Wakestock Photos

Yeah, I'm old and boring and didn't go to Wakestock. But I noticed Wordfreak has a pretty good Wakestock Photoset on flickr. Here's a few photos from it:

Wakestock Day 3 Spree: The Deftones, originally uploaded by Word Freak.

Wakestock Day 3 Spree: Goldfinger Fans Mosh It Up, originally uploaded by Word Freak.

Wakestock Day 3 Spree: Reef Bikini Contest, originally uploaded by Word Freak.

Parkdale Posters

Parkdale Posters, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Queen Street and Jameson

University of Toronto

University of Toronto, originally uploaded by Melsky.

The contrast of old and new buildings - this is the University of Toronto along College Street.

Winter Garden Theater

Winter Garden Theater, originally uploaded by Ride My Pony.

A beautiful theatre! Amazing lighting in this photo.

The Burning Bush

The Burning Bush, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I think it's just a Japanese maple. At any rate, it's not issuing any commandments or anything.

Subway

Subway, originally uploaded by dave_in_t_o.

Long shot of emergency service vehicles

Long shot of emergency service vehicles, originally uploaded by Gavatron.

Bellair and Bloor Streets

Mysterious Street Art

Mysterious Street Art, originally uploaded by Melsky.

A cardboard cut out silhouette of a man and a vine placed on a wall behind the Salvation Army store on Bloor Street by an unknown artist.

One of the things I enjoy about my walks in Toronto is seeing all the street art that gets put up. This particular one has been up for over a week.

Center For Addiction and Mental Health Expansion

Center For Addiction and Mental Health Expansion, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Priestly demolition always makes me think of a bunch of angry priests with crucifixes and hammers.

This is the expansion of what use to be called the mental hospital and is now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health or CAMH.

Funny Statues

Funny Statues, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Dog-like creatures in a herd in a series of statues. This is downtown. People sit on them!

Abandoned church being torn down for condos becomes the teen drinking spot

Abandoned church being torn down for condos becomes the teen drinking spot, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is on Shaw Street in Little Italy. At first when I saw this site over a year ago I thought they were incorporating the church in their condo building. I guess not. it's almost all torn down and the site is a mess with broken bottles and graffiti. It doesn't seem like the condo building is proceeding very well, at this rate the market may crash and recover again before they are done.

Narrow light

Narrow light, originally uploaded by wvs.

Great light and clouds in this photo taken Queen's Park by wvs from Flickr.

A Glorious July Day

A Glorius July Day, originally uploaded by Melsky.

The weather this summer has been great. We have barely put the AC on at all.

Have a Nice Day

, originally uploaded by End User.

The Great Toronto Fire

The Great Toronto Fire, originally uploaded by gbalogh.

It's funny, I've seen the side of this mural many times but never knew it continued on the back of the building until I saw this photo.

Mourning Mirvish

Mourning Mirvish, originally uploaded by fermata.daily.

Memorial set up outside Honest Ed's department store.

Strangers On A Train

Strangers On A Train, originally uploaded by DanielN.

Good Morning

Good Morning, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Sunrise from third floor deck in West Toronto.

RIP Honest Ed Mirvish

Honest Ed died this morning at 92. He was one of Toronto's most famous characters, a showman and a retailer. He's on the left in this photo.

honest ed and mr. t, originally uploaded by mdintoronto.

He was the founder and proprietor of the famed Honest Ed's Bargain Emporium at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor in the annex.

The store is huge and intentionally gaudy and silly. It has huge signs and many lights. Many people think it's an eyesore. I think it's kind of cool.

Honest Ed's, originally uploaded by gailatlarge.com.

Honest Ed grew up in a retail family. He started out in a grocery store on Dundas Street, then had a business selling women's dresses. But women's dresses were kind of a pain to sell. If you don't stock exactly the right styles and sizes you will have merchandise left over, and it's time intensive to wait on customers. So Ed decided to get into the closeout business. It's much easier to just open a box of stuff and have people serve themselves than it is to sell clothing. Though now Honest Ed's sells clothing too.

Pants , belts & a beautiful handcarved chinese mirror, originally uploaded by gin-star.

The Chinese Antiques are from a Chinese restaurant he used to own. I love that you can buy cheap clothing in bins and amazing antiques in the same room.

He also owns many theatres, and theatrical photos and memorabilia lavishly decorate his store. He owned Honest Ed's before he owned the theatres. He never actually set out to be a theatrical magnate - he bought his first theatre, the Princess of Wales, because it was such a bargain he couldn't pass it up.

Honest Ed's is the sort of place where you never know what you will find. It's a good place to buy Toronto souvenirs, dishes, seasonal items, kitchen stuff, small appliances, hardware and tacky home decor items like gilded busts of Elvis.

Elvis... in good humour, originally uploaded by iamterris.

Honest Ed threw a birthday party for himself each year. He would have been 93 in just a few weeks.

I learned all this about Honest Ed by reading his biography

How to build an Empire in an Orange Crate, or 121 Lessons I Never Learned in School. It seems to be out of print, I had checked it out of the Toronto Public Library.

You can find out more about him at Honest Ed's Web Page

Honest Ed's Obituary

Good bye Honest Ed, you made Toronto a little more fun.

honest-eds-23.jpg, originally uploaded by Monstro Wolfhard.

honest-eds-24.jpg, originally uploaded by Monstro Wolfhard.

Rose Garden at the Height of Summer

Rose Garden at the Height of Summer, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Toronto has some very beautiful gardens.

Toronto Afrofest 2007

afrofest16, originally uploaded by suresh.doss.

Check out this great slide show by Suresh Doss on Afrofest with music by Babatunde Olatunji. The festival celebrates the food, music, dance and culture of the Continent of Africa.

It's a festival that I did not attend, due to the fact we had an open house both days at our apartment. I would have rather gone to Afrofest. Especially the food looks great. I guess I'm hungry right now.

Harry's Shoe Repair

Harry's Shoe Repair, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a cool old storefront on Bloor Street that is still in business.

Toronto, July 2, 2007

Toronto, July 2, 2007, originally uploaded by jimmyboca2001.

St. James Cathedral - thanks for correction in comments

This is not one of my photos. I had to put it in the blog because it just screamed Toronto to me, with the streetcar and the old church, the streetcar wires in front of the sky.

Path Through Dufferin Grove Park

Path Through Dufferin Grove Park, originally uploaded by Melsky.

A magical summer evening in the park.

Unusual Garden

Unusual Garden, originally uploaded by Melsky.

These people have created a structure in their front garden and hung plants, stuffed animals and flags on it.

Click on the photo to see it on flickr where you can enlarge it. It's really not that interesting small.

I wonder if this bugs their neighbours.

The Tulip Original Steak House on Queen Street East.

The Tulip, originally uploaded by The Oldie.

The Tulip

1606 Queen E, Toronto ON, M4L1G2

Phone: (416) 469-5797

The Tulip is kind of a Toronto institution - one of those places that has been there forever.

My husband and I went on a long walk from our home in West Toronto to Riverdale, on the east side of the city. First we walked around the Chinatown East area around Gerrard and Broadview, but we didn't really feel like eating Asian food that night so we headed down to Queen Street to Leslieville. There's a bunch of trendy new restaurants there, but I wasn't sure I was cool enough to eat in any of them, let alone that we could afford it. Then we came across the Tulip and I knew where we were eating.

I had read about the Tulip online and decided it was somewhere we should go. It's a traditional steakhouse that's been there for a long time. It has a very casual look to it, more of a diner in appearance than the more opulent surroundings I usually think of in a steakhouse.

Are you a vegetarian? If so, then don't go here. Don't bring your vegetarian friends unless you want to make them miserable. I think even the air has tiny meat particles floating around in it. There's certainly not much on the menu for them. Even the Caesar salad I ordered (3.950 had bacon on it, which I've never seen on a Caesar salad before.

My husband ordered the weekend special, Minced Sirloin with Spanish Sauce (a very reasonable 7.95). His comment: Good, but salty gravy. I ordered the Black Angus New York Cut Sirloin (19.25) It was good. A solid value traditional steak dinner from the 1950s without any bells or whistles I would say.

Service was great. The waiter was attentive but not over attentive. The food came pretty quickly, but not so quick that we thought they had it sitting around in the kitchen under a heat lamp. They brought our check promptly when asked. Best of all, my husband realized he forgot his wallet and when I went back they were already trying to call our house to tell us.

I'm not in a hurry to go back to this place. It's good and I'm glad we went for the experience. But I wasn't dying to go back and try other things on the menu.

It's the sort of place that fills up and has a line to get in, especially at brunch.

It also has a comically bad web page with tons of misspelled words, broken code and images that don't show up. Eggs Bebdict - LOL! They even have a promotional video that's not doing a very good job of promoting their restaurant. I couldn't get the video to play when I clicked on it, so I right clicked on it, chose save target as, and then viewed it on winamp when it downloaded.

We were lucky enough to get a table in the window. These are the stickers in the window from local publications saying it's a good place to eat. The earliest one is from 1995. You can click on the photo to see it larger.

Yes, that is a sex shop across the street, so if your dinner date goes well you can stop there afterwards.

City Pulse Truck

City Pulse Truck, originally uploaded by covered filth.

Say bye-bye! This truck through the wall artwork/sign/whatever is scheduled to be moved from Queen Street.

Update: Due to the fact that there's no release lever to get the truck out easily and how complex the structure is, it's going to stay for the foreseeable future.

Humminbird Centre

Humminbird Centre, originally uploaded by Melsky.

But not for long, the city of Toronto is going to sell the naming rights to the highest bidder.

Downtown Construction

Construction, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Seen from the roof of the Royal York - I think this is right near Union Station. You can see the lake in the background.