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Open and Shut: 2011 ....remember any openings and closings

 

Hey everyone ,i am  tying to put together of businesses in the greater Junction area that opened and shut or opened or simply shut. Of course I as one person could not remember all of it, so I am asking anyone who remembers of any to take a minute or two and email the blog at  thejunctioneeer@gmail with any you remember.

 

Thanks in advance

Sides of buildings along west Annette St.

From Clendenan Ave on this author has noted a rather interesting feature created by the wide difference of building types and the setbacks used on the various lots on both the north and south sides of the street.

Coupled with Annette streets wide roadway and rather long vista view to Jane St. The sides of many buildings can be seen. A wide variety of buildings facades and design choices can be seen, much of this variety can contributed to the first use of the building.

Here are a few of building sides.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

West Toronto Keys

Insidetoronto.com currently has a article on the group which provides activities for adults with developmental disabilities.

link to story



Great idea to have locally.

Bridge link over the tracks always wanted in the Junction ...another close by west end community gets one.

[caption id="attachment_9802" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="King Liberty Pedestrian/Cyclist Link location map...click on image to go to the cities site on this project"][/caption]

 

One of the 1st items many people who come to live in the Junction wish for is a bridge over the tracks to connect the two areas north and south of  Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. This has been an always ongoing discussion in the Junction and while there are some locations for the ground fall of the bridge on the north side of the tracks there are few if any on the south side.

This want/need? in bound to get even more community interest as development on the north side of tracks increases. Although this author can see such as bridge, ...which the author is not so interested in having but wonders if it would be a good community addition... would service a very small section of the the community.

A railroad bridge in the Junction would probably be well used residents just north of Annette St. Would those people living south of Annette St. walk or ride over the bridge enough to justify building a bridge, and would northern residents come south over the bridge?

 

..well here the info on the King Liberty area Railroad topping bridge....

full study link at City of Toronto site

full study link at this blog

 

 

The City of Toronto undertook the

 “Toronto West-Central Area Strategic

Transportation

Network Review” in 2006 and identified

 the need to better integrate the communities
north and south of the CN/GO railway corridor

between Atlantic Avenue and Strachan
Avenue. At its meeting of February 13, 2007,

 Toronto and East York Community Council
in considering a further report on a proposed

 pedestrian link at this location (TE3.45)
recommended that Transportation Services

 undertake an Environmental Assessment (EA)
study for a Pedestrian Link between King

 Street West and Liberty Village.

This item was considered by Public Works and Infrastructure Committee

 on November 3, 2011 and was adopted with amendments.

It will be considered by City Council on November 29, 2011.

further in package  Reference Drawings / Plans / Profiles appendix_e_reference_drawings and Stage 1 Archaeological Assessment appendix_d_arch_assessment

same files as package hosted at this blog

January 26, 2012 – West Toronto Diamond Public Meeting

all text but that in brackets is gotransit.com



We (They) will be hosting quarterly public meetings to update the community on the construction progress, what to expect in 2012 and to present the final operational noise and vibration mitigation report.



Note: There is a separate operational noise and vibration mitigation study underway for the West Toronto Diamond Grade Separation. The results of the study will be presented to the public in the near future.

CPR transports wind turbine via Junction rails

Post and image sent in by blog reader Brian Thanks!

These look like rocket capsules but they're actually the tops of
wind turbines stopped in the junction en route to Sask from Jacksonville
Florida.

The railway man was nice enough to tell me all about them.
They are huge!

Islington Ave Sunbeam Plant now a dirt field for condo development

Many people from the Junction worked at this plant for decades right up to late 80s Senior management living just below Dundas St, skilled machinists on St Johns Rd. and numerous other workers.


They left a tree will it survive the condo construction it would be fine.

Baby Point Annette St, Retail area

Annette St east of Jane has become a site of many interesting shops.  The effort to new shops seems to moving ever eastward.

While there are many needed and interesting shop in the Jane st area of this local shopping "T" of Jane St and Annette St the Section on Annette has a quiet much less busy atmosphere than say Bloor West Village.

 

[gallery]

DuPont subway mural seems to best viewed sitting in car while driving though

It is quite immersive, when you are sitting under the subway waiting for the unseen light to change.

You have to look at the mural ad forget your car for a sec.

Go to move even more trains though the greater Junction Area

Reported in the Toronto Star



Mon Dec 19 2011
The new rail link between downtown Toronto and Pearson International Airport will include a 3 km “spur” to the Georgetown GO Train line.

Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the details Monday at the airport, adding that construction will begin this spring and be completed in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

The passenger station will be located at the airport’s Terminal 1.

Having a rail link to downtown will speed travel between the two points and “ease congestion” on the roads, said McGuinty.



This will allows Go to move even more trains though the greater Junction Area

Please keep me in the Junction dear CPR railway

Recently the yellow caboose that stood regularly just behind George Bell Arena, has been traversing the rail tracks around the Junction.

Worryingly does this indicate that the CPR cannot retain a place to store it, hopefully not it would surely be missed.

Or is the dreamy reality that the railroad men and women just love having a roar moving it around remembering the days when trains had cabooses.

The caboose was visible at the back of Vine parkette Thursday.

Franklin Ave. houses site rebuilt

The Franklin Ave and Hugo Ave homes that were involved in a fire which destroyed one townhouse and severely damaged six others, on Jan 04, 2008

It took a few years but the houses have been rebuilt. Varying in design, although none have had the victorian elements recreated, they also differ from the design of the 5 new houses on Vine Ave.

The Vine Ave houses have a set design across the houses, showing a common facade across the group of new homes.

The Franklin Ave. houses have diverse facades that clearly distinguish the individual houses.

The different choices made in the facade elements impact the street scape in very different ways.









sd

Links to interesting posts at the junctiontriangle.ca blog

 

The Junction Triangle blog has some interesting posts right right click each image to read the associated post at their site.

[caption id="attachment_9717" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="click image to see post"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_9718" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="click image to see post"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_9719" align="aligncenter" width="417" caption="click image to see post"][/caption]

Dupont St. puppet store has an amazing window right now

This really unique store  which is always a special place to see, has a moving, fun, enlightening window display now.

One so wonderful you can stand outside viewing it and imagine your own warm and pleasant stories.

located at 1597 Dupont Street

About the store
Portable Puppet Theatres and Puppets for Sale
www.opendoordesigns.ca/
Doorway puppet theater, portable theaters and puppets for sale and rent from Open Door ... Visit our Online Store or if you are in Toronto our Retail Store where you will find along with ...

Well thought out and crafted building exterior renovation

This building just west the Dundas St W. and DuPont St. is so well done on the exterior it should will an award. Every time this blogger passes by the quality of the work and how the effort really contributes to the streets-cape.

Brickwork, windows and detailing are all great.

1st new homes on Vine Ave in decades nearing completion

looking rather nice eh!

Recent and occurring commercial facade work in the Junction

[caption id="attachment_9698" align="aligncenter" width="437" caption="Recent new front for this long established Junction Business"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_9699" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Finally some new Paint on this building on the north west corner of Pacific Ave. and Dundas St. West."][/caption]

Can Sewer and road work Repair Work Damage The weak (most of them) Junction houses?

 



A while back a reader of this blog in the Upper Junction town-homes posted a comment about the retaining wall construction at the 30 Weston Rd development. The comment was concerned about " vibrations that are a regular feature of our day here at Weston road townhouses affect the structure of our houses".

This concern also was great when the West Toronto Diamond project was pounding large round steel piles in to the ground. Sewer and road repair work that involves digging up the street can harm the most Junctions block’s residential houses. If it does, what recourse house owners have.

Emergency road, sewer and water main repairs occur all around the greater Junction area almost every few weeks. An area that bordered in many areas by train tracks and many of the homes are over 100 years old, resting on rubble and field-stone foundations

City and private ontractors regularly cut through the asphalt or break up concrete surfaces streets, using large hydraulic diesel-powered backhoes  to break up the asphalt and concrete component of  the street  requiring excavation, pound steel supports into the trench and dump excavated dirt into trucks used to haul it away. House holders believe that this severe shaking is causing irreparable structural damage to their historic homes.

Often this pounding is so severe that it severely shakes houses.

As an alternative, many people we would like to have the contractor push and not pound pilings into the trench and  slowly lift into the trucks and onto the street so that they do not experience the excessive vibrations in our houses that we are now being subjected to. This would prevent our homes from being harmed structurally without delaying the needed repair to the sewer line.

People are often told they can file for damages after the completion of work. That is not a satisfactory response, why must there be a wait and see model.  Why not a regulatory mandated and technically monitoring system used? An industry exists  to deliver testing, monitoring and work methods advise, simply the elected person need to create tighter legislation so all companies doing such work have a equal starting point to  achieve the goal.

 

CN and CPR history book a great railroad community read

 

Rails Across Canada: The History of Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways  by Tom MurrayVoyageur Press | 2011 | ISBN: 0760340080 | 320 Pages | PDF | 155 MB

$22.50 Flexibound  and ebook edition

Publishers text

Few stories in the annals of railroading are as compelling as the construction, evolution, and astounding successes of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. This sprawling volume combines two of Voyageur Press' most successful Railroad Color History titles into one volume taking in the grand scope of both railroads. Author Tom Murray presents fastidiously researched and concisely presented histories of each railroad, along with more than 300 photographs, including rare archival black-and-white images and modern and period color photography sourced from national archives and private collections.

Blog post about the Symes Rd waste building

 

Following a link in a comment by A.R.  this blog found a very interesting article on the Symes Road Incinerator.

It is quite detailed and interesting.

It is worth the read, he states the need to preserve  the building,  something which this blog agrees with. Now the building is being transferred to Build Toronto for sale or lease.



here the link,

Really love how the Campbell block looked and was populated

Wow this image really shows an pedestrian friendly use of a very short stretch of Dundas St. Love the awnings.

And look at the decoration on the building!

Tumaxco has closed sadly

A art services creative retail enterprise has closed, sadly, at

2561 St Clair W

This store which provided imaging and image printing and mounting services was a welcome addition to the area.

Although building the business as a stand alone without the addition of art materials and services was risky.In addition there not wanting to print and mount general business materials proably contributed to the demise.

Sad, this blogger wonders if a stand alone service line this can survive in Toronto. Last year a same model business plan also failed on Weston Rd in the Silvano professional photo plant.

Mulock Ave view to Heintzman Place Condos

Heintzman Ave via Heintzman Place and Mulock Ave. connected by a sight line. This view  from outside the SE corner of the old paint plant looking down SW on Mulock Ave. over the old lands of the Maple Leaf Mills.

Are the Junctions best eats places destinations for the city’s hoard of traveling eaters

This blog thinks not,

A great mix of easy entry benefits  such as rock-bottom rents when looked at compared to "village" type neighborhoods in Toronto, long leases and word-of-mouth about the coolness of the Junction…suggests something is happening in the neighborhood served food area.

Yet for these new food establishments, has the  area’s understated profile kept its best joints from becoming destinations for the city’s traveling eaters. The closest subway stop is 15 minutes away (High Park). Of the public travel  depends where you are in the Greater Junction Area (GT), we think, but it's an issues, public transit from across the city involves, the use of both a subway and a bus.

One of the questions also raised is whether the new businesses can succeed or rather prosper in an area that’s not a destination, the Junction is just not that now as it once was for people across the great city of Toronto, such as the Danforth is) And, if they do succeed, how long will the area stay comparatively affordable for new businesses... simple tried and true restaurant offerings and not to mention unique offerings like Rawlicious, which had to leave.

....and to answer the never stated new question that Toronto's elected members throw at the public now. Do you have a solution for the  problem?  Well no, but this is one of last remaining Beat Blogs in North America, and posing questions while reporting local happenings is what the movement was/is all about.

 

The what and why of mixed buildngs.

Walking across the Junction you can pass by a groups of buildings that must have great stories as to their placement and use in the past.

The future to if the Junction continues to claw its way back to building uses and ways of community that once common here.

Pictured is a group of buildings on Annette St. That poses questions about why.

Old Blockbuster store to become Dollarama

Martin of the Junction Residents Association emailed the blog tonight about a new sign application for 2890 Dundas ST W the originality built as an S.S. Kresge store which ran there for many years.



 

 

This author is wondering if they plan to use the entire store area, Blockbuster did not. This is a wonderful building with an intriguing and warren like basement with a central wall down the middle supporting the cast iron support poles on the 1st floor.

Strangely the Junction always keeps its own, as Dollarama can be viewed as  the new five and dime type of store that the  S.S. Kresge stores were.

I cannot help but think this author should go and apply for a stock person job at Dollarama, as my 1st job was in this S.S. Kresge store as a stock boy they called us by that title.

 

 

 

Fresh cut

Trees and chops

All on Pacific Ave just south of Dundas St W. on the No Frills lot.

Nice urban visual view.

61 Heintzman Place has a front yard the approx same size as most traditional houses in the Junction

Yea!

New fruit and veg store

The blog has been sent a number of emails about a new food store moving in the old Green Lavender Yoga studio.

Have not been able to confirm this with people at the store front.