Category: wanderings

Spidey has it covered

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Spider-Man covers the lawn

One of my neighbours has found a new use for those giant vinyl outdoor ads that frequently grace the sides of large buildings and the pages of illegalsigns.ca: landscape fabric. He’s cut up this Spider-Man sign to provide some cover for his lawn. Spidey never looked so good.

I haven’t caught anyone at home during the week I’ve been walking and cycling past this sight, so I don’t yet know the full story behind the unusual re-use. Time will tell if it’ll end up as the base layer of a new garden. In the meantime, I’ll smile at the poetic justice of dozens of neighbourhood dogs peeing on what was likely an illegally-posted sign in its day.

Alternative title for this post: Christo in Toronto redux.

Update, June 13: Sometime between 5:30 last night and 8:30 this morning, Spidey was removed from the lawn and rolled up in the driveway. No word yet on whether he’ll be back to fight another day or if his lawnfighting days are behind him.

Smart cop, green cop

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There’s a new sheriff in town, and he sure looks Smart

I saw this Smart police car in action on McCaul on the weekend, not too long after it was added to the fleet. The parking enforcement officer was merrily writing tickets a little further up the street.

Add a loudspeaker and some long eyelashes over the headlights, and this Fortwo would make a better police spokescar than Blinky ever was, that’s for sure.

This month’s The Badge (page 6, PDF) reports that Parking Enforcement is also testing a Civic Hybrid as part of its fuel-efficient fleet.

You are caught

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You are caught thinking about killing anyone you want

This little plaque on the facade of 778 King Street West, just west of Tecumseth, has intrigued me for years. Either it’s wrong, or there are a lot of angry people walking along King Street.

It seems that this is the work of an American artist named Jenny Holzer, as part of a collection of works called Survival. That said, I don’t know if this is an original installation, a reproduction, or merely an homage.

Wayfinding in the Don Valley

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A wayfinding sign in the Don Valley points the (wrong) way

I noticed this beautiful new wayfinding sign in E.T. Seton Park today, just behind the Ontario Science Centre. It’s everything you could want in a sign: bright and easy to read with clear directions. Unfortunately, it’s backwards. The “south” arrow is pointing north, and the “north” arrow is pointing south. Oops. It was probably meant to be mounted on the other side of this post or on one of the still-signless posts nearby. I guess it was a long day for the sign-installing crew.

An older wayfinding sign in the Don Valley points the (wrong) way

The older sign above, just metres away from the first, doesn’t fare much better. It points the way to Don Mills Road, but directs lost souls up a pathway that was removed and barricaded after being replaced by a nearby link.

Path closed

Scarborough's Tower

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Many cities around the world have their own versions of the CN Tower. Seattle has the graceful Space Needle, Calgary has the creatively-named Calgary Tower, Rotterdam has the squat Euromast, and even Niagara Falls has the Skylon. Yet despite the best efforts of all of the imitators, several of which are such fierce competitors that they copied our own CN Tower years before it was even conceived, none of them are quite as towery as the original.

But I didn’t realize until I rode by the other day that Scarborough also has its own version of the CN Tower near Lawrence & Galloway:

Scarborough Tower

It’s not quite as grand as the others and it lacks a revolving restaurant, but it makes up for those shortcomings with a healthy coating of rust and a certain suburban je ne sais quois.

I frequently see antennae of various descriptions perched atop water towers, but this is by far the largest such specimen that I’ve encountered.

Two things you don't see every day

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1) Canoeists on the Don River:

Paddling the Don, May 2007

2) A cyclist crossing the DVP (and not getting killed in the process):

Cyclist crossing the DVP

Both of these pictures were taken at about the same time, looking north from the Queen Street bridge. The first was made possible by the annual Paddle the Don event. The second came courtesy of the weekend closure of the Parkway. This guy had actually been riding northbound (in the southbound lanes!) but was chased  over the barrier and off the highway by a works crew that passed him a few seconds before I took his picture. Hey dude! The Ride for Heart is next month.

Offroad streetcar

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An old PCC in Pickering

I always hear about old streetcars sitting out in farmers’ fields or doing duty as storage sheds in the middle of nowhere, but I’d never seen one for myself until this past weekend. This one is on Finch Ave in Pickering, just east of Scarborough-Pickering Town Line.

I would have gotten in closer for some pictures, but the place was plastered with ‘no trespassing’ signs and there was no one around for me to ask about it. I assume that they’re tired of having transit and photo geeks crawling all over their property, but what do they expect with a rusting old PCC sitting in their front yard?