Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Old Home for Old Sisters

           


            On Saturday evening I was almost looking forward to my bike ride, so that seems like a good thing. Travelling east along Bloor I noticed what must be the deliberately ironic Hogtown Vegan restaurant. They’ve even got the image of a delicious looking hog on their window.
            I rode out to Broadview and then north to O’Connor, dipping west to explore the curved dead end streets along the way. There are some old houses and new houses but they all look working class, and I assume that being so close to the cliff above the expressway brings the price down, but I may be wrong.
            At the top of Broadview where it curves east to become O’Connor is an interesting old red brick house that is attached to a modern building designed with vertical stripes of rusted girders alternating with those made smooth green metal and glass in between. I had to do some research later to find out that the old house was built in the Queen Anne style in 1885 for B. F. Taylor, who founded the Don Valley Brick Works. The house and the adjacent building is now a care facility for the Sisters of St Joseph.
            Riding back down to Danforth, I noticed on the east side of Broadview that there’s a Rosicrucian Lodge.
            I stopped at the supermarket on the way home and then at the new LCBO store where there’s only one bicycle stand, even though there had been at least one more when they first opened up. I asked the cashier, only half expecting her to have an answer as to why there were several bike stands at their Brock Avenue location but only one now. She told me that they had had three, but cars had rammed into them while coming out of the parking area. They’ve put in an order with the city for more. She explained that the LCBO actually had owned the property on Brock and so the bike stands were also theirs. Now they rent so it’s more complicated.


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