PDP #40: A Steel Steeple

Pictured here today is the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, a Christian Science church on Chatsworth Drive in Lytton Park, a rather swank old-money suburb from the turn of the last century up near the North York frontier. Churches frequently have compelling architecture, and are understandably often the most ornate or well-built structures in many low-urban neighborhoods, which is exactly why this caught my attention. The steeple of this church, if you could call it a steeple, looks more to me like a radio antenna or a hydro tower with its open-frame construction.

My only complaint is that the church itself is so close to the road. If it was set a little further back into the park, I'd have been able to get wizard perspectives without nearly so much photographic contortion.


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To Go Gently

no, this is not about star trek, so put that right out of your mind

"History is bunk," Henry Ford is said to have said. Aside from the assembly line and the automotive corporation that bears his name, his rejection of history is perhaps his most enduring historical legacy. Whether he's right or wrong, that attitude endures today and makes its presence felt throughout modern culture, in varied degrees. The series finale of Battlestar Galactica explores this with regard to the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. James Patrick Kelly's 1990 story "Mr. Boy" features a scene at a "smash party," where relics and antiques alike are destroyed purely for entertainment value. In short, there seems to be no shortage of expressions in modern culture that, for many people, history is irrelevant.

"Who cares?" the average person might say. History, by its very definition, happened in the past and as such only tangentially affects the present. Sure, disagreements and grudges and genocides tend to have their roots in it, but for the whole, most people on the street probably don't care too much about what it took to get them there. That the street is there to be walked on is enough for everyday (see how that word is in this case used appropriately, Toronto Transit Commission) purposes. That history, on the whole, doesn't matter.

History matters. That's my opinion, at least, and it's not just because without it my B.A. would be meaningless. History is not a collection of dates and names and battles, it's the sum total of a hundred thousand years of pain, sweat, toil, and blood. Nothing is eternal, but I consider it humanity's duty to rage against entropy until there's not a joule of energy left to spend doing so - to, as Dylan Thomas wrote, "not go gentle into that good night."

So if you allow history to be forgotten, if you allow the scars of that suffering to fade, if you permit the stories of the past to be caught by the wind like a kite with a broken string, you do more than divorce yourself from the lessons of what's already come. You dishonor the struggles of all that came before you - you make them irrelevant. Forgetting is something close to betrayal. Something not remembered might as well not have happened.

Humans strive for remembrance because it's the only real form of immortality open to us. Though the lesson of Ozymandias will be taught in the end, we've still got time before our final exams. If we blow it off, then all these moments, all those years, will be nothing more than oil paintings left out in the rain.

Also, here's a picture I took of a couple Canada geese. Yay!

yes, I did just watch the series finale of battlestar galactica, why do you ask?

PDP #39: One, Two, Red, Blue

Today's picture is recent, taken only two days ago. The green, red, blue, and yellow boxes are electrical substations attached to the Toronto Transit Commission's Leslie station, presumably some link in the power supply chain for the Sheppard stubway. I was walking down to Sheppard Avenue along Old Leslie Street when I got this perspective; it's not the sort of thing I expected to see. I rarely encounter color-coded electrical boxes.


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Quaff Review #2: Innis & Gunn Original

Even in this modern world, where the last blank spots on the map have been filled in for some time now, there's still value in exploration. It's no longer the "where no man has gone before" type, if it ever was - people did go to the Americas before the Vikings, after all - but personal exploration, where this man in particular has not gone before, is still worthwhile in terms of the rewards it brings. Must be why I do it every weekend.

I interrupted a stroll up Yonge Street to wander through an LCBO outlet in Davisville. Back in the beer section, I came across a bottle I'd never seen before: Innis & Gunn Original Oak Aged Beer, marked as a new arrival and cold to the touch. Priced at $3.20 before tax, and with a fair shake of walking still ahead in the day, I bought just the one and saved it for the evening, once it had had a chance to get cold again. After all, in the immortal words of Strong Bad, "a One that is not Cold is hardly a One at all."

Foam started bubbling up from the bottle the instant its cap was pried loose. I don't know if it's supposed to do that, or if the reaction was just a result of having been bounced around in a backpack for four hours, but it made me pour fast. The head of foam remained consistent well after I poured it, about a fingerwidth worth in my made-in-Mother Russia IKEA stein.

It had an oaky smell, and a smooth, woody taste, like I was drinking from a flagon fresh from the carpenter's, still flaking off sawdust. The bottle advertises "hints of toffee, vanilla, and oak," and all three were present in just the right amount to set the beer off well. Other beers have made me accustomed to bitter aftertastes if I don't drink them in less time than it takes for them to warm up; Innis & Gunn lacked that entirely. Every drink of it was smooth, cool, and rich.

I'd heartily recommend this particular brew. Your only problem, given that it's imported from Scotland and "brewed in small batches," may be finding some of it.

Previous Quaff Reviews

• Quaff Review #1: Abbey Belgian Spiced Ale
  

PDV #2: Queen West, Gladstone to Ossington

You can learn a lot about a city by the nature of its street life. I understood that much after the last time I went to Buffalo on a Saturday night and found its downtown utterly deserted; a circumstance which I'm told many American cities hold in common. Toronto, from what it seems to me, stands apart from the "dead downtown" syndrome. Four kilometers away from Yonge Street, the main street of the megacity, Queen West is one of the more transpiring neighborhoods you'll find.

This video was taken from the window of a TTC streetcar rolling east toward Yonge through part of Queen West, and the view is of the north side of the street. As warmth has only recently come to the city in force, everyone is still getting used to it and spending as much time out in it as possible. This part of the route, between Gladstone Avenue and Ossington Avenue, passes by sites such as the Gladstone Hotel, the Drake Hotel, and - surprisingly enough - only one Starbucks. Quite a few appliance stores, though.

The wind didn't sound nearly as loud when I was filming it, either.



I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible, I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

NDP: No Damned Principles?

The Globe and Mail's Patrick Brethour reported today that the British Columbia New Democratic Party, in the wake of a "forceful" debate performance by party leader Carole James, is in a statistical tie with the currently governing Liberal Party - only two percentage points separate the two as of the latest poll. Should they win, it would not be the NDP's first time at the levers of power in Victoria; their latest term ended in 2001 with an implosion of popular support. It appears as if James is poised to make good that defeat.

Personally, I hope she loses, and loses hard.

It's not out of any love for the BC Liberals - truth is, I don't know all that much about them. Come on, I'm a Torontonian - I'm hardly aware of anything that happens north of Eglinton, and Sheppard Avenue may well be the northern frontier of civilization itself. No, it's because of what Carole James has herself said. The NDP, upon gaining power, would scrap the carbon tax.

For the record, I am completely in favor of a carbon tax, and one of my great wishes is that the Ontario provincial government would find the balls and the backbone to introduce one here. For most of a century we've built our civilization around the idea of the ubiquitous automobile, and now that the dangers of such reliance are becoming apparent the time has come to step away from the poisoned wellspring of the 20th century. A carbon tax is one of the better ways to discourage automobile use where unnecessary to stimulate use of better practices.

As the BC NDP has been in opposition for a while, it's no surprise they've also been against the carbon tax for a while, as it was a Liberal program - they started pulling down the low-hanging fruit last summer, when the Baldwin Street-like rise in in oil prices propelled the cost of gas into the stratosphere. Gasoline may be cheaper now, but Carole James and the BC NDP haven't let go of those apples.

A look at the BC NDP platform tells the story well enough. The very first plank they present is "scrapping [BC Premier] Gordon Campbell's unfair and ineffective gas tax." The only thing unfair and ineffective here is the degree of misdirection this party is delivering to the people of British Columbia. That they frame the carbon tax as a simple "gas tax" speaks volumes as to the degree that Carole James appears to hold the environment and the pro-environmental principles of the New Democratic Party in contempt.

Last year, James wrote in The Province that it was "time for him to stop, listen to people, and axe the tax," and decried Premier Campbell for the "secret" development of the carbon tax and the manner in which "he shut down debate and rammed it through the legislature." As antidemocratic as those allegations, if true, may be, the fact remains that in politics as in life, sometimes it really is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. While initiatives such as carbon taxes are necessary in order to make carbon pollution reflect its true cost, the people must be dragged kicking and screaming to the cash register. We have become accustomed, as a civilization, to the assumption that the sky is infinite and whatever we pump into it just goes *poof* and away forever.

Ladies and germs, it just ain't that simple.

Carole James and the British Columbia New Democratic Party claim to care about the environment, and claim to recognize the need to address climate change. Actions speak louder than words. If the BC NDP gets into power and does eliminate this tax, it will have destroyed one of the few active programs in Canada dedicated to mitigate climate change.

The BC carbon tax is not onerous; should it survive until 2012, it will only add 7.2 cents per liter to the price of gas, and if your habits are such that an extra 7.2 cents per liter are an unluggable burden, the problem is with your habits and not the tax. That's not even taking into consideration the planned reduction of income taxes to see to it that British Columbians aren't paying any more, in the grand scheme.

What's obvious by the BC NDP's actions is that it's got the scent of power, and it's not about to let any pesky "principles" get in its way.

Welcome to All New Readers

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PDP #38: There's Two Words In "Long Branch"

Alternate Working Title: PDP #38: Toronto Typo Commission With A Vengeance

The subject of Long Branch Loop has come up in this weblog once before, as an offhand reference to a sentence that was eventually included in my story "Restrictions Management," but without much background. Situated in the former village of Long Branch, since 1967 a part of Etobicoke, Long Branch Loop is the western terminus of the Toronto streetcar network. No rails on any road go farther than it; none of the rest even come close. Here the 501 Queen streetcar turns around for its long roll east to Neville Park Loop, and it's from here the 508 Lake Shore cars, seemingly rare as leprechauns, run east to carry rush-hour commuters to their offices downtown.

Long Branch Loop is also distinguished by its sign. The Toronto Transit Commission was not always steeped in the penury it's had to run under for the last ten years or so. A few sites around the network have their own signs, but they're rare today; the only ones I'm aware of can be found at Hillcrest Complex on Bathurst Street, the Queensway Bus Garage, and Long Branch Loop itself.

In a sterling example of typos that predate spellcheckers, I must remind you all that there's no such place in Toronto as "Longbranch."

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HisT.O.ry #1: Old Otter Loop

Every once in a while, between the past and future, Acts of Minor Treason takes time to look backward at some of Toronto's history - preferably the parts of it that haven't been bulldozed already.

The buses don't loop at Otter Loop anymore, and you've probably never heard of it. Once a northern linchpin of Metro Toronto's surface transit network, the evolution of the city through the 20th century transformed it from a suburban gateway to a mere redundancy. It's no longer even TTC property - the City of Toronto owns it now, and since 2006 there's been a slowly simmering plan to transform it into a park. Whatever its future might be, for now Otter Loop remains.

Otter Loop, at the foot of Kimbark Boulevard and Otter Crescent in the elder, affluent suburbs of Lytton Park, was served by the TTC as early as November 14, 1936, when the Eglinton/North Toronto bus route was redrawn to terminate there. This service continued until March 1954, when that route was replaced by the 61 Nortown electric trolleybus - the pole at the center of the loop once held up the trolleybus wires. Otter Loop then became the northern terminus of a rush-hour route that ran between it and Eglinton station, the true suburban gateway of the 1950s, which lasted until the TTC put its trolleybuses to pasture in 1992. That route became the 61 Avenue Road North, which still runs along Avenue Road today. As I said, though, it doesn't loop at Otter Loop anymore.

Part of this owes to its surroundings. It sits in what the City of Toronto recognizes as Bedford Park-Nortown, a neighborhood where, as of the 2001 census, 62% of households were single-family, with nearly sixty percent of those occupying individual houses, and wealth is the word - more than 35% of its households and over half of its 5,495 families pulled down in excess of $100,000 a year in 2001, with another 20% or so falling between $60,000 and $99,999 per annum. Rich neighborhoods, in my experience, don't tend to have much truck with transit; it's the reason the 162 Lawrence-Donway is the only bus route that cuts through the Bridle Path, and probably why there are no stations on the University-Spadina line between St. Clair West and Eglinton West - Forest Hill is between the two.

When the City bought the loop for a dollar, as the TTC no longer had a use for it, the plan was apparently to convert it into a heart-shaped urban park with the oh-so-creative name "Heart Park." Considering that all the details I can find of this initiative date from 2006 and that Otter Loop is still intact, it's fair to say this project hasn't really got off the ground. Otter Loop is, however, going into the ground. No one appears to be maintaining the structure. Some of the brickwork has crumbled and one of the signs identifying itself as "MUNICIPAL PROPERTY OF THE TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION" has been left to weather and its paint allowed to run.


Still, the transit shelter is intact, spacious, roomy, and would be a comfortable place to wait for the bus. Time was that shelters like Otter Loop's dotted Toronto, only to be torn apart by the rising tide of modernization that saw so many other pieces of city history ground to pieces. As far as I know and have read, the transit shelter at Otter Loop is the only one of its kind still in existence. That's enough reason, I think, to preserve it. History is history, no matter if it's a skyscraper or a bus shelter.

I'd rather have more spaces like Otter Loop than those damn new Astral shelters, anyway. They're all metal and glass and plastic - no character to them at all. Here - take a tour.



LOCATION: 1400 Avenue Road, south of Lawrence Avenue West, North York.

HOW TO GET THERE: The 61 Avenue Road North bus goes directly past Otter Loop, and is probably the most direct way to get there. Going north from Eglinton station, the cloest stop is at the far side of Glenview Avenue, and is practically just across the road. From the south, you'll find that though the buses no longer loop at Otter Loop, they do still stop there if the cable's pulled at the right time.

Otherwise, it's a brisk ten-minute-or-so walk from Lawrence station on the Yonge subway line. 52 Lawrence West buses run regularly and stop at Avenue Road, only a couple of minutes' walk north of the loop.

See it for yourself, I say. There aren't very many pieces of ordinary history left standing.

POSTSCRIPT - APRIL 14, 2011: This really is history now. Otter Loop was demolished in late 2010 to make way for the Heart Park project. Bit by bit, the past disappears.

PDP #36: Lawrence East

Here I'm talking about the street, not the RT station. Lawrence Avenue East is one of many roads in Toronto with a discontinuous alignment; the pattern of ravines throughout the city, most of them only conquered in the 20th century, effectively prevented any bridgeless straightaways between Eglinton Avenue and the waterfront. That may be one reason why Lawrence Avenue has retained its residential character; that it's in the northern end of Metro is another, as it's only been in the last fifty or sixty years that development's been done in earnest there.

This is a discontinuous part of Lawrence Avenue East, photographed from the Bayview Bridge. Getting from the end of Lawrence at its intersection with Bayview to this eastern continuation requires a trip across the West Don River and through the Bridle Path, where Conrad Black lived back before he had a cell to call his own.


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