The Great Outdoors - Leventhal Mural

Location: Side of railway overpass, Macpherson Ave. west of Avenue Rd.
Date photo taken: 25 September 2013

Spring weather always makes me want to spend more time outside. It might not be nice enough to sit on the grass and read a book, but it won't be long! This peaceful scene is part of a much larger mural by Ian Leventhal located on the side of a railway overpass along Macpherson Avenue. To see more of the mural and to read about the community's involvement with it, check out this earlier post.

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Location: Ranee Avenue, at the Allen Road underpass
Date photo taken: 10 September 2015

This mural can be found on one side the of underpass where Ranee Avenue travels under the Allen expressway. On the other side of the underpass is it's twin, another mural with another feel good message. Both were created by neighbourhood youth working with Art Starts, an organization that seeks to use art to engage residents in under-served areas of Toronto. The youth involved did much more than paint however. For three weeks they were immersed in the revitalization process, doing things like attending meetings and interviewing residents. The project was initiated by Toronto Community Housing as part of the Lawrence Heights Revitalization Project. Like Regent Park, this 50s era housing development is being completely razed and redeveloped. Demolition began this fall and the project is expected to take 20 years.

Blind Date with a Book

Location: St. Lawrence branch, Toronto Public Library
Date photo taken: 5 March 2016

Blind Date with a Book is yet another of the Toronto Public Library's fun programs. While the idea didn't start with them, branches all over the city have adopted the idea and made it their own. These books from the St. Lawrence branch are wrapped in newspaper (more words!) to hide their identity, but one sentence taped to the front provides a clue to what you can expect when you get the book home. With the weather so rainy right now, it's the perfect time to set yourself up!

Red-breasted Bird

Location: Side of building on Bathurst near College
Date photo taken: 3 February 2015

While I know that spring doesn't officially start for another week, it certainly doesn't feel like winter weather out there. In honour of this spring-like day, I present this lovely red-breasted bird. Not quite a robin, but close enough for me. It's on the south side of 508 Bathurst, one of the most colourful buildings in the city.

Possum PSA

Location: Residential area at Yonge and Eglinton

Date photo taken: 17 February 2016

It’s nice to have friends. Or at least a good PR team. Walking in a residential neighbourhood near Yonge and Eglinton, my eye was drawn to this page attached to a street pole. It seeks to educate those in the neighbourhood about a new resident in the area – a Virginia opossum. While opossum’s do tend to look like very large rats, they have a much more benign lifestyle, as this poster attempts to convey. Toronto is on the far northern edge of their current territory so we don’t tend to see too many of them but as the weather gets warmer that may start to change. That wouldn’t be a bad thing. They’re not destructive and as they can eat just about anything, they make excellent clean-up crews.

It makes me happy to think that someone cared enough about these creatures to go to the trouble of making and posting this information.