Road Side Inn

Location: King St. between Church and Jarvis

Date photo taken: 21 November 2018

This is one of eight small display boxes that have appeared along King Street recently. Installed by Open Field Collective, each features a small work of contemporary art. The exhibits change every six weeks, showcasing new artists and new works. This installation, titled "We Used to Eat Here", is by Spencer Barclay, an artist who works in miniature. His scenes are incredibly detailed - this one includes graffiti, and a working train signal lamp.

28 Playter Crescent

Location: Playter Crescent at Playter Blvd.

Date photo taken: 4 December 2017

Image 9 in the Remnants Series

This house, tucked behind its own stone wall and surrounded by mature trees, is in the heart of the neighbourhood north and east of Broadview and Danforth known as Playter Estates. Captain George Playter was a United Empire Loyalist who settled in York in 1793 on a large tract of land which stretched across the Don Valley. This house was built on part of that land in the early 1870s by John Lea Playter, a great grandson of Captain Playter. Originally a dairy farm with market garden, the city soon began to encroach on the property and the family subdivided the land in the early 1900s. This house remained in the Playter family until 2006. After the sale the house underwent massive renovation and while the look of the house has changed, if you look closely you can still see the hallmarks of the traditional Ontario farmhouse.

Traffic Signal Box - $10 Face

Location: Corner of York and Wellington
Date photo taken: 4 September 2018
Image #11 in the Traffic Signal Box Series

In 2018 the Financial District BIA partnered with StART’s Outside the Box program to decorate a selection of traffic signal boxes in the downtown core. They put out a call to artists and from the more than 50 submissions received, chose 5 finalists. Dean Martin was one of those finalists, and this is one of two boxes he designed. Viewed up close, the graphic appears to be simply a pattern of circles, but as you move away, the image resolves into a portrait. Each box features two individuals who have at some point graced the Canadian ten-dollar bill. In his artist’s statement he explains: “… The individuals we choose to feature on our currency are also reflective of nation building; of who we are and how we see ourselves. This perception however, has evolved greatly over the years and nowhere is it more apparent than in the diversity of those we seek to acknowledge and celebrate… This is meant to be more than a one-way journey that simply re-evaluates yesterday’s values versus today’s. It is about standing far enough back to see that character and contribution manifest in different ways and that it can come from anyone, a feature of Canada that make us the envy of the world.” More of his statement can be read here.

Lest We Forget - Edith Cavell and Canadian Nurses

Location: Outside the University St. entrance of Toronto General Hospital
Date photo taken: 4 September 2018

Edith Cavell was a British nurse who served at a Red Cross hospital in occupied Brussels during World War I. While at the hospital, in addition to treating wounded from both sides, she also sheltered and helped arrange the escape of Allied servicemen and Belgian nationals of fighting age across the border to the neutral Netherlands. In August 1915 she was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, she was executed by firing squad, an act which caused outrage in Britain and many still-neutral countries such as the United States.

This memorial, which also recognizes the Canadian nurses "who gave their lives for humanity in the Great War", was erected by Societa Italo Canadese on November 11, 1922.

Note: At about the same time I chose this memorial to feature on NeaTO, I started reading Kate Quinn's The Alice Network. It was pure coincidence, but the novel features a female spy network in WWI and Cavell's death is referenced.