Noirscape

I have an episode of train trouble (frequent these days) to thank for this post. A couple of weeks ago, I had to get off the train at York Mills and walk to Sheppard due to signal trouble at Sheppard. It was a pretty lonely walk, but I did see some interesting buildings and doorways. It occurred to me that anyone can be the star of their own noir film, hence the predominance of black and white in these pics.

The escalators at York Mills lifting you to street level...

....buildings and parking lots...or the asphalt jungle....

....then I found a strange little stairway that seemed really familiar for some reason, so of course I had to walk up it...till a couple of people popped out of the shadows and scared the dickens out of me, so I made for the street lights again!

...Christianity in neon!



 ...concrete desert with light flowers...

.....and then you get to a stretch of overgrown grassland than reminds you of a David Lynch movie with some Twin Peaks vibes...note the grasses mysteriously flattened by something or someone...

....and just when you think that you might find a body lying in the thicket somewhere, you find a resting place for a few...

...and when you really start to feel a bit terrorized by all this noir, noir, noir....civilization! In the form of a petrol station, of course.

Mist-ical

Ok, I'll admit that this entry started out as an excuse to flaunt my preference for corny titles. I've always loved fog (instant mystery!), and I ran around my neighbourhood (Bayview & Sheppard) after work with my camera. When I was looking at the pics afterwards, I thought how nice it was that the buildings in most of them seem to be evaporating, while the trees and plants are more aggressively pushed through the forefront. Nice change from the norm, especially in my hood which seems to be on a marathon stretch of endless construction. Soon we'll just be left with a few carefully positioned plants with not a leaf out of place....

History bits

Toronto is full of old buildings (or as I like to call them - mature) interspersed among the new ones. I thought I'd take a few snaps of the ones near my office building.

These are near the King St. East and Church intersection.

Here's a pic of the graffiti on one of the walls of the back of the Tom Jones Steak House. It's quite an arresting piece of art. There's a quotation beside the face. I wanted to take a picture, but some passerbys were staring at me curiously so I moved along. Still self-conscious!

Now some pics of a little sheltered nook that I found by Church and a little street called Court Square (I think). So pretty! And you get to switch off "city mode" for a while and be a literary character with a secret to share.

Distillery district

I took the day off last Monday and went to the Distillery district with a friend. We took a circuitous route since I am, ahem, directionally challenged at times. We'd almost given up finding it, and then we found it! It's an area devoted to the arts, and there are lots of little galleries there, and a bakery selling extremely delicious brownies. 

The area is comprised of heritage buildings that used to be part of the Gooderham and Worts distillery. It was a really nice, sunny day and incredible to NOT be working on a Monday when everyone else is. Heheh.

Day walking

I usually end up leaving work late, so it's generally pretty dark when I take my walk from Queen (and Yonge) to Bloor. The other day I left work on time (!!) and got to experience some daylight. I'd walked past the sculpture on the corner of Irwin Ave. and Bay St. lots of times and just thought it was a random arty wall with a porthole. OK, I did mention it was usually dark, right people? Anyway, I finally discovered that it's actually a piece of outdoor sculpture. I tried googling it online to find out who made it, but no luck so far. So, lessons of the day: pay attention more and walk around in the daylight!,