Dinosaurs

Location: St. James Avenue near Ontario Street
Date photo taken: 26 October 2012

This polka dot dinosaur never fails to make me smile. It can be found on the south side of a parking ramp enclosure in the middle of St. James Town.

Enercare Centre Living Wall

Location: Enercare Centre, Canadian National Exhibition grounds

Date photo taken: 24 August 2015

This beautiful wall of greenery isn't your typical indoor display of carefully designed synthetic plants. All of the plants on this wall are real and together they work to clean the air inside the Enercare Centre. The Living Wall Biofilter is a system designed to increase indoor air quality and eliminate the need for pumping fresh air in from outside, which saves on heating and cooling costs. It's not the actual plants that clean the air, they just look nice. It's the microbes on and around their roots that do the actual work. Together they make for a wall that is both pretty and pretty cool. The system was designed at the University of Guelph's Controlled Environment System Research Facility and financed in part by the Canadian and European Space Agencies. 

Tembo

Location: Commerce Court courtyard

Date photo taken: 30 December 2016

This is Tembo, Mother of Elephants. She is striding purposefully to water, in this case a fountain, leading her two small charges, unseen in this photo. This life sized bronze began as a 20 cm tall model created by Toronto artist Derrick Stephan Hudson which was then 3D scanned and scaled up to create this imposing creature. It is the second cast, with the original residing in the Windsor Sculpture Park where in 2014 it was voted the most popular piece in the park by Windsor Star readers.

Zanzibar Circus Tavern

Location: 359 Yonge St., just south of Gerrard

Date photo taken: 4 April 2013

Club Zanzibar is a bit of a relic. It's one of only 16 active "adult entertainment clubs" operating in the city of Toronto and one of only a few left in the downtown core. Back in 1978 the city changed its land use rules making it pretty much impossible to open a new strip club, but it allowed the 63 currently in existence to remain open. Over the years, that number has dwindled but the Zanzibar has remained. Its gold facade and neon lights are now an icon on the Yonge Street strip. The building wasn't always a strip club of course. Before Zanzibar it housed various businesses, such as a butcher's and a photography shop. Right before it was Zanzibar it was the Rosticceria Tavern. The Zanzibar Tavern first opened its doors in 1959 as a live music venue, part of the happening Yonge Street music scene. By the late 1960s it still featured live music but it was more of a dance club, complete with topless go-go dancers. In the 1970s it made the switch to strip club and the show hasn't stopped since.

Note: The TD Gallery at the Toronto Reference Library is currently hosting an exhibit that looks at the city's early attempts at moral reform. Vice & Virtue is on until April 30 and it's free.