Cabbagetown Toronto

There is a small business district along Parliament Street.

Photos taken in October 2017

I thought Cabbagetown was charming, with very well-preserved Victorian houses.  Each small front yard was full of shrubs & trees. Riverdale Farm is at the eastern edge of Cabbagetown in Riverdale Park.  Both are worth visiting in Toronto. Cabbagetown is the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in North America, according to the Cabbagetown Preservation Association.  I lived in San Francisco (in 2 Victorian houses) & the area filled with Victorian architecture is much larger, although perhaps not perfectly continuous.  I was disappointed with the limited extent of Cabbagetown, but it was quite charming.

The extent of Victorian architecture was once much greater.  But the neighborhood deteriorated as housing aged & it became one of Toronto's largest slums.  Much of the original Cabbagetown was razed in the late 1940s & replaced with housing projects.  I walked through an area of public housing along Parliament Street. It wasn’t decrepit or threatening, but dull & bleak, like much of the architecture of that period. The construction of large housing projects ended in the 1970s, as Cabbagetown began to gentrify.  Houses there are quite expensive now.

Cabbagetown was first established in the 1840s, as a suburb of Toronto. Its main thoroughfares were Parliament Street & Winchester Street. At the east end of Winchester Street, Playter’s Bridge linked developing areas east of the Don River to Toronto. Cabbagetown developed along those streets. One of Toronto’s oldest cemeteries (the Necropolis) opened on Winchester Street in 1850.

When Irish immigrants settled in Cabbagetown in the 1840s & 1850s, they often planting vegetables (especially cabbages) on the land around their homes. Cabbagetown was a derisive name used to mock that practice. Cabbagetown began to deteriorate in the early 20th century. Most of  Cabbagetown had been built by 1900. Significant decline came before the Depression.

Graffiti Alley Toronto

Photos taken in October 2017

I walked up Spadina Avenue from the waterfront to Graffiti Alley in the Fashion District. That was quite a sight. There was a huge amount of artistic graffiti, more than I had ever seen in one place. People were in the alley taking photos, or on photo shoots. Artists were making graffiti. It was a lively scene, which continued out onto West Queen Street.

Graffiti art was first legalized in Graffiti Alley.  Legalization was promoted by the Queen Street West Business Improvement Association. Property owners in the area didn't want to be compelled by the city to remove graffiti art. The Business Improvement Association pointed to the cultural significance of Graffiti Alley & its popularity with tourists. All of Rush Lane south of Queen Street West from John Street to Bathurst Street was designated as an area of municipal significance in the Graffiti Management Plan adopted by Toronto City Council in 2011.

Graffiti art & graffiti vandalism are different things in Toronto. Individuals &  businesses must remove graffiti vandalism on their property.  Graffiti art is planned & does not need to be removed. The City of Toronto defines graffiti vandalism as "One or more letters, symbols, figures, etching, scratches, inscriptions, stains, or other markings that disfigure or deface a structure or thing, howsoever made or otherwise affixed on the structure or thing, but, for greater certainty, does not include an art mural." Graffiti art is a "mural for a designated surface and location that has been deliberately implemented for the purpose of beautifying the specific location."

Toronto Waterfront or Harbourfront

Harbour Plaza Residences (65 and 69 story condominium towers) at center of photo

    

The CN Tower (at center right) is Toronto's most well-known landmark.

Photos taken in October 2017

To access the Toronto Waterfront, also called Harbourfront, requires passing under the monstrously ugly Gardiner Expressway, completed in 1963. We had our own eyesore, elevated highway in my hometown of Seattle, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, along the waterfront from 1953 until its demolition in 2019. They were & are still common in many US cities. Gardiner Expressway has been the subject of several proposals to demolish it as part of downtown waterfront revitalization efforts. I hope that happens.

The first thing I noticed about the Toronto Waterfront was the many residential towers as high as 70 floors. They were both impressive & overwhelming. The next thing I noticed was the string of parks along the water. Some were grassy & some had trees, while others were paved with concrete & boardwalk, or covered in sand. There were restaurants, shops, art galleries, water taxis & rental canoes. The waterfront was very interesting & dynamic. It had certainly been beautified, even if was not entirely beautiful. I enjoyed it.

More about the Waterfront
Harbourfront is the area along the Toronto waterfront extending from Bathurst Street to Yonge Street along Queens Quay. Its northern boundary is the Gardiner Expressway. Federal government lands to the south of Queen's Quay include a community center, Toronto Fire Department station, various boating uses, parkland & Harbourfront Centre. To the north of Queen's Quay, all of the industrial lands along the street have been replaced with condominium towers.

Harbourfront Centre, filled with galleries & performance spaces, is located at the foot of Lower Simcoe Street. There are 4 craft studios: ceramics, glass, metal and textiles. The studios began in 1974, providing new craft artists with subsidized work spaces at the beginning of their careers. Harbourfront hosts arts & cultural events every summer, including craft fairs, theater & dance performances, & concerts. Queen's Quay Terminal, next to Harbourfront Centre, is a former warehouse converted into a mixed-use building including stores & restaurants, commercial office space & condominiums.

Some History of the Waterfront
Toronto's harbor was used from the beginning of settlement for shipping & industry. The Town of York was founded west of the Don River, along the waterfront. At that time, the water's edge was where Front Street is now located. The shallow waters of Lake Ontario south of Front Street were covered with landfill, creating piers & room for industrial development.

The Harbourfront project was announced in 1972. It used industrial port lands from York Street west to Bathurst Street, south of Queen's Quay to create a cultural & residential district similar to the Granville Island in Vancouver. The federal government converted industrial land to an area with art galleries, performance spaces, boating areas & parks. The surrounding neighborhood was converted from industrial use to condominium towers by private developers.

There was a major reconstruction of Queen's Quay beginning in 2012. Two car lanes south of the streetcar tracks were eliminated between Spadina Avenue & York Street to extend Harbourfront parkland to the edge of the streetcar tracks. The Martin Goodman Trail (a bicycle path), two rows of trees, benches & a wider pedestrian space were installed there.

Toronto Architectural Juxtapositions

Historic Yonge Street Heritage Conservation District

Yonge Street. See this modern high-rise below at full height.

Yonge Street with heritage buildings in foreground

Yonge Street with heritage buildings in foreground

Bathurst Street at Bloor Street.  The 2 brick buildings at left (793 & 795 Bathurst) are on the Heritage Register. B-streets Condos at right (783 Bathurst) has added 195 units on 8 floors to the Bloor Annex/Koreatown area.

Church Street in the Gay Village with heritage buildings in foreground. Photos taken in October 2017.

Toronto's construction boom of the 2010s has led to some startling architectural juxtapositions.  The huge difference in heights made me wonder about zoning & city planning in Toronto.  This doesn't happen in my hometown of Seattle.  I've rarely seen it in other cities.  It has happened in Toronto due to a combination of high population growth, the protection of older buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act, & the Official Plan for land use promoting greater density from high-rise residential buildings within the historic urban core.   

Toronto has designated 4,500 buildings under the Ontario Heritage Act. (Seattle has designated only 439 buildings as landmarks subject to protection by city ordinance.)  There are a large number of buildings on the Heritage Register fronting Yonge Street, while the properties just behind them are not preserved from development. Both sides of Yonge Street from Bloor Street to Carlton Street were in the process of becoming a Heritage Conservation District in 2017 when I was there.

Population Growth & Density

No other city in North America has added so many high-rise buildings as Toronto during the 2010s. The building boom was a response to historically low levels of development after the last major wave of the 1990s. Many of the new towers were condominiums, reflecting the growing appeal of inner city living, which offers easy access to work public transit. The city hurtled skyward in this decade, with 65 new condo towers completed in 2016 alone. From 2010 to 2017, more than 250,000 condo units were built.

The Greater Toronto Area was one of the fastest growing regions in North America in the 2010s due  mainly to immigration. Statistics from the 2011 census showed that Toronto increased by 9.2 per cent from the previous census in 2006. The challenge in the housing market was supply rather than demand & many buyers found it difficult to find a home. Policy-makers & many others favored "intensification" as a more sustainable & appealing alternative to sprawl. At less than half the density of New York City, Toronto had room for increased residential density. Toronto’s official plan designated about 85% of the city as small scale residential. Downtown areas where transit, parks & services were already established, were able to accommodate intensification most readily.

Land Use Changes

The Official Plan for Toronto sought to reduce reliance on cars by fostering a denser, environmentally sustainable, & more transit-oriented urban realm. The over-arching goal was re-urbanization, a reversal of the expanding suburban sprawl throughout much of the 20th century. The Official Plan identified specific areas where new commercial & residential growth should be encouraged, stipulating that new development should facilitate transit use & pedestrian activity. The Plan also mandated new protections for architectural heritage.

The most conspicuous element of the Official Plan was the creation of high-rise development areas. Increased density throughout downtown Toronto was strongly encouraged, with developers facing fewer legal & bureaucratic roadblocks to high-rise development in the urban core. Together with the robust real estate market, a cultural shift towards urban living, low interest rates, & decreased development charges, the Official Plan helped facilitate Toronto’s downtown construction surge.

Another important element of the Official Plan was an increased emphasis on protecting architectural heritage, & ensuring that new development fit into the urban context around it, including maintaining the visibility of heritage buildings. For most of the 20th century, heritage architecture was destroyed without much regard to its socio-cultural value. Before the Official Plan was enacted, municipalities had little power to prevent the demolition of older buildings. By expanding the Heritage Register & adding new provisions to protect the urban context around these buildings, the Plan provided legal criteria for the designation & maintenance of heritage properties. These policies made the destruction of heritage properties much more difficult.

Heritage Buildings Preservation

Heritage Conservation Districts protect & manage change within historic neighborhoods to maintain their heritage value & character. They reflect the historic significance & community heritage values of an area. They are evaluated by heritage professionals, planners, urban designers & archaeologists, sometimes with the help of volunteers & community members. They contribute to quality of life & the Toronto’s competitive edge, reinforce identity, create self awareness & promote social cohesion. They have history & character that contribute to a strong sense of place. They are an important tool for creating a high-growth environment.

Every potential Heritage Conservation District is evaluated by a set of criteria to determine if it demonstrates cultural heritage value. The Criteria are: The district has design value or physical value; The district has historical value or associative value; The district has contextual value; The district has social value or community value; The district has natural value or scientific value. If an area meets any one of these criteria, it is considered significant, however most Heritage Conservation Districts meet more than one criterion.

Helleborus foetidus

Photos above taken in January 2018

 

Photos above taken in March 2018.  All photos are from my garden.

Helleborus foetidus (Stinking Hellebore) has worked exceptionally well in my dry, lightly shaded garden in Seattle.  There is moderate to fairly steep slope, so the plants are never in standing water.  A 50-foot tall Fraxinus oregana (Oregon Ash) extends sparse branches, 20 feet above ground level, over the area.  My 15 hellebores, scattered randomly, make quite a show from January through March.  The foliage is attractive all year.  The plant is called the stinking hellebore, because of the odor of its crushed leaves.  I've never noticed the odor.  It's a needlessly off-putting name.  I took seedlings no more than 5 inches tall from another garden where they were plentiful.  Those seedlings grew to their mature height (2 to 3 feet) within 3 years.  The plants continue to expand laterally as the number of stalks increase.  This is a long-lived perennial.  The stalks die after blooming & setting seed.  New stalks grow to replace them & bloom the next year.  The green or chartreuse flowers are attractive to insects, especially bees.  The leaves are dark green, but leaves, stalks & flowers are sometimes tinted red. The Wester Flisk Group of Helleborus foetidus is reliably reddish.  I suppose that my plants may be descendants of that group.  Helleborus foetidus is native to the mountainous regions of Central and Southern Europe, Greece & Turkey.

Columbia City Seattle

Angeline Apartments, the largest building in Columbia City

1890s apartment building in the Landmark District

1920s apartment building, now a hotel in the Landmark District

2010s houses

The Columbia City Theater (cream building at right) in the Landmark District was built in 1917 for vaudeville acts.

GreenHouse Apartments

2010s townhouses.  Photos above taken in November 2017

 1910s & 1920s houses

Ark Lodge Cinemas (Masonic Building constructed 1921) in the Landmark District

Bikeworks (store built in 1900) in the Landmark District

1890s houses

Columbia Branch, The Seattle Public Library & Columbia Park. The landmark 1915 building (at far left) is the smallest of the Carnegie libraries built in Seattle.

Click here for more photos of Columbia City.

Columbia City is a neighborhood, urban village, business district, landmark district & National Register Historic District in SE Seattle. There is confusion over the extent of Columbia City. Boundaries that appear on internet maps correspond with the Seattle City Clerk's Geographic Indexing Atlas.  The City of Seattle has no official neighborhood boundaries.  Hillman City & Rainier Vista are often lumped in with Columbia City.  As a longtime area resident, I think Columbia City is contained by 48th Ave S on the east, Martin Luther King Jr Way S on the west, S Brandon St on the south, S Alaska St on the north & the 3 blocks between S Alaska St, S Oregon St, 33rd Ave S & Rainier Ave S.

The City of Seattle designated the Columbia City Residential Urban Village in 1994. Those boundaries correspond roughly with those given above, except for the addition of Rainier Vista & the S Genesee St Business District along Rainier Avenue where it connects to the North Rainier Hub Urban Village.  Residential urban villages provide a focus of goods and services for residents & surrounding communities, but not a concentration of employment. Columbia City includes low-rise multifamily with townhouses, apartment buildings & commercial zones.  

The Columbia City Landmark District is one of 8 historic districts in Seattle. It is a collection of commercial buildings, churches, apartments & houses. It covers a relatively small area along Rainier Ave S in the heart of Columbia City. Restricted to 8 blocks & partial blocks on both sides of Rainier Ave S, it includes more than 40 historic buildings. The area preserves the small town atmosphere of the 1890s & early 1900s. The landmark district was designated in 1978 & was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Columbia City was incorporated in 1893, then annexed by Seattle in 1907.  In the early days, economic activity was limited mostly to logging & the lumber mill (the 1st business built in Columbia City) on the NW corner of Rainier Ave S & S Brandon St. The Seattle, Renton & Southern Railway reached Columbia City in 1890, when the area was still densely forested.  Columbia City shipped surplus lumber to Seattle, but much of Columbia City's lumber was used to build in & around Columbia City. From 1900 to 1907, Columbia City grew rapidly. Many of existing buildings in the landmark district were built then.

Columbia City was named after Christopher Columbus. Streets were named after the famous explorers Ferdinand Magellan (S Ferdinand St) Henry Hudson (S Hudson St) & Amerigo Vespucci (S Americus St). Lots were sold beginning in April 1891, shortly after regular railway service began. In 1892, the town had more than 40 residences, a town hall, a school with 75 students, a post office, 2 churches, a park, various stores & trains to Seattle every 30 minutes.

Huron National Forest Corsair Trail

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (kinnikinnick or bearberry) has a circumboreal distribution, growing around the world in northern latitudes.

Pinus banksiana (jack pine) predominates on more than one million acres of forest in Michigan.

Vaccinium vitis-idaea (Lingonberry) is also circumboreally distributed.

Quercus (oak). There are a dozen species of oak in Michigan.  Quercus alba (white oak) & Quercus rubra (red oak) are most common in this area.

Pantherophis vulpinus (eastern fox snake) is found in the upper Midwestern United States, east of the Mississippi river.

Pinus banksiana (jack pine)

The Lumberman's Monument.  Photos taken in October 2017

Click here for more photos of the Corsair Trail.

In the Huron National Forest, we hiked the Corsair Trail for 2.5 hours. The forest was very quiet & stunningly beautiful. It was filled mostly with pine & oak trees, plus many understory plants. The forest was replanted by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression of the 1930s, helping it recover from the devastation of the timber industry from 1870 to 1900. I saw many plants I recognized & a few that also grow in Washington. I had bought a field manual of Michigan flora before I left Seattle, but it was too big to carry with me.  I almost stepped on a fox snake, which then lay motionless on the trail. After we finished the hike, we drove to the Lumberman’s Monument, where we saw interpretive displays about logging & lumberjacks. The Corsair Trail system has 28 miles of trail that varies from gently rolling to somewhat hilly terrain. The system was developed primarily for cross-country skiing.  But the trails may be hiked anytime during the snow-free periods.