation Review Board.

5. If the designation is referred to the Conservation Review Board, City Council authorize the City Solicitor and appropriate staff to attend any hearing held by the Conservation Review Board in support of Council’s decision on the designation of the property.

Summary:
This report recommends that City Council state its intention to designate the property at 150 Symes Road under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act. At its meeting of January 18, 2011, the Etobicoke York Community Council (EY3.37) directed Heritage Preservation Services to report on the heritage potential of the site, which contains the former Symes Road Incinerator (1933). In 2009, the property was transferred to Build Toronto, which has sold the site.

Following research and evaluation, staff have determined that the property at 150 Symes Road meets Ontario Regulation 9/06, the provincial criteria prescribed for municipal designation under the Ontario Heritage Act. The designation of the property would enable City Council to manage alterations to the site, enforce heritage property standards and maintenance, and refuse demolition.

Financial Impact:
There are no financial implications resulting from the adoption of this report.

Background Information:
(May 10, 2013) Report from the Director, Urban Design, City Planning Division regarding an Intention to Designate under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act – 150 Symes Road
(http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2013/ey/bgrd/backgroundfile-58639.pdf)

17a Toronto Preservation Board Recommendations – Intention to Designate under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act – 150 Symes Road

Origin
(May 31, 2013) Letter from the Toronto Preservation Board

Recommendations:
The Toronto Preservation Board recommends to the Etobicoke York Community Council that:

1. City Council include the property at 150 Symes Road (Symes Road Incinerator) on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.

2. City Council state its intention to designate the property at 150 Symes Road (Symes Road Incinerator) under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.

3. If there are no objections to the designation in accordance with Section 29(6) of the Ontario Heritage Act, City Council authorize the City Solicitor to introduce the bill in Council designating the property under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.

4. If there are objections in accordance with Section 29(7) of the Ontario Heritage Act, City Council direct the City Clerk to refer the designation to the Conservation Review Board.

5. If the designation is referred to the Conservation Review Board, City Council authorize the City Solicitor and appropriate staff to attend any hearing held by the Conservation Review Board in support of Council’s decision on the designation of the property.

Summary:
The Toronto Preservation Board on May 29, 2013 considered a report (May 10, 2013) from the Director, Urban Design, City Planning Division, respecting Intention to Designate under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act – 150 Symes Road.

Background Information:
(May 31, 2013) Letter from the Toronto Preservation Board regarding 150 Symes Road – Intention to Designate under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.
(http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2013/ey/bgrd/backgroundfile-58996.pdf)

 

 

Junctioneer.ca

Canada Foundry Company Powerhouse in the Junction Triangle – Ontario Heritage Act

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In the matter of the Ontario Heritage Act
R.S.O. 1990 Chapter 0.18
City of Toronto, Province of Ontario

Notice of passing of by-law

948 Lansdowne Avenue and 20 Foundry Avenue and now known as 31 Foundry Avenue (Canada Foundry Company Powerhouse)
Take Notice that the Council of the City of Toronto has passed By-law No. 165-2013, to amend By-law No. 1415-2012 being a by-law to designate the property formerly known municipally as 980 Lansdowne Avenue and 20 Foundry Avenue and now known as 31 Foundry Avenue (Canada Foundry Company Powerhouse) as being of cultural heritage value or interest, to correct a typographical error in the municipal address.

Dated at Toronto, this 5th day of March, 2013.

Ulli S. Watkiss
City Clerk

30 Powerhouse Avenue: Canada Foundry Company Office Building Descriptive Information The property at 30 Powerhouse Avenue is worthy of designation under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act for its cultural heritage value, and meets the criteria for municipal designation prescribed by the Province of Ontario under the three categories of design, associative and contextual values. Located on the northeast corner of Powerhouse Avenue and Foundry Avenue, the Canada Foundry Company Office Building (1902) is a four-storey industrial building. The site was listed on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties in 2004. Statement of Cultural Heritage Value The Canada Foundry Company Office Building has design value as a representative example of an early 20th century industrial building that forms part of a surviving collection of structures associated with the manufacturing site. The Office Building is associated with the Canada Foundry Company, a subsidiary of the Canadian General Electric Company, which constructed the building on its 60-acre (25- hectare) tract to manufacture a range of steel and cast iron products, including steam
locomotives, railway tracks and turntables, bridge components, elevator cages, fences, staircases and architectural ornaments. Known as the Davenport works, CGE produced electrical transformers on the site for nearly 60 years. Contextually, the Canada Foundry Company Office Building is historically and visually related to its surroundings where, with the adjoining Canada Foundry Company Warehouse and Powerhouse, it is a surviving example of the industrial complex that filled the area southwest of Davenport Road and Lansdowne Avenue for most of the 20th century.

Heritage Attributes The heritage attributes of the property at 30 Powerhouse Avenue are: The four-storey office building The scale, form and massing of the structure with its rectangular-shaped plan The materials, with brick cladding and detailing The flat roofline that is decorated with corbelled brickwork The brick piers that symmetrically organize the segmental-arched window openings with voussoirs and sills.

On the principal (north) façade, the three-part frontispiece with corbelled brickwork On the north, east and south elevations, the piers that organize round-arched openings that rise the equivalent of two-stories and contain door and window openings The west wall that originally adjoined the landmark smokestack (now demolished)

Details,

 

SUMMARY
This report recommends that City Council state its intention to designate under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act the property at 30 Powerhouse Avenue (Canada Foundry Company Office Building) and the properties known municipally in the year 2011 as 980 Lansdowne Avenue and 20 Foundry Avenue (Canada Foundry Company Powerhouse). The properties were listed on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties in 2004. As part of the development agreement for the site, the owners have agreed to the designation of the properties. The adjoining property at 1100 Lansdowne Avenue, containing the Canada Foundry Company Warehouse, was designated under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act in 2008 and is also protected by a Heritage Easement Agreement secured between the City of Toronto and the property owners in 2005. RECOMMENDATIONS
The City Planning Division recommends that: 1. City Council state its intention to designate the property at 30 Powerhouse Avenue (Canada Foundry Company Office Building) under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.Staff report for action – Lansdowne and Powerhouse Properties – Intention to Designate 2

 

ISSUE BACKGROUND
The properties at the southwest corner of Lansdowne Avenue and Davenport Road were originally developed for the Canada Foundry Company, which became a subsidiary of the Canadian General Electric Company and the site of the company’s Davenport Works. Canada Square Developments acquired the properties in 1985. The former warehouse at 1100 Lansdowne has been converted to a residential condominium, while the northwest quadrant of the site has been redeveloped with townhouses. With the current demolition of a second large-scale warehouse at 940 Lansdowne and the planned redevelopment of the south part of the properties, the Canada Foundry Company Office Building at 30 Powerhouse Lane and the Canada Foundry Company Powerhouse on the south side of Powerhouse Lane (where in 2011 it is part of the lands identified as 980 Lansdowne Avenue and 20 Foundry Avenue) remain surviving heritage buildings from the original Canada Foundry Company complex. The owners have agreed to their designation as part of the development agreement for the site. When the development is completed, the powerhouse will be assigned a permanent street number

JUNCTION’S HISTORICAL SOCIETY WINS TWO HERITAGE TORONTO AWARDS

How excellent is this, two awards in 2012!
Complete text of their press release below.
JUNCTION’S HISTORICAL SOCIETY WINS TWO HERITAGE TORONTO AWARDS 

The West Toronto Junction Historical Society (W.T.J.H.S.) would like to thank Heritage Toronto for awarding its 2012 Community Heritage Award to our Society and to thank members of Heritage Toronto who voted us their 2012 Member’s Choice Award.  The ceremonies were held Oct 9 at Koerner Hall in the Royal Conservatory of Music in conjunction with the William Kilbourn Memorial Lecture.


Host Mary Ito spoke of the West Toronto Junction Historical Society’s “impressive, diligent, and rigorous documenting of the built and cultural history of its neighbourhood in a sustained way over many years.” She said “The jury commended the Society’s approach to leveraging and sharing resources as a model for others to emulate.” 

W.T.J.H.S. would like to thank our volunteers who help us staff an extensive archives, and provide monthly meetings with a guest speaker, an award winning historical quarterly, heritage activism, two Junction books, renowned walking tours, a historical talk show, a four part graphic novel series, a  web site about Junction architecture, and an upcoming documentary on the Heintzman Piano factory.

We’d like to invite the community to come out and celebrate with us by attending our next meeting/event on November 1, 2012:

                 Should We Abolish the Monarchy in Canada and declare a Canadian Republic?
 
Debaters Tom Freda, National Director of the Citizens for a Canadian Republic and WTJHS president Neil Ross will bring an often hilarious, but informed approach to their respective positions.  
 
Come for our business meeting — which can be pretty funny and informed on its own — and stay for the debate.  Refreshments are available for a donation.
 

Thursday, November 1, Annette Library, 145 Annette Street, (West of Keele), Lower Level, Committee Room 1:

7:30 PM – Business Meeting

8:30 PM –Monarchy in Canada: the Junction Debate

F0r further information call the West Toronto Junction Historical Society: 

(416) 763-3161

or visit our web site: wtjhs.ca.

screen caps from the award site.

Click on image for full size cap

 

Click on image for full size cap

Old Canada Bread factory photo grouping of opening up of formerly bricked up back windows.

1st much thanks to reader Jimi Fir alerting the blog to this.

The factory now being converted into artist studios has a wonderful transformation at its rear.

The windowed bricked up
For so long are being shod of their bricks.


Inside the northern most space.


Inside looking towards the CPR tracks at doors that once held the opening for the waste doors for the bakery.


Track side view

Look back – the industrial legacy of the Junction, CANADIAN GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., warehouse was on what now is the No frills site

 

View after Fire

[ CANADIAN GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., warehouse, Pacific Ave., w. side, betw. Annette & Dundas Sts.; aftermath of fire of 4 January 1952; looking s.e. from rear. ]

Creator: Salmon, James Victor (Canadian, 1911-1958)
Creator Role: Photographer
Format: Picture – Photograph
Description: Negative.
Content Type: Pictures
Scale / Dimensions: 15,129 KB

Date Created:   1/6/1952 1

Assigned Page No: 0001
Collection or Series: Toronto Reference Library Canadian Historical Picture Collection/J. V. Salmon Collection
Language: English
Notes: 1952 Jan 06
Record Type: Representation
Source: Original: Salmon, James Victor (Canadian, 1911-1958), [ CANADIAN GENERAL ELECTRIC CO., warehouse, Pacific Ave., w. side, betw. Annette & Dundas Sts.; aftermath of fire of 4 January 1952; looking s.e. from rear. ] 1952 Jan 06
Source Credit: [Cite Source] Reproduced from the Toronto Public Library website http://www.tpl.toronto.on.ca
Institution: Toronto Public Library
Rights: Copyright Toronto Public Library