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 None of the historical documents I found make reference to what the space could have been used for but it is located near the shore, and could have been used as a stop over between Camp X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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Georgetown South Rail Expansion

This past spring (2011) I happened to drive past construction vehicles one night that were parked on lansdowne setting up for the addition of a bridge. I went back that next day and got to see how everything arrives and is set up before being hoisted into place. The additional track was added to facilitate the expansion of the line out to Georgetown (North of Toronto) and also the airport.

More Info available on Go’s website.

Photos by Kathy

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Dufferin Jog Elimination

We have been following the progress of the Dufferin Jog for the past two years now and we have been curious about how it was going to turn out. It should open tomorrow, November 17, 2010. We visited a number of times (as we had an ongoing interest in documenting the graffiti) for the book we have been working on, T.Oldskool and the bridge and surrounding area really had a nice collection of decade old pieces by many artists who no longer paint anymore.

Dufferin Street and Queen Street West, 1897. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 376, File 2, Item 10.

The Dufferin jog has is located right on the border where Parkdale starts westward. I’ve always wondered why you had to go around three sides of box on Peel avenue if you happened to go south on Dufferin and was amused to learn it was much older then I first assumed. The rail lines were at grade back in the late 1800′s when the station was built and horses and carriages were the main mode of transport.hen the Queen Street Subway opened in 1898, with a train station located right behind the former toy warehouse. Since the proposed Queen Street subway was proposed (three times starting in 1911, 1944 and 1960 but never realized) the corner at Queen and Gladstone seemed to be a void where no one really stopped to do anything except maybe transfer from streetcar to bus or hang out at the coffee shop on the corner. After the Gladstone was renovated the whole area seemed to change and proliferation of condos over the past two years illustrates much of what is changing in the area. These are some of our images for our visits over the years.

Further reading

Map showing old route

City of Toronto Contract Award – Contract No. 08FS-22S

Wikipedia entry

Junctioneer Article

Photos by Kathy.

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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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Lakeshore Gentrification

Seems that a fair-bit has changed down the old Lakeshore strip in Etobicoke over the past 3-4 years. Many of the great 1960′s motels that used to welcome people to Toronto for the night have been torn down to make way for condos. Shame really as they remained in business for almost 50 + years. As of August 2011, only one motel remains and even the giant office park and industrial buildings a bit further up have been demolished to make way for a deluge of condos. Only two large sites remain (one industrial and the other infrastructure related) however they are still operating in the center of this massive development.

Photos by Kathy and Jan.

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