RCAF Scarborough Bluffs

Scarborough  isn’t known to many as a former industrial or military hotbed, but rather as a suburb onto itself just east of Toronto. Apart from light industry, malls and sub divisions and projects dotting the landscape you would have not otherwise known that the RCAF built a testing facility along the Scarborough Bluffs which was an ideal location because of it’s high cliffs and proximity to the water.  A single brick building was built (details omitted) right on the bluffs themselves where a coastal radar device was developed. The radar was known as a Microwave Early Warning/Anti-Submarine system, and after the radar device was developed the RCAF turned the building into a school, which is actually what it looks like at first glance if you happen to pass by it today.

The No.1 radio direction finding school opened it’s doors in June 1942 and trained both British and American airman and signal corps. It changed it’s name to No.1 radar school in December 1943 and operated for three months when everything was moved to the much larger radar school in Clinton, Ontario. If if isn’t already apparent, it’s amazing to see such grand waste at the hands of military during (and after the war). In 1946 the building was given to the National Research Council’s radio branch where similar work continued on experimental radar development. The site was also home to the department of transport’s radiosonde training unit as well as the National radiation Atmospheric Center. In the early 1950′s the building was also shared with the RCAF No. 5 aircraft control and warning unit ( No.5 AC&WU) until October 1951 when that was moved to RCAF Edgar where the 31 Aircraft control and warning squadron was re-located, near CFB Borden. The RCAF’s No. 271 Air Defense Control was also located here along with the 2400 Aircraft control and warning unit, No.1 Anti-Aircraft operations room, No.2 and the 206 companies of the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

The building is now used by the City of Toronto (Scarborough became amalgamated in 1998) and the only part that remains accessible (if you like walking along the bluffs to access it – I don’t recommend it) is an underground shelter that seems to have been used as a grow-op at some point. It’s hollow, and further levels exist suggested by air vents and the large flat, open space behind the main building. None of the historical documents I found make reference to what the space could have been used for but it is located near the shore, and could have been used as a stop over between Camp X (entry at some later point) and Toronto for POW’s. That’s pure speculation, but no other reasonable hypothesis was found to explain the presence of this bunker room that is far too close to the surface to have been used as an air raid shelter, out in the open.

Photos by Kathy.

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IBM Country Club

Although the IBM Country Club had plenty of it’s own history for what it actually was, there was also an undercurrent of older 18th century history.  In the early 1800’s the land was used as a very successful farm, once reporting $15,000.00 in sales of butter alone.  On this farm was a slave named Tom.  As was custom he took the last name of the owners, and so his name was Tom Crocker, but everyone called him Bay Tom, or later Old Bay Tom. When the sun set on slavery in New York state he stayed on the Crocker farm for awhile. He escorted their products up and down the formerly active but now abandoned Chenango Canal.  In his middling years he became infamous in Binghamton for using his booming voice to advertise for local auctioneer Tom Lyons.  He would roam up and down the principal streets in Binghamton screaming “Auction Today,” until the city passed a noise abatement ordinance just for him.  In 1853 Tom Crocker wrote a lengthy and angry letter of complaint about this ordinance to one of the Binghamton papers.  He signed it, “Tom Crocker, who some disrespectfully know as Bay Tom.” One hundred and sixty years later his story is still a shadow in the minds of history loving Binghamtonians, and yet he is still always referred to as “Bay Tom.”

When J & K of Ntropy came to visit, the first thing I did was tell them this story before we set out to the site of Tom Crocker’s youth, and later the IBM Country Club. I offered them the chance to write some of the simple words on a card in Tom’s honor, and I was so happy that they seemed to realize this might be something honorable, rather than the suspicion so many others would have greeted me with.  Subsequently we left this card in the old farmstead section of the country club, and moved along with the exploring and photographing…making our way to the ballroom where the contractor, (Clarence W. Rose) who built a drain under my yard in the 1920’s, celebrated his retirement. As we looked out the endless windows into the golf course that used to be a farm, I told them how Tom Crocker was elected Mayor of Binghamton for a brief moment in 1872.  A local banker and coal dealer named Sherman Phelps was cruising to his “turn” as Mayor, when he made the blunder of insisting that ordinary people not walk on the sidewalk he paid for in front of his opulent mansion. Some unknown genius with a sense of humor circulated the idea of standing “Bay Tom” as a write in candidate. According to historian Marjorie Hinman, legend has it that Tom won by a landslide.  The powers that be immediately began a recount, and convinced one voter after another to find a reason to disqualify their own votes for Tom for the good of the town.  But Tom never let anyone forget the first and official count.  He spent the elderly years of his life in an abandoned ditch that used to be Binghamton’s connection with the Erie Canal.  For some reason, unknown to me, the city took away the roof he had built over the edges of his section of the Erie Canal.  For his own good, they forced him to move to the poor house, and with his independence gone, he expired immediately.

Moving forward to current times the former IBM Country Club in Endicott NY has an interesting history. It was started by the acquisition of lands and buildings from the local Masonic Lodge. Whether there was a connection with Watson who was a Mason and the President of IBM hasn’t been determined by an initial search. The Country club was built out over a number of years and eventually comprised the original “Homestead” a 9 hole golf course, gym, bowling lanes, tennis courts, outdoor pool, ball room, meeting facilities, kitchen and many other amenities. During this time the IBM continued to grow to become one of the world’s largest corporations. Legend has it that Thomas J Watson, IBM’s President “trapped” new recruits following banquets or dinners and held long after hour soliloquies in the Homestead, going on into the small hours in front of a large fireplace. As IBM original Endicott Head Office outgrew it’s upstate facilities it began divestiture of these properties downsizing plants and disposing of it’s “Country Club” since it was deemed no longer necessary. The club is a beautiful property in its own right that  backs up against a treed hillside, with level grounds for it’s golf course, tennis, baseball and foot ball fields. The topography is somewhat flat and attractive with the Susquehanna River close by.

The property went through a number of transactions with various owners having plans for repositioning the club to transforming it into a contemporary country club. Despite grand plans it continues to languish and sit vacant and neglected. Floods have hit the building and destroyed the ground level floor finishes most visibly the indoor three court basket ball facility. The roof is subject to some small water damage. Construction crew materials are onsite and tarped waiting to be installed when another owner takes charge. The last group of optimistic owners was a group led by some local entrepreneurs, and speculators hoping that the complex could be somehow brought back to life with an injection of funds. Then the business matters began to get complicated. A report below this follows the events in the last ownership group and still the IBM Country Club waits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R0LHlEiywc

Photos and Text by JTCOLFAX.

Supplimentary Reading : Watson, T.J Jr., “Father, Son & Co. My Life at IBM and Beyond.  Bantem Publishing, 1990.

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Bata X Aga Khan

The changing face of Don Mills has been quiet over the past 5 or so years, but one notable absence is the former world headquarters of Bata Shoes on an elevated section of land between Wynford Drive and Eglinton Avenue.  It was designed by John B. Parkin whose other notable projects include the Sherton Centre and the old IBM headquarters now known as Celestica,  just a touch West of the former Bata complex . We were both fans of this great modernist building and were disappointed to learn in 2005 that North York community council certainly didn’t feel the same way when they voted to reject a heritage designation for the building. We paid a few visits over the course of 2005-2007 before demolition.

Lisa Rochon of the Globe & Mail didn’t feel to highly about when she wrote “the Bata is an imperfect work. Its north elevation is clumsy, with a porte-cochère intended as the connecting piece between the original building and a second (never built) retail space and warehouse tower. Instead, surface parking spreads out to the north and west of the building, fulfilling the deadening formula of the industrial office complex. The umbrella columns, though exhilarating to look at, are not as original as they might appear: They are a direct quotation from one of the buildings commissioned by Emhart Manufacturing Co. in Connecticut designed by the eminent American modernist firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.” Hume was more tempered in his opinion “Situated on a height of land in Toronto’s north end, the simple, modular edifice exemplifies the ideal of the building in a park. Simple and seemingly weightless, it rests on rows of columns, reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. Unadorned yet poetic, the architecture pays homage to the past while extolling the virtues of the future.”
The building  wasn’t demolished until almost 2 years later in 2007 for the planned $300 million Aga Khan foundation religious center/museum they wish to build on the former site and the adjacent area for a total of seven acres. The complex should be completed in 2013 and work is already underway.  It was a unique piece of architecture in an otherwise bland and homogenous area. It had an expansive parking lot and it certainly didn’t intrude on the lot which fronted onto the DVP exit ramp nor Eglinton avenue. It would have been better if the building was somehow integrated into the project rather then hasty demolished but it seems  most citizen’s don’t care to retain aspects from our history which is especially interesting considering our city is so young and we don’t have much in terms of unique architecture anyways.

Photos by Kathy and Jan.

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Lister Block

Lister Block happens to be on the top 10 list of the most endangered list  of Historical buildings. Its located right in derelict downtown Hamilton, conveniently placed between five other well known Hamilton abandonment’s within a 4 block radius, including the now demolished HMP (Hamilton Motor Products), the old Federal Building, Lyric/ Century theater, the Connaught hotel, and the Tivoli theater which will all at some point make it onto this website.

Lister Block’s greatest feature was the ‘arcade’ (which is an enclosed area of shops in an L shaped configuration) with a row of skylights that gave the hallway an otherworldly quality light, rain, plaster and mould rained down from above. The arcade got more interesting looking every time I visited it as it always past a level of dereclict-ness that I thought wasn’t possible. I had never seen such decay before, and was amazed when a portion of the ceiling fell down as a storm downpour was leaking into the area I was in. The rest of the building wasn’t in much better shape either, with the upper levels actually being in better shape than the ground level’s arcade. Each floor had small offices, for doctors, lawyers and accountants and although the furniture was long gone, the remnant of junkie supplies in the form of needles riddled certain areas. Each of the floors were pretty similar, some broken doors, loads of peeling paint and enough mold to send those with allergies running. The roof offered a nice view and the place remained most unchanged until  2009 when work finally started on restoring the building after a building next door ‘mysteriously’ collapsed one night.

Lister Block always seemed to have issues, even when it was first completed in 1886 by Joseph Lister, there was a brief depression and the building wasn’t fully rented out. It did however have more modern methods of heating, a boiler house and an elevator. In 1922 an arcade was integrated, however a fire ripped through Lister Block at 2:30 in the morning on Feb. 2, 1923. The fire was aided in part by the interior walls and floors being wooden. The fire, as it turned out did not even originate in Lister Block, but rather a small building next door. Quickly a new building was erected which was about 32,000sq. ft. The ‘new’ Lister Block remained faithful to the original classic renaissance design with terra cotta pilasters, the store fronts finished with copper and wrought iron grills, and arcade with three skylights with the outside finished with tapestry brick. The upper floors were identical to the lower level, minus the arcade. The basement also had a bowling alley, pool and billiard room, which even after being cleaned out and gutted I still couldn’t tolerate with my allergies.

In 1950, the city wanted to expropriate Lister Block as they were short on space in Hamilton’s city hall. City council ended up deciding to build a new city hall instead which sits not too far away from Lister Block. With the building of Lloyd D. Jackson Square an enclosed mall next door , many of the retail shops on James Street closed in the 1970’s. Things didn’t get much better from there. In 1984, a large 3 metre section broke off Lister Block and the building needed repair work as deferred maintenance work had been neglected for far too long. In June of 1985, Sam Matsos, president of Corham Development, purchased five downtown properties whose total value was $5,000,000. The buildings included in the purchase were: the Lister Block, Zellers, and the Mills store. Only four years later, the complex was again sold to a large Toronto area developer, Metrus. The value of the sale was estimated at $1,000,000. In the early part of the 1990s, eviction notices were issued to all the tenants of the Lister Building (the beauty salon, the hearing aid shop, the drug store, the music store, and the optometrist), as well as to tenants in adjoining stores (Fabricland, Marvel Beauty Salon, and Pioneer Cleaners). Interestingly in 1995 city council voted in favor of giving the Lister Block a special historical designation for the building, thus making it reasonably impossible to demolish the building.  Several interesting proposals were put forth which included turning it into student housing for McMaster and Mohawk college students. Lister Block instead turned into a squat for the city’s many drug addicts and transient youth. Not surprisingly in 1996 there were three separate fires that damaged the Lister Block, all intentionally set to damage or destroy the building.

In 1999 it was purchased by L.I.U.N.A. (the Hamilton local of the Labourers International Union of North America) for $1, 600,000 again with plans to revitalize the building; however nothing was done until a decade later to restore the building. My last visit in 2009, I took someone back and realized that not only has every level been gutted, including the infamous basement with the ’aids’ pool, it looks nothing like what it did three years ago when I first went, and how most remember this place. It was bare, open and for once I must say the space feels smaller being open than when it had small rooms and had bits of strewn junk everywhere.  As of August 2011, the project was completed, and photos will be added in the coming weeks when I visit Hamilton again.

Photos by Kathy and Jan.

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Bolton Kids Camp

Upon first glance, an abandoned kid’s camp sure doesn’t sound exciting, especially considering the sleepy town it was located in.  However once we arrived and realized how old and extensive the place was we spent two whole days there. This camp must have been a pleasure for city kids to visit while it was operational from the 1930’s onward. It’s actually for sale, and it’s to be hoped that it doesn’t see much traffic other than the local juvenile vandals we ran into who were smashing windows.

Its located on a 340 acre site of varying topography with a water feature for teaching kayaking and swimming. It’s fairly hilly with about a 500 ft elevation change from the top near a recently built school which is now decommissioned, to the lower camp section with 32 wooden cabins, a large main lodge with dining area and auditorium, a repair shop, a caretakers house, a gym and large pool. There are other buildings used for training and dining. The school alone is over 10,000 sq. ft.

Map of school and Camp.

We found the kitchen and the dining hall to be the most interesting spaces, since they contained complete kitchen facilities and the tables and chairs for the eating areas. Additionally there were the old pan-abode cabins which still had odd prizes and trinkets lying around like plastic “champion trophies” and dolls awarded to studious kids who were “model campers”. It was quite surprising that the buildings were almost all open and accessible. Sadly this gave an opportunity to some ‘kids’ and the kitchen and mess hall area were totally trashed between our two visits, probably less than two weeks apart.

This is what the children who were selected to be campers experienced. This camp provided that “ outdoor camp experience” for over 70 years for Toronto children who couldn’t go up to the cottage areas like the Muskokas and Kawarthas during the summer holidays. Considering it sat idle for more than a decade,  it’s truly amazing that it managed to stay in the overall good condition it was in. This is most likely due to the fact that no one knows it’s there, so there is no vandalism attributable to “visitors”. As is the case with all good locations, as soon as it ended up on a certain UE website, the place was picked, trashed, and vandalized to the point it’s now unrecognizable two years later. Remember kids, keep quiet.

Photos by Kathy and Jan.

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