Saturday, August 1, 2020

This blog is a backup to Junctioneer.ca every week blog posts are backed up to this blogger site.

This blog is a backup to Junctioneer.ca every week blog posts are backed up to this blogger site.

The last mirroring was on May 24th 2019 and the previous one May 13th 2019

The next mirroring shall be on or about May 31 2019 or within a week of that date.

This update post will stay at top of blog until Dec 31 2019 and will be updated regularly.

Thks

Sunday, July 19, 2020

More about Maria Street, Mar 29, 1965 The Globe and Mail

Young, Scott
pg. 6
 
More about Maria Street
 
By Scott Young
 
Last Wednesday I was in City Hall checking for background to City Councils decision to expropriate Benny Stark's salvage yard business on Maria St. This busy short old street backs on to the Canadian Pacific Railway freight yards not far from the west-end stockyards and packing plants and is just south of St. Clair off Runnymede Road.
 
One of my conversations was with Alderman Mary Temple. Maria Street is in her ward. She took dead aim on Benny Stark's yard more than five years ago, when Stark bought it. She and a militant group of Stark's neighbors had lost every round until last summer when they began to win.
I told Mrs. Temple I was interested in how Stark's business could be ruled legal by the Metro Licensing Commission in 1959, by a magistrates count in 1960, by a county court judge in 1961, and by a voluminous police report in 1964 – and still could be expropriated in 1965.
 
She wanted to know if I had spoken to any of Stark's neighbors. I had. Stark's business, by its very nature, never will win any Home Beautiful awards. But some of his opponents became his neighbors voluntarily, knowing fully what business he was in. Also, some did not agree with expropriating Stark. And several other businesses on the street are there only because their licenses, like his, pre-date a 1953 zoning bylaw. (This is called a legal non-conforming use, madam).
 
"He never should have been allowed a license there to start with, you know," Mrs Temple said.
How did he get it, then? "He had help."
What kind of help? "You know – under the table. Somebody exerting pressure."
Who exerted the pressure? "I'd rather not say," she said.
 
Somebody in City Council? She said yes.
 
Subsequently I repeated this allegation of influence to Mr. Stark. He denied that anyone at City Hall ever had exerted influence for him that he knew of.
 
If Mrs. Temple always has believed there was undue influence exerted in granting the Stark license, it may help to explain her dogged pursuit. But if she has any evidence, should she not have offered it to the City Council publicly at the time or in the many times later when the matter has come up?
I also found disturbing her reaction to the court decisions in Stark's favor. "Those decisions were a laugh," she said.
 
I got much the same reaction from Alderman Horace Brown, who telephoned me on the matter Friday. He scoffed at the court decision in such a way that I said, "if you are going to call a judge a fool, why don't you do it out in the open and see what happens?" He said he had, but I do not recall the occasion myself.
 
I should correct one impression given in my capsule account of this strange case Friday. Board of Control was NOT unanimous in voting for expropriation. Controller Herbet Orliffe suggested sensibly that the Planning Board should provide a list of the worst non-conforming uses in the city. He thought Council could use such a list when planning expropriations, instead of shooting the bounders down more or less haphazardly. His amendment was defeated 4-1. Incidentally, Real Estate Commissioner David Alexander says there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of non-conforming uses in the city. But only Benny Stark has his neighbors, and the favorite alderman.
 
As a footnote, City Council does not seem to have been given full information in this case before voting for expropriation March 15. Old hands could remember at least some of the background, of course. But the eight freshmen aldermen could only put their faith in the good reputation of Mary Temple. And her reputation is among the best on Council However, in this case it was something like voting old Junius at the top of the page.
 

 

 
 

Back to Maria, Benny Stark’s scrapyard at 118-122 Maria St. Great quotes




Back to Maria St.
 
 
Nov 11, 1965;  Newspapers: The Globe and Mail
pg. 6 By Scott Young
 
There wasn't much public notice on Oct. 27 when Toronto City Council finally passed the bylaw required to expropriate Benny Stark's scrapyard at 118-122 Maria St. Alderman Mary Temple
 
apparently thought no one had noticed. This must have made her feel like the Light Brigade getting to the other end of the Valley of Death and then learning that the press bu had been five miles away, with a flat tire.
 
 This expropriation is a victory for her and for a little band of lady vigilantes who are Stark's neighbors on Maria St. By Tuesday Mrs. Temple could stand the silence no longer, so she sent me a copy of the Stark expropriation bylaw with her compliments.
 
Well, I'd been going to call Benny Stark on the matter anyway. There were great promises made in City Council last spring that he would be helped to find alternative accommodation, including some made in person by Mrs. Temple. I asked Mr. Stark whether there had been any success in this line. The short answer is: not yet. But the expropriation is going ahead anyway. The city has no urgent use for the land, it is a legal business, it is a family's support, but Benny Stark somehow has to go and that is that.
 
To clear one point in advance, the Stark Iron Metal Co. is no rose garden. But it was there, operating, when some of the complaining neighbors moved in. There are thousands of other legal non-conforming uses in the city.

I asked Mr. Stark how things had been going. He told me a story that illustrates perfectly the kind of Gilbert and Sullivan life he has been leading.
"Did you hear a few weeks ago about me ordering an alderman off my place?" he asked.
 
I hadn't. "Well," he said, "one Saturday morning when I was very busy, Ben Grys came in." Mr Grys is the junior alderman in Ward Seven. "He parked his station wagon in my driveway, with the rear of it across the sidewalk and into the street. He too me and look pointed to a fence and said, "Look Ben, that fence is falling over." I said, "Ben, that fence is not falling over. It was built that way on the plans okayed by the city."
 
We were talking back and forth about how I had built that fence myself so the neighbor there wouldn't have to see my scrapyard, when all of a sudden there was a lot of screaming and uproar in front, and one of my neighbors came yelling. "You. Stark and Mr. Grys, come and see what happen here." She was pointing at the sidewalk. There was a crabapple on the sidewalk, from a tree above. She yell at me, "It is your fault, because a truck have to come up on the sidewalk to get by, and dirty up my sidewalk which I just sweep."
"Which truck?" I ask.
 
"That one right there!" she say, and point to a brewery truck, making a delivery. Now, it have to go on the sidewalk to get around the end of Ben Grys's station wagon, and being a high truck it hit the crabapple tree and knock one down. I try to ask, how come I am responsible for a brewery truck knocking down a crabapple to get around an alderman's car, but threats were made to hit me or kill me. Because of this, I call police – the first time I have ever called police. The police come, and when I tell them what happened, Ben Gryus interrupt and say, "No, no, no. Ben is not decent to these people, he is the one making all the trouble." And I say, "If I am not decent, get off my property." And he say he had a right to stay, because of complaints, but the police tell him I own the property and if I say go, he should go, so he go."
 
End of sample joy of running a legal scrapyard on Maria St. in opposition to Toronto City Council. Negotiations will begin Friday on price for the expropriation. Real Estate Commissioner David Alexander said yesterday that he sill hopes a place can be found for Mr. Stark to do business.
"I have always found him co-operative," Mr. Alexander said, "He really wants to get out." No wonder.
 
 
 
 

Cooling centers in Toronto are now much less restrictive in the stage 2 Covid 19 comeback.

Photographed Sat June 18th 2020 a cooling centre in Toronto, show Social distancing.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

Shelter Bus TTC

status: draft


A  shelter TTC bus used to transport to cooling centre in July 2020.

Regent Park new concrete right of way on lands recovered from late 50's buildings

status: draft


Annexation years for communities now making up Toronto

Oakmount Ave. near High Park 1915 the tale of a sanitary home.

retyped from the,
The Sanitary Engineer
Vol IX
April 1, 1915
No. 6
A Sanitary City Home
Describing the Sanitary and Heating Equipment in the Residence of T. Fussell, Esq., Oakmount Road, Toronto.
While we often hear it asserted that city people have the advantage of this or that sanitary con-venience, we very seldom analyse the statement.
Let us ask ourselves whether there are many really sanitary homes in our towns and cities, that is, as sanitary as they might be.
A residence might have the most modernly equipped bath room and yet be far from sanitary.
For instance, a home may not be properly heated, or there may be poor provision for ventilating every apartment, and not sufficient windows to give ample light. In such cases it could not by any means be called a sanitary home.
The Sanitary Engineer visited the residence of T. Fussell. Esq., Oakmount Road, Toronto, recently, and in this article it is proposed to define what one might fairly describe as a sanitary home.


The very best, though not the most expensive bath room fixtures are installed. Hot and cold water is supplied throughout the whole house by a Ruud automatic gas water heater, which furnishes an unlimited quantity of hot water as required. The moment a hot water tap in any part of the house is turned on that moment a supply of hot water is to be had, this heater is situated in the basement of the house.
The basement is every bit as well lighted as any other room in the building, plenty of good sized windows being furnished.
Another very noticeable difference between this residence and most so-called sanitary homes is the conspicuous ab-sence of dust.
To be strong, well, happy and efficient we must be hygienic in our habits. Soap, water and sanitary plumbing are all to be desired, but poisoned air in the home means toxins in the bodies of the occu-pants — then disease. All disease is unclean.
Sweeping and dusting are very crude, laborious and primitive operations. Distributing the dust and dirt in the air, it settles upon furniture and other household goods and has to be again wiped off by hand only to be breathed into the lungs, which really means that we inhale so many disease germs into our constitutions.
However, the reason why dust was so conspicuous by its absence is that Mr. Fussell has bad a TUEC suction cleaner installed. This machiue is situated in the basement. It is electrically driven a 1-9 h.p. motor, which can be operated by a switch at various points throughout the house.
A 2 1/2 riser pipe extends from the machine throush the central part of the house and is furnished with 2-inch outlets as convenient points. A 30-foot hose length is furnished the fittings of which are arranged so as to make perfect connection to each outlet. The dust is collected into a large tank which is part of the machine. Sanitary engineers vould do well to look into the merits of such appliances, because in these days monney is demanding more actual service than ever before. The ordinary installation has become a staple quantity upon which profits are cut to nil.
The next subject to take up is the heating. This residence is lieateil by a low pressure steam system and is controlled by a thermostatic controlling device. The temperature can be regulated to whatever degree of heat is resired. Fig. 1 shows the boiler layout, which is worthy of a little careful study. It is very simple, yet about as effective as it could possibly be. One steam main 3-inch diameter is taken off the top of the boiler, and is carried full size round the ceiling of the basement as shown in piping plan Fig. 2. This main, it will be seen, is not reduced in size as is the common practice, but is kept full size until it reaches the boiler again. It is then reduced to 1 1/2 inches as shown in Fig. 1, and drops down to the bottom and is connected into both sides of the boiler. The return main is shown by dotted lines in Fig. 2. Our readers should notice very carefully how the various connections are made. Let us commence at the boiler. In this case it will be seen that a 1 1/4 inch horizontal check valve is fitted to the same pipe which drips the steam main, then the return is carried up vertically. A Dunham air eliminator is connected here (see Fig. 1.), under which is fitted a tee. Then one return pipe is run along the ceiling to the front and another to the rear of the house. These are 1 1/4 inch and 1 inch respectively. All branches to radiators, both steam and returns, are taken off at 45 degrees, and both the piping and boiler is covered with a good quality insulator.
Each radiator is fitted with a Dunham, packless graduated radiator valve on the flow, and on the return is fitted a Dunham steam trap. A typical method of radiator connection is shown in Fig. 2. The whole system was certainly working splendidly at the time of inspection. The steam gauge registering exactly two ounces of pressure, one very striking feature was, that because of the mild temperature outside, the radiators were heated at the top portion and became gradually cooler lower down. At the same time, the thermostat and pressurestat were in full control of the whole system. No unsightly air valves are necessary with such a system, because each radiator is under the control of its own individual return trap, while the air is taken care of by the automatic air eliminator.
For the benefit of our readers we have re-produced an enlarged view of the air eliminator, see Fig. .3. Fig. 4 is a view of the residence. The boiler furnishing steam to the system is a 30.6 Viking, manufactured by Messrs. Warden King Co., Ltd., Toronto and Montreal, and Steel and Radiation, Ltd., furnished the radiators, 21 in number, 830 square feet.
In the first portion of this article we stated that the basement was well lighted. In Fig. 4 will be seen three of the basement windows, and on plan Fig. 2, there are shown no less than seven windows. These windows not only provide ample light, but are also a great assistance towards keeping the atmosphere pure. Sunlight is one of the finest purifiers known to scientists.
Mr. Geo. Cooper was chairman of the entertainment committee.
Mr. Edwin Newsome, editor of The Sanitary Engineer, gave an address, illustrated by chalk and blackboard sketches. The subject was septic tanks and sanitary methods of sewage disposal for rural residences. Great interest was shown, as was evidenced by the number of questions asked. Several members gave their experiences with septic tanks, amongst whom were Mr. Geo. Clapperton, of Messrs. Bennett & Wright Co., Ltd.; H. Hicks, president of the Ontario Association; Geo. Cooper, chairman, and Mr. H. Farthing, chairman of the examination committee.
A hearty vote of thanks was tendered to Mr. Newsome for his kindness in coming forward to address the members. Geo. Cooper delivered the vote of thanks, which had been moved by Mr. Geo. Clapperton, and seconded by T. B. Smyth, president of the society.
Mr. Newsome, in replying, stated that it had given him great pleasure to address the members, and that if the others had gained by his address, he too had benefited by listening to the experiences of others. He further urged that the members of the trade send in to “The Sanitary Engineer” any information they had gained upon any subject of interest to the trade, as it was only by the exchanging of one’s experiences that the greatest progress in sanitation could be made.
The rest of the evening was devoted to “pleasantries.” A game of progressive euchre was played, and two prizes were given. The winners were : First prize (automatic cigar lighter), S. War-burton; second prize (a Tipperary pup), C. B. S. Reed. Master Cooper very ably officiated upon the piano, after which refreshments were served, the members dispersing after having joined in singing the National Anthem.