[URBAN NOTE] "The slow fade of industry on Geary Avenue"

[rfmcdonald]

Derek Flack's blogTO post certainly got my attention--Geary Avenue lies literally on the other side of the railroad tracks from my apartment. And I've not taken it much notice, notiwthstanding my four years' residence a few dozen metres from it. Doing a quick Google search, the only explicitly Geary Avenue photos of mine I can find are three pictures of a then-abandoned grocery store at Geary and Dovercourt. It now houses a bike shop, I think.

Geary Avenue might be a candidate for Toronto's ugliest street. Running parallel to the CPR tracks north of Dupont, it starts at Ossington Avenue in the east and runs a short 1.4 kilometres before coming to an unceremonious end halfway between Dufferin Street and Lansdowne Avenue. A mix of commercial and residential properties, the street is defined by something of an identity crisis. Although its mixed use legacy goes back a hundred years, it remains remarkable to track just how many different types of businesses currently make Geary their home. Along with a variety of autoshops, here one finds a hydroponics outfit, a mixed martial arts training facility, a costume rental warehouse, a couple of Portuguese bakeries and a karaoke bar (to name only a few).

It's a bit ugly, it's certainly gawky, but its awkward transition from industrialism to something more complex if less aesthetic makes it photoworthy indeed, Flack argues convincingly.

Go, see the photos. And the abandoned grocery store photographed above is visible in its new form, the last photo in his essay.