After a not-too-bad workout at my gym this morning, it was a delight to discover signs posted in the locker room informing members that there was no hot water in the building. Since this is (at least) a monthly occurrence at my gym, they should really laminate those signs to save money on paper and printer ink. It was a delight, too, to discover I’d left my camera in my parka, so what better way to wind down 2008 than with an update on my neighb. The walk home…
I’ve previously documented the clusterfuck “construction” of 1 Bloor, a condominium project located at Canada’s best-known intersection. It took them four months to tear down the (apparently indestructable) 3-storey buildings occupying the lot, and for the past two months it can best be described as a parking lot. Except without cars. It’s cordoned-off with Toronto’s popular, new hoarding material — the shabbily-erected wire fence — but they did manage to build a walkway from Yonge Street to the subway entrance:
1 Bloor Street, Toronto (15 November 2008)
Except the public has never been allowed to use it. Please note the festive, yellow CAUTION ribbon, above, so lovingly reported here, um, ad nausaeum. Anyway, now we probably won’t want to use it:
1 Bloor Street, Toronto, 28 December 2008
Note the one-inch slab of asphalt atop the sinkhole. Another job well done by Toronto’s talented and supercompetent construction contractors, workers, supervisors and inspectors!
Hey, while we’re checking out the “construction” of the massive, 1 Bloor condo development, isn’t this exactly the sort of thing at which you’d love to point when you’re showing your friends and family your swank, new address?
1 Bloor Street, Toronto, 28 December 2008
At the south end of the construction site is Hayden Street. Be sure to point out to your friends and family the trash heaped on the sidewalk (five days and counting) and, well, you can’t help but swell with pride, knowing that all emergency services next door to your new home are in tip-top shape:
Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto (28 December 2008)
Conveniently-located for fine dining right across the street is the richly-appointed Taco Bell/KFC:
Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto (Sunday, 28 December 2008)
Oh, look! A stack of NOW Magazines has been delivered, ready to bring inside and place in the rack there. Say, isn’t NOW delivered on… Thursday?
Right around the corner, at Charles Street, we have this cheery entrance to a (crappy, foul-smelling, rather sketchy) shopping mall and, at right, the entrance to Zyng restaurant, home of overpriced and flavour-free, Asian-style eats:
Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto (28 December 2008)
Sharp readers will notice the white material on the canopies but none on the ground. Sharper readers will already have guessed that the white material is not snow but… birdshit. Lots and lots of birdshit. Appetizing!
Of course, it’s one thing for builders, city workers and restaurants to not give a crap about how shabby this shithole of a city has become, because, hey, the economy’s in the toilet and we shouldn’t really expect these people to, oh, do their fucking jobs or have any pride of place, should we? I’m sure the fine, caring and consciencious citizens of Toronto will pick up the slack.
Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto (28 December 2008)
Or not.
Oh, right, one last thing. People, please remember to store your children in a cool, dry place.
Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto (28 December 2008)
10 comments
That looks like Frosty the Snowman’s shit up there.
Yeah, I don’t miss that. I did enjoy that you took the time to add it some fancy snowflake animation to your site but there’s only one flake. It’s very fitting for the author.
bstewart23: Har, Dave.
Actually, NOW is usually delivered Wednesday nights. Even worse!
bstewart23: Right you are, Steph. Wednesday! Oh, you know, they were probably all busy and stuff and just haven’t gotten around to bringing the bundle in.
1) I always thought it was cornered-off and you have enlightened me to: “cordoned-off.”
2) Omg! you’re like sooo over it.
3) eww-a!
4) What’s the deal and why aren’t you running for City Supervisor?
bstewart23: The photos, Eric. It’s the photos that hold me back.
Oh, god, I work in a building on the Bloor part of the blue fences of the Bloor St. Beautification Project, and it’s hell. I almost get hit by a car every day crossing the street, and a few weeks ago, I had to watch some poor guy trying to make a huge delivery to the next-door restaurant, except he went down the wrong unmarked blue-fence corridor. The sidewalk was so bad that he kept dropping the big wheel of cheese from on top of his cart. (Avoid cheese dishes at the restaurant above the Spotted Dick, BTW.)
I did attend the ceremonial wrecking in the summer and heard the tacky condo PR woman describe the 1 Bloor corner as the “Manhattan of Toronto,” though. I’m half-American, and even I was offended.
Every time I try to read this post I am thwarted from proceeding beyond the title by the absolute beauty of the phrase, ‘Glittering shithole.’ Honestly, you could have posted a single photo of a cotton plant after that and I would have been delighted. Somewhere in Bizarro World there’s got to be a plantation near Savannah with this phrase for its name.
(“Howdy Y’all! Welcome to Glittering Shithole!”)
Ugh. What ever happened to this city? So much promise squandered. All that’s left are the cigarette butts uncovered by the melting snow. Will that condo even be built now that every thing has gone down the tubes or will it remain a barren eyesore for the next decade?
[...] done lately? We haven’t visited Toronto’s Yonge/Bloor district — aka the “Glittering Shithole of Toronto-the-Shabby” — lately. So, hey, let’s [...]
Holy shit, do you ever have a positive day in your life?…..Every other city the size of this city is perfect, much cleaner, and everyone does a better job than Toronto does….you’ve got it all figured out, so go run for mayor
[...] wounded my psyche on a daily basis was nonetheless intact. The development of 1 Bloor, of which I have previously written, teetered dangerously in the direction of dissolving and was offered a last-minute reprieve, albeit [...]