Doom Buggy

Location: St. Lawrence neighbourhood

Date photo taken: 29 October 2018

Happy Halloween and be careful out there!

Glass Inferno

Location: West end of Brookfield Place, Bay and Wellington

Date photo taken: 15 July 2018

This wall of fire is the work of Canadian glass blower Jeff Burnette. It was commissioned by Ki, a high end Japanese restaurant, and it sits next to their entrance inside Brookfield Place. The piece is made up of over 400 individually blown and molded pieces of glass. In addition to larger pieces like this one, Burnette also makes stemware and what he calls Raygunz, colourful sci-fi inspired guns made from glass.

Space Age Television

Location: MZTV Museum of Television, 64 Jefferson Ave.
Date photo taken: 13 October 2018

This is a deluxe spherical colour tv manufactured in 1969 by Keracolor. It is one of my favourite pieces on display at Toronto’s MZTV Museum of Television. The combined museum and archive contains more than 10,000 objects related to the early years of television, with a specific focus on the technology behind the medium, including television receivers. It includes some extremely rare pieces, as well as a few with celebrity connections. The displays are limited to one large room but there’s plenty to see. The sections of floor to ceiling racking filled with vintage tv cabinets, all carefully labelled, are visually impressive, and the exhibits are well thought out and nicely presented. The museum is located in the Zoomer Complex in Liberty Village and is open Tuesday to Friday from 2 to 5 pm, with guided tours at 4 pm. Admission is $10, or $5 for students, seniors and those booking group tours. If you can’t visit the museum in person, you can tour it virtually by downloading the free app, MZTV Museum of Television from Google Play, the Apple App Store, or the MZTV website.

Sick Kids VS Limits Campaign

Location: north side of Adelaide between Church and Jarvis
Date photo taken: 24 October 2017

In October 2017 SickKids Foundation launched the largest fundraising campaign in Canadian health care history. A very visible part of the campaign was the painting of murals in locations across the city. Reaction to the gritty, battle-themed murals was mixed. A lot people loved them for their stereotype-busting, empowering message. Others found them disturbing. In response, the hospital stated that "the fight metaphor at core is not meant to claim that every kid should be a fighter, but rather that at SickKids we’re fighting for every kid."

The goal of the campaign is to raise $1.3 billion dollars to build a new hospital building. The original Hospital For Sick Children was built on University Avenue in 1949 and at the time it was the largest children's hospital in the world. It is still one of the world's largest pediatric research hospitals.

This mural was painted by Omen 514 with assistance from Nick Sweetman, Earth Crusher, Poser and Five 8. Unfortunately its presence at this location was relatively short-lived.

BirdO Mural

Location: Down the side of 194 Sherbourne, just north of Shuter

Date photo taken: 28 November 2017

If you make a habit of looking down alleys or around corners, you've probably noticed that the city is home to more than a few strange creatures like this one. The surreal birds and beasts are the work of the Toronto-based artist known as BirdO. For more on the artist, check out this great short interview piece.