Thing's End

 

Location: John Street, north of King

Date photo taken: 20 June 2019

This sinuous blue sculpture sitting outside the doors of the Festival Tower on John Street was installed in 2012 and is the work of Canadian artist James Carl. If you think it looks like a rubber band, you're spot on. Carl seems fascinated by the subject matter. For an earlier exhibition at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, he created a mass of more life-sized elastics out of polymer clay, and since this work has created at least three more large scale installations - a red one and a yellow one for another tower in Calgary, and a massive version installed in 2018 at the Airport Industrial Complex in Wuhan, China.

Ornamental Seating

 

Location: Scotia Plaza, concourse level

Date photo taken: 21 December 2021

Happy Holidays! May you find the time to stop, rest and recharge while surrounded by things that bring you joy.

Pizza Pizza

Location: Broadview & Danforth

Date photo taken: 3 June 2019

I just love the little pizza-tossing figures in this signage and I'm so happy that even though this location looks just like every other Pizza Pizza from the front, this eye-catching signage was retained on the side. The colour palette is different and the "i"s looked more like regular letters, but the script style here matches that on the sign which hung above the original location at Wellesley and Parliament, which opened in 1967. Here are some other fun facts from the archived version of the Pizza Pizza corporate history site: 

• In 1967 Pizza Pizza worked with a car upholsterer to create the world's first insulated pizza delivery bag.
• The famous 11-11 phone number was introduced in 1975 and worked into the catchy jingle in 1978.

 

Lightbox

Location: South east corner of Britain and Sherbourne

Date photo taken: 24 March 2021

In 2016 the Harris Institute commissioned the artist known as MEDIAH to create a new mural for their building at Sherbourne and Britain. The mural, which features their name, is colourful and pretty big, measuring over 7 metres in length. The problem is it's located in a fairly out-of-the-way spot, at the back of the building, accessible via a laneway. To remedy this lack of visibility, the company features an image of the mural on a large lightbox on a prominent corner of the building. 

Dovercourt Village

 

Location: Shanly Street at Salem Avenue

Date photo taken: 3 October 2013

Dovercourt Village is a small neighbourhood in the city, focused along Dovercourt Road and Hallam Street. It's part of the larger Dovercourt Park, which stretches north from Bloor to the railway tracks, between Ossington and Dufferin. Initially a suburb of the city, Dovercourt was annexed on January 2, 1888 although at this time, still relatively little had been built here. The train tracks, which were part of the Ontario & Quebec Railway line connecting Toronto and Perth, had been completed in 1884 but the city atlas from the same year shows precious little other development. By 1890 there were a few more buildings scattered about but not much had changed with the notable exception of the street names. Durham had become Shanly. Brighton Place, Hallam. Dover Court would lose its space and Lancaster would become Ossington. The turn of the century was a boom period for the city however and it didn't take long for development to come to Dovercourt. By 1910, the atlas shows almost every lot developed.

The 1985 on the sign likely refers to the establishment of the Dovercourt Village BIA.