The Fountain at Berczy Park

Dear Readers, the last few days have involved skipping all around Toronto and catching up with lots of old friends, both human and architectural, including my favourite fountain in the whole world, the Berczy Park dog fountain. I’ve written about this before, but it never fails to charm me, although it is looking a little more decrepit every year. This dog is the only one with a name – he’s called ‘Smiley’ after a blind therapy dog who worked with the St John’s Ambulance brigade in Toronto.

Slightly moth-eaten golden retriever

Now you might remember that there is a single cat perched on the fountain, looking at the birds on a nearby lamp post…

Well, I have just learned (and I am very excited about this) that there’s a second cat perched on a utility box. But what is he looking at?

Well, the designer of the dog fountain, Claude Cormier, recently passed away at the age of only 63. But he was planning a cat park to the west, on Wellington and Spadina, so at some point this week I shall take a wander to see what, if anything, has come to fruition yet. Watch this space!

Something else has made me chuckle every time I’ve passed on the northbound subway for the past week.

Toronto’s hidden fight club doesn’t seem to be all that hidden, unless several million annual commuters don’t count 🙂

And finally, while we were taking a break in Ramsden Park in Rosedale, I noticed some flowers under a tree, which turned out to be violets…Marsh Violets (Viola palustris) in fact. What delicate pale beauties they are! This plant grows right across Europe and North America, and loves damp conditions, as its name would suggest, so it was interesting to see them growing in profusion on a bank in a city park.

Cherry Trees outside the Robarts Library

Dear Readers, cherry blossom time (or Sakura) has become quite the thing in Toronto over the past few decades. This Friday was expected to be peak cherry blossom time, and so many people were heading to High Park that cars were banned, and people were being asked not to shake the trees or pull down branches for photographs. Hah! I decided to head for the smaller but less frenetic cherry blossom site outside the Robarts Library in the University of Toronto.

It felt really joyful here – lots of people were photographing the blossoms, and one another, but all were respectful of the trees, and were clearly enjoying themselves. After a long wet April, it was lovely to see some sun, even though there’s a frost warning for tonight.

The library itself was opened in 1973 and is a fine example of brutalist architecture, though not everybody was impressed – it’s been nicknamed ‘the turkey’ and ‘the peacock’ for its extravagant shape, and is apparently not the easiest building to use (though it contains 4.5 million books so it can’t be all bad). Also, it could apparently be the model for the secret library in Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’ – Eco spent much of his time at the University of Toronto writing the book, and apparently there is a strong resemblance between the stairwell of the Robarts library and the library in the book.

What made me especially excited about this little expedition was that it was a) spontaneous and b) I did it all on my own while John was off visiting a friend. I was actually planning on finding a spot to read my Jan Morris biography when I found myself irresistibly drawn onto Line One of the subway. I often feel that I only really start to know a place when I explore it myself, without relying on someone else to know which way to go. And so it was a lot of fun to find the cherry blossom, and to then walk through the very varied university buildings and to find my way home. I felt like a proper flanêuse, for sure.

Dear Readers, one of the big delights of being in Toronto is that I actually have quite a lot of time to read, what with the seven-hour plane flight, the jet lag and the occasional free afternoon, so here are a couple of recommendations.

First up is Patrick Radden Keefe’s ‘London Falling’. I’ve loved the author since I read ‘The Empire of Pain’, about the Sackler family and the opiod epidemic. ‘London Falling’ is a story of money, duplicity, crime and corruption in London, following the death of 19 year-old Zac Brettler in a ‘fall’ from a balcony in a luxury flat. I’m not normally a big reader of crime fiction, but this book manages to encompass so much more than one tragedy, and raises a number of interesting questions about complicity and cover-up. I couldn’t put it down.

Just holding a book by publisher Fitzcarraldo always feels as if it should improve my intellect just by osmosis 🙂 but this is an excellent book. Author Joanna Pocock made a trip across the US by Greyhound bus in 2006. In 2023 she retraces her tracks, to see what’s changed. Some of the changes are in her: as an older woman she’s subject to a lot less harassment, and she’s a lot more grounded (her 2006 trip followed her third miscarriage, and her recognition that she was not going to be a mother). But the biggest change that she notes is everyone’s reliance on phones, and how much rarer it is to have a random conversation with a stranger. She also notes how many bus stations are run down or closed. In Phoenix, one bus stop is in the middle of the road in temperatures of over 40 degrees. She relates how homeless people are constantly being referred for third-degree burns when they pass out on pavements which can cook flesh within a few minutes. This is a fascinating book that will have me thinking about what is happening to us as a society for months to come.

Finally, I’m currently reading ‘Jan Morris – A Life’ by Sara Wheeler. Jan Morris packed enough into her life for several normal people, and she was something of an enigma – an apologist for Empire who was also its harsh critic, one of the first people to climb Everest who later transitioned from James to Jan, an acute observer but (apparently) a terrible parent. Wheeler’s first chapter is an absolute corker, as she describes staying at Morris’s house, sleeping in a room with no bedside light and bats hanging from the rafters waiting for her to turn off her head torch. It’s early days, but I’m really enjoying the book so far.

So what are your recommendations, Readers? My bedside book pile has room for a couple more, before the ceiling gets in the way 🙂

Dear Readers, the Concourse Building is a splendid example of Canadian Art Deco, but all is not as it seems. It stands right next to the glass and steel EY tower (in front of which stands the slightly-scary giant child sculpture), and if you look at it from the corner, you can see that it’s actually incorporated into the tower. In fact, the original 1928 building was dismantled in 2013 after much discussion between the developers and the city planners, but lots of the original detailing was preserved.

The mural above the front door depicts the four elements (earth, fire, water and air) and was designed by J.E.H MacDonald, one of the Group of Seven artists who met in Toronto, and who created a distinctively Canadian style.

There are mosaics under the arch depicting modern innovations such as planes and steam ships in the outer panels, and a dove, ploughshare and deer with birds in the centre.

There were apparently quotes by Canadian poets above the elevators in the main concourse, which were meant to reduce stress as the office workers waited for their day to start. Examples include:

Theodore H Rand  “The years are wise though the days are foolish.”

Charles GD Roberts  “Life is good, and love is eager. In the playground of the Sun.”

Katherine Hale  “I wish that some quaint miracle Might happen even today, Whereby the universe should speak And men kneel down and pray.”

I wonder what the impact was? Which of those poems (if any) would bring a spring to your step? I confess that I quite like the Rand quote, which I’ve been pondering on myself.

Photo by By Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA – EY Tower, Toronto, Ontario, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115962340

The original tiles at the top of the building were replaced in the new building.

So, the new building is something of a pastiche – a fine example of what my friend the Gentle Author calls ‘facadism’ (where most of a building is demolished but the frontage is preserved, to give the misleading impression that the original building still exists. I am glad that some of the features of the old Concourse Building have been saved, but much has been lost or moved. I couldn’t get inside the building (it is a corporate HQ after all) but there are some fantastic photos, and some more history, over at the Torontojourney416 website.