Posts Tagged ‘The Beaches’

I put in a request to the Toronto Fire Department for permission to take pictures from the top of the local Firehall’s tower adjacent to Queen and Woodbine in order to take panoramic shots of the local area. This is for a future story in the BTRA newsletter that compares the modern view against that of a panoramic set of shots taken from the Firehall tower shortly after it was built in 1905.

Here are a couple of panoramic views showing the view east from the tower looking towards downtown via Queen Street East:

East Panorama from The Beaches Firehall Tower 1

East Panorama from The Beaches Firehall Tower 2

Compare these to the view from the same vantage point from over a hundred years ago, from a panorama I stitched together taken from shots taken in the tower circa 1905 that were in the Toronto Municipal Archives. You can see the old Woodbine Racetrack, and muddier-looking Queen Street stretching off into a much smaller downtown Toronto core.

East and South Panorama from Beaches Firehall Tower circa 1905

I also took some panoramic shots directly to the south, east and north. Here’s a panoramic shot looking southward:

South Panorama from The Beaches Firehall Tower

Looking westward:

West Panorama from The Beaches Firehall Tower

And looking Northward:

North Panorama from The Beaches Firehall Tower

Unfortunately all of these shots suffer from too many darn trees in the way to properly see the houses and buildings properly. Will have to see if I can request to go up the tower again sometime after the leaves are off of the trees.

I was shown around by local Fireman Mr. Lalonde, who is also an amateur historian who has done a lot of research on the background of the Beaches Firehall. Here he is pointing out some old signatures on the old wooden box that once protected the original clock’s escapement mechanism, with signatures (primarily) of the fireman who worked at the station dating back to the 1910s:

Mr. Lalonde Pointing at Some of the Old Fireman’s Signatures

Firehall Signatures 1

Firehall Signatures 2 (from the 1910s and Later)

One of the more poignant ones was of the fireman who were here at the firehall on 9/11:

Firehall Signatures 3: Firemen Present at the Beaches Firehall on 9/11

While visiting the interiors of the buildings comprising the R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant, there was also a show happening outside of the buildings, as Swallows were building their nests in small nooks near the tops of these buildings. Here are some of the better shots:

Nesting Swallows 1

Nesting Swallows 2

Nesting Swallows 3

Nesting Swallows 4

Nesting Swallows 5

Took a few panoramic shots this morning while down at the beach, and this was my favourite:

Long Contrail Over the Beach

The original is much, much larger, since it is composed of several shots stitched together.

Here are some shots of the initial leaders of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon as they were coming into The Beaches in the east end of Toronto. Here is a selection of shots:

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Mungara at the Front of the Pack Entering The Beaches 2

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Eric and Dylan

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Pacer and Yal

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Dibaba Coming into The Beaches

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Pacer, Abeyo and Chepkemoi Leaving the Beaches

Here’s a gallery of everything I processed, in the order I shot them:

Am heading up to the cottage tomorrow and staying for the weekend, so tonight was my one and only chance to see any of the Streetfest portion of the local Jazz Festival. The “jazz” festival is increasingly a misnomer, since the majority of the bands playing are Blues, Latin or something other than Jazz, but the music is fun, free and good, so what’s there to complain about? Unfortunately one of my favourite bands from last year — Big Rude Jake — was not making a return appearance. Oh well. 🙁

The day had been the hottest so far this summer, hitting a peak at 37C, and with the humidity feeling much hotter. By the time the bands started up things had started to cool down, but it was still hotter than most people would like. So the energy of some of the bands was a bit “muted”. Diablo de Puente was particularly sedate compared to what I had seen them do last year. (Postscript: apparently the people from a local fitness place brought them cold, wet towels for cooling down, and the energy of the band picked up considerably afterwards).

This was the first time I have taken my f/2 200mm telephoto (and my trusty Olympus E-510) to the festival, and I wanted to see how it would perform in the relatively low light conditions you get after the sun goes down/the music starts up. On the whole, am happy with what I came away with, and the “Supersonic Wave Drive” makes for fast and smooth focusing when needed.

I managed to make it down to Wineva Avenue before heading back, so what you see here is only about half of the extent of the Streetfest festival. In terms of the acts there were several welcome returns by the like of the Dr. Draw, The David Rotundo Band, Fathead, and the Downtown Dixieland Band, but it was good to see a lot of fresh blood as well, including the likes of Dr. Nick and The Roller Coasters, Sambacana, K.C. Roberts and The Live Revolution, and Suzana da Camara.

Here’s a selection of photos I took while roaming Streetfest:

After several months of being surrounded by scaffolding, the restoration and renovation work on the local Beaches FireHall have been completed.

This picture is actually two separate shots stitched together, as I couldn’t get the entire thing in a single shot from my vantage point.

I know it is not to everyone’s liking, but I think the new lighting that outlines its facade is fun. It ought to be striking come the next Beaches Jazz Festival.

Renovated Beaches Firehall at Night