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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Instaflaneur: Lord Thomson of Church Street

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That little plaque on the right hand side of this picture is for 32 Monteith, the birthplace of Lord Thomson of Fleet, founder of a modest media empire of note. Monteith is a great narrow dead end running off of Church Street along the side of Cawthra Park. If not for the Toronto no-parking sign you might think this is an example of London mews housing. Take a walk down, there’s a passageway at the end that leads over to the AIDS memorial and Jarvis Street. Secret passage, in case you need one.

 

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2 comments

  1. I love those terraced streets that often break off a little from the already broken Toronto grid.  To me, it puts Toronto in a funny residential vernacular camp. We’re not a Northeast seaboard city of endless rows like Philly, Brooklyn, Baltimore or Montreal, and we’re not a Midwestern city with its City Beautiful downtown and tall, single family four square homes like Detroit, Cleveland, Winnipeg or Buffalo.  We’re sort of in that in-between place occupied by cities like Pittsburgh or Cincinnatti.  We like to keep some separation between our neighbours, but we build with brick and every now and then we’ll come right up to the property line.  Also, our Irish and Scottish roots show up every now and then just to keep things interesting.

  2. Very good point Leonard. Analogous to how TO is right on the border between the two forest zones….Carolinian and the other one that I can’t recall just now. The evergreen tree one.