Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Storage facility gutted by fire last week was the Junction Dodge Plant

 

Reposted from http://maplib.blogspot.com thanks to commentor Joyce for commenting the link.

Additional images of the building and area are at the http://maplib.blogspot.com 

 

A storage facility at Osler and Pelham in Toronto went up in flames on January 9th, 2012 and continued to burn for two days. http://ctestp.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120109/120109_toronto_fire/20120109/?hub=CP24Home This was not the first time in recent history that the building's structure had been challenged. In 2006, the building was hit by a grain train http://www.tcrc295.com/Osler_derailment.htm when it derailed from the neighbouring railway tracks. Here are some photos from John (aka Krunkwerke) of the aftermath of that derailment: http://www.flickr.com/photos/krunkwerke/sets/72157625704504118/with/5305938452/

While the building is currently one of many storage facilities in the neighbourhood, the building and the site are historically significant to the Junction area. Here is a photo from 1948 of the building, from the Toronto Archives :

 




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4 comments:

  1. Interesting history! Thanks for the links as well. What will happen now? Will insurance be sufficient to cover rebuilding? Sure don't want housing there.

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  2. Being right next rail tracks hopefully they will not be creating housing on the site, maybe light engineering?

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  3. Or, another storage place! This one with sprinklers.

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  4. The loss of this building is very unfortunate. If the original appearance of the building was maintained, it would have been a good building for lofts. It was probably restorable prior to the fire. Moving forward, I want some building that would improve the neighbourhood, whatever uses are proposed. The worst thing, however, would be for it to end up an empty field for decades, like the Subway Hotel site at Keele and Vine and the southwest corner of St. Clair and Old Weston Road. This area has too many empty lots already; it needs some revitalization.

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