{"id":2403,"date":"2007-10-20T10:46:52","date_gmt":"2007-10-20T14:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2403"},"modified":"2007-10-21T19:47:50","modified_gmt":"2007-10-21T23:47:50","slug":"the-origins-of-torontos-manhole-covers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/10\/20\/the-origins-of-torontos-manhole-covers\/","title":{"rendered":"The origins of Toronto’s manhole covers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Manhole covers are perhaps the ultimate piece of urban infrastructure — specific to cities, they are the portals to a whole world of civic engineering beneath our feet. They’ve inspired several Spacing<\/em> stories over the years. Last Sunday, the Star<\/em> ran a great story by Sarah Barmak<\/span> about the origins of Toronto’s particular manhole cover design<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I had always thought of it as a kind of non-design — the manhole cover you get when no-one makes an effort — but the Star reveals that it was, in fact, designed by Toronto’s official photographer in the first half of the 20th century, Arthur S. Goss. The article gave me a new appreciation of this ubiquitous piece of civic design. The author notes:<\/p>\n

Look harder, and Toronto’s cast-iron manholes show a muscular beauty, a brutalist charm. With their grey-iron grid of square shapes and perforations, they resemble waffle irons. Designed in 1910, in a pattern typical of the era, they embody the robust, turbulent city of the early 20th century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manhole covers are perhaps the ultimate piece of urban infrastructure — specific to cities, they are the portals to a whole world of civic engineering beneath our feet. They’ve inspired several Spacing stories over the years. Last Sunday, the Star ran a great story by Sarah Barmak about the origins of Toronto’s particular manhole coverContinue reading “The origins of Toronto’s manhole covers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[7049,379,7050,7048,405,19,4446],"class_list":["post-2403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructure","tag-arthur-s-goss","tag-author","tag-official-photographer","tag-sarah-barmak","tag-the-star","tag-toronto","tag-urban-infrastructure"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe origins of Toronto's manhole covers - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/10\/20\/the-origins-of-torontos-manhole-covers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The origins of Toronto's manhole covers - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Manhole covers are perhaps the ultimate piece of urban infrastructure — specific to cities, they are the portals to a whole world of civic engineering beneath our feet. 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