There goes the neighbourhood (part 7)

Too whacked tonight to do much more than post this picture, taken two days ago of the current state of construction of the two houses on the Woburn side. Not my best photographic effort, but the better camera is still ailing. More later, but ... must...sleep.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 6)

Good Lord, but I haven't posted anything about the corner house(s) since March! I took this picture 10 days ago, and it's way, way out of date already. You can see here that they've added "bricks" to the house on the Jedburgh side, but that has progressed well beyond this point, and the house on the very corner on the Woburn side is looking quite "bricked" these days too.


And to think that grand old corner house was demolished only six months ago. Time is money! Gotta get these babies sold. Millions are at stake!

There goes the neighbourhood (part 5)

What a difference three weeks makes! I predict that these houses will be finished by May, occupied in June and resold in July, demolished in August and construction of FIVE new houses on this very site will begin in January 2009.

I'm back

To my many fans around the world (most are courtesy of Sparky Donatello at crackskullbob.squarespace.com ), I am sorry for the quietude on this blog for the last 10 days or more. I have been away, covering a conference in Phillydelphia for my day job. I promise, however, to bring you, in the coming days, an update on the house at the end of the street, thoughts on the renaming of the New York Public Library and, best of all, pictures of some of the disappearing gargoyles of Philadelphia.

Just not tonight. But this weekend. I shit you not.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 4)

Somehow, in this very cold, very snowy winter, the foundations have been laid and the framing has begun in earnest for the three houses that are going to replace what used to be a single, large house on the corner of Woburn and Jedburgh here in North Toronto.
Here's the framing from the Jedburgh side:

I guess the framers got a little peeved with me shooting so much, so one of them pulled out his cell phone and started taking pictures of me. I smiled and waved.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 3)

When I got home from work on Tuesday evening, I was surprised to see that even this little bit of the House on the Corner was still standing. I don't know why they couldn't finish the job on Tuesday.
When I arrived home on Wednesday, the lot was empty. I wasn't surprised.
But even the backhoe was gone. The flatbed had come, loaded up the backhoe and drove off ... no doubt to the next demolition site. And they seem to have taken their portable loo with them.


CORRECTION: The portable loo is still there. It just didn't show up in the picture.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 2)

On Saturday, the backhoe landed with much noise, arriving as it did on a flatbed. There was a great cacaphonous chorus of backing-up beeping announcing its arrival—which was actually a help, I suppose, as it was the signal for me to get my camera.

Here you can kind of see that the front door has been removed, possibly sold to an architectural salvage firm. This view adds to the eeriness, though, because the interior stairs, bannister and railing make it so clear that someone lived here relatively recently.
On Monday morning, the garage was levelled and the upper right part of the house had been demolished.
I fully expected to find only an empty lot when I arrived home from work on Tuesday, but there's still a bit left—probably because piles of brick and whatnot had to be carted off before any more could be torn down. So if I get up early on Wednesday, I'll have another picture of the last bits of this house.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 1)

This corner house (before the fence) was the grand entrance to our stretch of Woburn Avenue in North Toronto. It was listed for sale in the Fall of 2006 thusly: "100 WOBURN AVE, TORONTO, Ontario - $1,300,000 — Large Gracious Traditional 2&3/4 Storey Centre Hall 5 Bdrm Brick Family Home. Double Garage With 2nd Floor. Extra Large Lot. 1 Blk To Subway. Opposite Parks. Walk To Wanless & Bedford Pk Schools, & Yonge St Shops…"
It sold about a year ago and its demolition has begun in earnest.

I took these pictures in the August and November of 2007 ( although I intended to start sooner, before the fence went up), to document the decontextualized destruction of a sense of neighbourhood. This grand old house is going to be replaced by three — count 'em: three — townhouses, which you can read about here, here and here.
You'll note that while the asking price for the original house was
$1.3-million, the listed prices for the three that will replace it total about $4-million.
Sometime in November, the tree was taken down, and in the last week or 10 days, the front door disappeared.
Today, some heavy equipment was moved onto the site. Pictures to follow.
So continues the stucco-ification and shoe-horning of North Toronto residential neighbourhoods.
To be continued.