By James Rayner
I recently wrote about a walk we took along Queen St. West from Roncesvalles to University Avenue; this current installment includes Queen Street from Bay to Dufferin, going west instead of east. It is amazing how the same street looks so different when going in the opposite direction!
We started the walk at the Bay subway station, heading south on Bay Street. Crossing Bloor Street, we looked east and west at the so-called “Mink Mile” – referring to the Street proliferation of high-end retailers that have businesses in that area. Note that looking east, the new condo building at Yonge and Bloor Streets, planned to rise to 85 or so stories, is starting its climb into the skies.
This is looking east and west from Bay Street:
Notice also, the bicycle lanes that the city has recently installed as a way to encourage people to ride bikes in the city.
The intersection of Bay and College Streets has certainly changed since it was part of Eaton’s College Street Store.
Just above College Street is the old Addison on Bay Oldsmobile-Buick dealership, now a condo building.
Further south is the former Gray Coach Lines bus terminal, where I spent six summers working during my university days. The building was built to impress travelers when they alighted from the coaches in the big city. The site is scheduled for condo development.
On the way to City Hall, we passed a Toronto Hydro installation. Notice the heavy foundations of a building built to last.
Opposite this building on the east side of Bay Street is the entrance to Trinity Square and its church.
I couldn’t pass City Hall without capturing this amazing view of the building and skating rink.
Next to City Hall is a collection of some of Toronto’s most beautiful buildings: Osgoode Hall.
This site has been in the news lately, as Metrolinx wanted to cut down some historical trees to construct an extraction shaft to build the new station for the Ontario subway line. Various jurisdictions tried to save the trees but, as you can see, they failed.
As many of you probably realize, I love the history of Toronto, especially as it is expressed in its buildings. Queen Street has an abundance of historic buildings dating from the mid-1800s and here are a few of them.
The decoration on this store shows that it once was a large seller of stickers.
This building shows that you can successfully combine the old and the new:
We also went by the CTV building, the front of which was in the previous walk along Queen Street – but this time it is the rear of the building with the CP24 reporter’s vehicle in the wall that we saw.
A historic house sits further along on Queen across from Trinity-Bellwoods Park near Shaw St.
There is a beautiful mural at the edge of the park.
Just west of Dufferin Street, near Gwynne Avenue, we reached our goal: The Rhino pub. It is situated in a former Odeon theatre building in Parkdale, where there are many old classic buildings still remaining.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 