Kensington

We had lunch at Kos in Kensington Market, Saturday. Then across the street to This Aint' the Rosedale Library, one of our beloved independent bookstores.

Charlie, the owner, was at the desk.

Elegant as ever.

Then we slipped down to Queen Video. New construction across the street.

Back at home I swept and mopped the tile floors, displacing some furniture.

Bill took this picture during Earth Hour.

New Toronto Architecture

Toronto enjoys a wealth of historic architecture but we also have some delightful, sometimes controversial new structures. For instance, architect, Santiago Calatrava's soaring Allen Lambert Galleria (1992) at BCE Place (above) and the exploding shoe box of the Bata Shoe Museum (1995) by Raymond Moriyama (below).

These new buildings all seem to be imbued with a sense of fun and playfulness. Look at Will Alsops' outrageous design for the Sharp Centre for Design (2004) and the anthropomorphic Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (2004) at the University of Toronto by Peter Clewes.

Bill loves the long, lean columns on the porch of the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at the U of Toronto as envisioned by Norman Foster and Partners.

And how could we end our little tour of Toronto's new architecture without mentioning Daniel Libeskind's design for the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal (2007) which cascades from the original building of the Royal Ontario Museum toward Bloor Street... 

or Frank Gehry's re-thinking of the Art Gallery of Ontario (2008) with it's ship-like, glass and wooden facade along Dundas Street. 

All fun additions to the city!

Before Spring Arrives

Spring seems about to arrive in Toronto after a very mild winter. Bill has been riding around the downtown core lately trying to catch some of the architecture both residential and institutional that tend to be hidden behind foliage as soon as Spring rebirth begins. Above is the York Club on Bloor and below the original home of Anansi Press on Spadina Ave.

Likewise the Victorian painted ladies on Kensington Ave and the old Orange Lodge on College will soon be hidden beneath the spring growth.

Lastly, the entrance to Emmanuel College on University Ave and the neo-Gothic details of the Metropolitan United Church on Queen East will soon be obscured by lush planting.

Typical lunch

History books are migrating at the Toronto Reference Library.

Newsprint on Yonge Street (NOW weekly)

The Salad House. I like the Cobb Salad for $4.20. Best kept secret!

A Day with Reta

Boarding the bus to St. Kitts

Bill arrives at her door

Reta's in fine form

Weather is sunny and cold after light snow

Late afternoon. Time to close the vertical blinds.

Beautiful light on the plant stand and doily

The lights were gleaming on the ice when we walked back to the bus station at the end of the day.