{"id":43069,"date":"2013-04-17T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=43069"},"modified":"2013-04-14T22:12:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T02:12:02","slug":"a-beautiful-anti-social-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/04\/17\/a-beautiful-anti-social-building\/","title":{"rendered":"A beautiful anti-social building"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever walked, biked, or otherwise commuted past the monolithic Bell Canada building north of Dufferin subway station, chances are you\u2019ve wondered what goes on behind those never-open six-foot windows. The building is mysterious: its four storeys with 20-foot ceilings dominate the landscape offering little at street level. It is anti-social to the extreme.<\/p>\n<p>The value of 1030\/1040 Dufferin Street lies within. This central office, built for Bell Telephone Company of Canada in 1919, is one of the company\u2019s oldest in Toronto. It\u2019s one of 25 central offices in the 416 area, and serves as a technical and training facility for Bell\u2019s service technicians in Ontario.<\/p>\n<p>The nondescript addition on the north end of the building was erected in the 1950s. Inside, the flow between buildings is seamless.<\/p>\n<p>The northern portion houses the technological infrastructure \u2014 the nuts and bolts of modern (and not-so-modern) telecommunications. Most of this section houses rows of metal scaffolding for landline telephones that service thousands of individual connections \u2014 this would be hundreds of kilometres of copper cable if strung from end-to-end. If something goes wrong with your landline in the 416, this is likely where the problem can be traced to.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside antique-looking telephone breakers, Bell uses the latest in 21st century tech, such as Internet Protocol Television, better known as Fibe TV.<\/p>\n<p>What 1030\/1040 Dufferin lacks in neighbourhood charm, it makes up for in utility. But in a neighbourhood characterized by libraries, public schools, residential houses, and small shops, this drab industrial space sticks out like an odd duck.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 by Andrew Reeves, originally published in the <a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/magazine\/2012\/summer\/\">summer 2012 issue of Spacing<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever walked, biked, or otherwise commuted past the monolithic Bell Canada building north of Dufferin subway station, chances are you\u2019ve wondered what goes on behind those never-open six-foot windows. The building is mysterious: its four storeys with 20-foot ceilings dominate the landscape offering little at street level. It is anti-social to the extreme.<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/04\/17\/a-beautiful-anti-social-building\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;A beautiful anti-social building&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4010,"featured_media":43072,"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":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A beautiful anti-social building  - 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\/2013\/04\/17\/a-beautiful-anti-social-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A beautiful anti-social building  - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve ever walked, biked, or otherwise commuted past the monolithic Bell Canada building north of Dufferin subway station, chances are you\u2019ve wondered what goes on behind those never-open six-foot windows. 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