These tiny 2 story rowhouses are in the Cabbagetown neighbourhood on Alpha Avenue.
Cabbagetown rowhouses
Cobourg Town Hall
We travelled the full length of Ontario’s old Highway 2 from Toronto to the Quebec border this summer and discovered a lot of new sites along the way. This elaborate town hall in Cobourg caught my eye. It really reminds me of St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto which was Toronto’s first City Hall.
Kensington Market-Cheese Magic
This is the Cheese Magic shop in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood. A predominately Jewish owned shop location in the 1950’s and 60’s, it has welcomed numerous waves of immigrant shop owners and now is an iconic tourist destination.
It was also the setting for a much-loved CBC sitcom “King of Kensington”.
I was drawing from a photograph in this sketch and working only in markers.
I have been taking a course in using markers and I think I’m getting the hang of these new techniques but. . . really missing my water colour box.
The “L”
Something reminded me of a sign above a hotel in Dryden, ON where only one letter remained illuminated. Locals referred to it as “The ‘L'”.
Church Street Pawn Shops
This month was voting day in Ontario and our polling station was at the Metropolitan United Church on Church Street in Toronto. There’s a couple of blocks of Church between old Toronto and the Church/Wellesley village where things get a bit seedy and there’s a concentration of pawn shops, loan outfits and nail salons. As I looked at this colourful block early in June, I noticed upstairs windows papered over and empty stores. I suspect this block is going to be developed soon. Probably they’ll keep at least the older storefronts.
Sketching Bombay Palace
When I got my first job in Toronto about 20 years ago, the staff at the theatre took me out to lunch at the Bombay Palace where they had a great Indian lunch buffet. Over the years I’ve seen it have boom times and bust times but it keeps hanging on. It’s a bit off the beaten track tucked away on an unfashionable end of Jarvis Street but just across from the lovely St. James Park.
Houseboat on Ward’s Island
What a great name for a house boat–Maybe. We’re not quite ready to brave the crowds on the Centre Island ferry but snuck in a weekday trip to Wards Island before the summer crowds hit.
House Boats at Bluffer’s Park
Perhaps it was the isolation of Covid but I started to think about how much I would like to live on a houseboat full of light and the sound of the water.
Bluffers Park Cafe
This was one of our favorite pre-pandemic places to go to lunch. It was particularly nice on a week day a little bit on the cusp of the season when not too many people were around. The future of the marina is sadly in jeopardy. I’m glad we didn’t know this when we made our first visit in early May on a sunny day.
Wheat Sheaf Tavern
I did a sketch of the Wheatsheaf Tavern as it looks now. I haven’t been in it since it reopened but 20 years ago when it was still a dive I used to work nearby and my colleagues and I found it a desirable place for a drink because our boss wouldn’t be caught dead in such a down and out bar. How times have changed now that it is renovated and trendy.