Pepper's Food & Drink

 

Location: 189 Wallace Avenue

Date photo taken: 23 October 2023

Painted in 2021, this mural can be found on the west side of Pepper's Food & Drink, a take out spot with hot comfort food to go plus Korean  prepared foods and a wide selection of Asian snacks and ramen. As for this toad, what's in store? A tasty treat or a shocking snack? I'm leaning toward the former. Armed with that bottle, I think this toad knows exactly what it's about to chomp down on. 

Garden of Future Follies

 

Location: Front Street at Bayview

Date photo taken: 1 June 2019

This installation created by Canadian art duo Hadley+Maxwell playfully attacks our city's historic monuments, bringing them to the people and into the present. Their folly is comprised of over 150 unique elements copied from 80 different monumental works around the city. The original pieces are often oversized, elevated and designed to inspire awe. By taking fragments, juxtaposing them in whimsical ways and placing them at our level, the artists invite us to get personal with the pieces, and to re-examine their stories. It also makes me wonder if any monument buffs out there have successfully mapped back the various pieces. This excellent 2016 article from Spacing Magazine gives a few of them away.

7 Wellesley Cottages

 

Location: 7 Wellesley Cottages

Date photo taken: 6 March 2022

Stumbling across the Wellesley Cottages is akin to suddenly finding yourself in Narnia. That might seem a little extreme but hear me out. The way to the cottages is not obvious. True, there is a small street sign denoting Wellesley Cottages on Wellesley east of Parliament which marks the entranceway, but only the truly curious or those with some prior knowledge are likely to be lured in. It's just an access after all, but at the end sits a little laneway out of time, containing seven 19th century cottages. A small detached building like this one sits at either end of the lane, in between which sit a row of 5 adjoining workers cottages. Originally approximately 400 square feet each, they housed carpenters, labourers, a clerk and a tinsmith. Now they generally boast modern interiors with carefully disguised extensions, and list for what you'd expect a house in this affluent neighbourhood to fetch. This one, No. 7 is particularly interesting. Not so very long ago, it seemed out of place on the street. It sat alone at the end, small like its neighbours, but covered in wooden shingles and lacking the distinctive steep gable over the door. One publication referred to it as "an unkempt runt of a building". A renovation around 2010 that significantly extended the living space also returned the facade to its previous historic appearance. Thanks to Google streetview, 2009 view, you can see the difference for yourself. 

Prancing reindeer

 

Location: Royal Bank Plaza South

Date photo taken: 16 December 2023

Happy holidays! 

Lantern of Love and Peace

 

Location: Nathan Phillips Square

Date photo taken: 14 December 2023

This year the Cavalcade of Lights in Nathan Phillips Square includes a number of softly glowing Chinese lanterns. Most are large spheres adorned with flower patterns, like the ones pictured here, but there is also a much larger, more intricate dragon boat. The lanterns were hand crafted by artisans from Zigong in China’s Sichuan province. They're presented at City Hall thanks to a partnership with Woodside Square Shopping Centre in Scarborough. Last year they hosted a large outdoor Lantern Festival and they've brought it back this year. While you can visit during the day, the lanterns are lit from 4:30 to 9 pm daily. 

Water tower

 

Location: 224 Wallace Avenue

Date photo taken: 3 October 2013

This vintage water tower stands on the property of the former Ward Street Works, one of three factories operated by the Canadian General Electric Company in Toronto. The factory opened in 1922 and now both the tower and the building, which has been converted to new uses, are included on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.

Metropolis

 

Location: City Hall

Date photo taken: 1 April 2015

Just inside the main doors of Toronto City Hall, on the east wall, is this large scale work by David Partridge. It's really worth a visit. This image shows the central portion, and it really doesn't do the piece justice. 

The winner of an art competition held in 1974, this "nailie", as it is sometimes called, is the artist's interpretation of a great city, or metropolis, with its central core, its ravines, and its suburbs. It's called a nailie because it's constructed of over 100,000 individual nails, made of different materials and hammered to differing depths. The effect elicits comparisons to both the topography of a city, and to the individuals that inhabit it. As an added bonus, the durable materials allow for perhaps greater interaction than a piece of public art would normally afford. William Denton, as part of "Listening to Art", even drops a coin down through the nails and records the sound as it pings its way to the bottom (jump to about 10:50 to catch the sound).