Stroll to Work, part ii - and the inner sanctum of Brouhaha...

Hi all:

When last we met with our intrepid heroine (to wit, me) she was on her way to work and was just about to cross Spadina. But you must bear with me for a brief craftual pause.

She then mysteriously got transported to The 49th Dimension, where she was able to finish (finally!) this blanket:

Another stashbusting project - the Ugly Argyle Repurposed Sweater Blankie. It started life as an argyle sweater in progress. An argyle sweater, mind you, with entrelace seed stitch and stockingnette stitch panels. What the hell was I thinking! I hated this knit from minute one - to top it off for some reason it ended up looking like about five sizes too big... so I shoved it into a box where it stayed lo these many years (at least five or six).

I rediscovered it recently, and decided to start a log cabin border. This got tiresome very quickly so I decided to crochet the rest instead. Finished size approximately 36"x36}! I can't remember what brand of yarn it was - probably Zellers Finest 100% acrylic. The crocheted part is formed of various worsted weight half-balls of wool, cotton, etc from the stash. I don't remember who came up with the pattern.

But where was I? Oh yeah - at Spadina and King. So, I continued along my less than merry way to work - wearing my magic newsboy cap!Extra, extra - read all about it!!

Stop digressing, Kristina! SIGH. When crossing Spadina westward toward my office, this is the first thing I see:

Another ad for a proposed condo building. Quelle surprise. What a high falutin' name for a condo complex, though....

But check out the young woman in the ad sipping her latte! She surely has no recollection of the days of austerity heralded by the "V sign" (neither do I, mind you, but I can read a history book...). Lady - are you looking for a condo here? If so, all those soldiers fighting all those wars have finally made it possible for you to enjoy the lifestyle you'd like to become accustomed to in a unit half the size of this guy's suit closet:


You've come a long way, baby!!!

But hark - I see my office!!!

Oops, wrong office. That would be the "one Friday afternoon every month boardroom" where the tenant advocates meet and discuss highly pressing and sensitive legal issues...

The tenant advocates used to have a different boardroom on the odd Friday afternoon. It was a pub known as Toad in the Hole, and featured a pool table, dart boards, and a quiet, nicely shabby ambiance that spoke of many pleasures past. Now it looks like this:

A condo development in waiting, no doubt.

This stretch of King Street West is a part of our fair city in transition. Thus, you see neighbourhood one-of-a-kind businesses like this:

... within 1/2 block of high falutin' chain shops like this:

If you're looking for a leather jacket, you can probably save yourself $500 by picking one of them. Guess which one?

Having said that, Perfect Leather does not feature these photos of fabulous people with (presumably) very fancy lifestyles in its windows:

I imagine they're all set to move into the Victory condos when they get built three years from now.

(And yes, this is the same place as the Hide House. It used to be called Acton Leather and the first shop was in Acton, Ontario, a sleepy little place northwest of Toronto. Someone must have clued them in along the way that in order to have credibility in Condoland one must rid oneself of any homey type names. But they forgot to remove the logos on the side of the store... which is next door to a Cooper Mini dealership, by the by.)

This "gentrification" (but I prefer the term "condofication" in this area of town, at least) has also affected the character of coffee joints in my work 'hood. In this regard, I'm reminded of one of JJs favourite tunes, Loch Lomond (as performed by Runrig - and highly recommended they are by me as well!). To paraphrase:

Ye'll take the high road...

... and ah'll tek the low...

... and ah'll be a' the Smoke Shop afore ye!

(wi' an extra loonie or so which will pay for mah mid mornin' Diet Coke...)
Guess which coffee shop I frequent?

And, here is another (welcome, to me, anyway) sign that this neighbourhood still retains its less than salubrious characteristics:

A peeler bar!!!

(Ahem, excuse me, a very high end "gentlemen's club"... just ask the Toronto police officer who had recently been alleged of assaulting a dancer there and threatening her with a gun. He had a good reason to be there, mind you. According to both him and his lawyer, they carry delicious chicken wings. I'll never find out, given the $10 cover and $10.00 per bottle of beer... so who am I to judge? The judge and jury must enjoy wings - he was acquitted yesterday.)

Having said that, I see they have an apartment for rent above the club - maybe I should consider moving closer to work!

Then again, maybe not. I only hope that when I return to my Duty Counsel (aka Lawyer of Last Resort) gig at the Landlord and Tenant Board next year that I do not actually wind up seeing the tenant who actually takes this apartment there for an eviction hearing. Here is my speculation on how that conversation would go:

Kristina: So, the landlord says you owe $3,000 rent. Do you?

Tenant: Well, yes... but...

Evil Kristina: But me no buts!!!

Tenant: Eh?

Kristina: Oh, never mind. Why did you fall behind in the rent?

Tenant: Well, there's way too much noise there. The music goes on until four in the morning. I can't sleep. The landlord doesn't care. So, in fact, I don't owe anything at all. My only question is, do I have to pay the $150 filing fee for the landlord's application?

Kristina: Well, it's not as simple as that....(while Evil Kristina whispers, nay... shouts!... "You moved in above a strip club! What the #)($*@#)$(*@)#$(@#* do you expect?!?!?!?"...

And so forth for another 20 minutes or so.

Anyway, time to get to work. I think I've mentioned that, being a very important legal researcher at present controlling lots of highly confidential information, I work in a very high security environment. Even the kitchen is a locked fortress!!

I managed to remember the code to get in (no small feat as it is different from the code to the main entrance... how do you think I keep my girlish figure???) - only to find this on the whiteboard:


Not only had it not been erased since Hallowe'en when the original tribute to my Hallowe'en costume was posted, but there have been embellishments! As you can see, I was so touched that my hands were trembling when I took the above photo. I tried again and got this detail shot:

Hmm. Do you think that this is actually a tribute, or a passive aggressive comment by an anonymous co-worker on my lunacy?

Well, it was then time to stop the analysis and get to work. Off to the Inner Sanctum:

(This sign actually should read "ATTENTION!!!! DO NOT POUND ON THE DOOR MULTIPLE TIMES AS IT DISRUPTS AND FRIGHTENS THE SUPPORT STAFF. YOU WILL BE MADE TO SUFFER VERY DRASTIC AND UNSPEAKABLE TORTURES IF YOU DO NOT SIMPLY RING THIS BELL (ONCE ONLY, PLEASE) INSTEAD" for all the effect the current version of the sign has. Sometimes we Canajans are just way too polite).

By some miracle I remembered the code and got in. And, I can't help but breach our high-level security protocols to give you a peek as to the sign you first see when coming into the office:

NB: for those people south of the 49th or across the Atlantic or Pacific, "L.L.B.O." is Canajan for "Booze Sold Here". I think it's some weird holdback from the days of the British Empire...)

And now you know the real reason that I love coming to work every day!!!

In signing off, here is another picture of the Cabled Newsboy Cap I made a couple of years back (and as you will see, it's not really sepia coloured, although sometimes I certainly look to be so!)I can't remember what brand of wool it was - something soft and non-scratchy. Pattern found in one of the Debbie Stoller books. It was fun and quick to knit.

Oh - and happy birthday, Jamie Lee Curtis! Doesn't she look fab! She doesn't need a newsboy cap to cover her rat's nest... er, hair.

A condo-mnation (Brouhaha's Stroll to Work, part i)

For those of you who don't know me, I live, work and craft in Toronto (not necessarily in that order). This makes me either a Torontonian or a Tranian. Of late, however, I've been wondering if this should be changed to "Condolander".

Why? It takes about ten to fifteen minutes for me to walk from the St. Andrew (the Scots are everywhere!!!) subway station to my office along King Street West. I forgot both my iPod and my crochet when coming to work yesterday - so had to entertain myself in other ways (the fellow commuters did not seem to appreciate my dancing as much as they usually do. Maybe it was the singing...).

By the time I stopped trying to play "human iPod with surround sound speaker system" and started paying attention, this was the first thing I saw en route:

Ah. And just when I had managed to forget I was in Toronto....

But what is this next to it? Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No - but it shares a name with a bird and rhymes with "crane". I'll spare you the guesswork as to my tortured mind. It is a crane (of the sort used for construction).

Don't tell me they're turning the CN Tower into condominiums!!!! Sigh. It was only a matter of time, I suppose. After all, this part of town is prime Condoland.

The Toronto area has 249 projects currently being marketed or in the construction stage, representing 58,000 units, making the city the largest condo site in North America, according to consulting research firm Urbanation.

- "Condo Sales Booming", Toronto Star, 15 November 2007 (Tony Wong, reporter)

Moving right along: when I was a young wee impressionable lassie living in Kingston, Ontario (home of more penitentiaries than any other city in Canada, by the way! and before you ask, I am not an escapee!), I looked so forward to moving to Toronto as I had heard the streets there were paved with gold.

Imagine my surprise and consternation to learn that this was all a pack of lies. Instead, the streets in Toronto are paved with...

Granite.

And, on this topic, can anyone explain to me this "Hall of Fame" phenomenon that leads to enshrining your name and signature for all eternity... on the sidewalk? For my part, when I am rich and famous I assume they will be erecting a big shrine in my honour... not some tatty stone in the ground that looks like those tombstones people buy when they can't afford to (or otherwise don't want to) shell out tens of thousands for an upright monument.

I mean, when did these movie stars all get together and decide "I want my name immortalised on the sidewalk in front of some theatre in Toronto so that everyone can step all over it and throw their cigarette butts and garbage on top of my signature"? I don't get it.

Having said that, I was glad to see one of my favourite comedy troupes commemorated.


SCTV - home of Bob and Doug McKenzie!!. I do hope I haven't stepped on them before, eh? I'm such a hosehead that I'm sure I probably have...

Anyway, it's about time to pull in for some fuel. Shall I go here?

... or here?

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to see a hot dog/sausage stand that is open at 8:00 a.m. Toronto rawks!!

Here is the all-hallowed Metro Hall.

And, in classic Toronto heavy-handed symbolic style, the hot dog cart is located right in front of Metro Hall, where our municipal politicians work (sic?) so hard to keep Toronto the Good going.

Some of them work (sic?) there, anyway - others are banished to another building up on Queen Street West which, just to make things simple, is referred to as City Hall:

Ah, that 70s architecture. Bet you didn't know that there were aliens in Toronto! I wonder if they only send the green politicians there... heh heh heh.

I should hope, however, that none of our City Fathers have been banished to Toronto's Old City Hall.

But, from the look of things down at Metro Hall, perhaps they are intended victims of crime instead?

And - would that be so surprising, really?

Here is the view from the Metro Hall corner:

Another blasted condo development project. I get very depressed every time I see it. I often attend work trainings at Metro Hall (because they give free space and I work for Legal Aid) and have fond memories of staring out the window at the Duke of Argyle pub with the big Keith's banner ("Reluctantly exported from Nova Scotia") - a beacon of light and a place to drag the colleagues after the session for the true educational component - beer, deep fried pepperoni and gossip. Here is the pub sign, already partially hidden by the construction:

Sob.

Right in front of this condo development is this sign:

As usual, my photography skills are sorely lacking (I was balancing a cup of Tim's Finest at the time. Skipped the street meat cart). The first word, you've likely gathered, is meant to be "Transforming".

Well, some of the scenery along this particular stroll certainly transforms the way I see life in Toronto these days...

... and not for the better, I might add.

(And, another (possibly stupid) question of the sort that keeps me awake at night: is there any logic in renaming a street in a major Canadian street after a baseball team?

How 'bout them Leafs, eh??)

But I digress. Here are some more shots of the awe-inspiring transformation of my city:

(Who is moving into all of these places anyway? I keep seeing in the news that every time they open sales for a new condo complex, they have to limit it to three units or less for purchases. I am a lawyer and I live with a well-paid pensioner who also continues working, and we can't afford one, let along four!!)

And an out-and-out eyesore:

A condo sales office! In case you're wondering what "M5Vlife" might mean - join the club. "M5V", however, is the postal code signifier for this area. A postal code life. My father, who spent his life going ballistic whenever anyone made the mistake of asking for his postal code (because he came from a place where you could just put the person's name and town on an envelope and it would reach the intended recipient - after, of course, the rest of the villagers had passed it around...) would not be best pleased.

So, what are the hallmarks of a "postal code life"? Apparently, according to the colourful ads, the following:

(a) Iconoclasm

"They're not really all 500 square foot cubes - some are 800 square feet! And - you can pick either beige or off-beige or white plaster on the drywall!!!"

(a) Green and Clean Living

On a blue background, no less. Are they worried about being dinged for false advertising? Judging from the depth of the hole in which the carpark will be located, they probably should be. Unless, of course, that hole is actually going to house the movie theatre and ballroom...

They have a blog!!! I'm not going to link it as I don't want any competition... but this will give you some idea of the prices:

M10A – 1BD+Den (747sf)

M22A – 1BD+Den (696sf)

M22B - Studio (411sf)

Your opportunity to be the first to buy at King West’s Best Designed and Best Valued Condominium! Prices starting from the low $200’s [emphasis added]!

$205,000 (just to pick a number - what's a few thou between friends?!) for 411 square feet? Why not just rent a storage locker - $100/month and you can rent another one next door to stash all your craft gear!!!

And here's another one I passed just down the way:

The portion to the left resembles the last slum apartment building I was in to try to organize the tenants - except I think in that building the units were bigger.

People who pass by "glas" houses shouldn't throw stones, I suppose. Or, is that "people who live in glass houses? At $200,000 for 400 sq ft. I won't be living in one any time soon - so, I'm good.

And finally, I reach King and Spadina, which brings to an end the first leg of my work-bound tour.


The photo was taken looking south on Spadina from the southeast corner of King. More cranes and new buildings.

This photo will give you an idea of how this intersection looked a century ago (although it is taken at Queen Street, 1 block north, looking south onto Spadina):


And to think that only 30 years or so before that photo was taken (in 1877, to be exact), Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph!!!

Ah, progress. Without it, you wouldn't even be reading this rant (if you're made it this far, that is). But it's a double-edged sword.