Amateur photos of waterfront mark area’s transformation
The shots capture the beauty of the waterfront, but also reveal a lakeshore transformed from its industrial past -  nearly.

thestar.com
Jan. 14, 2016
By Christopher Reynolds

The Waterfront BIA is displaying its favourite photos from four years of amateur shutterbug contests. Hitched to hydro poles on Queens Quay between Bathurst and Yonge Sts., the blown-up images evoke the beauty of a waterfront transformed from its industrial past - nearly.

 

Canada Malting Co.
Shut down in 1987, the Canada Malting silos at the foot of Bathurst St. once shuttled hops and barley up and down its massive grain elevators for storage and export. The skyline landmark stands as a run-down relic to a bygone era - or a testament to the stark majesty of modernism, with restoration possibilities yet to be realized.

 

HtO Park
Opened in 2007, HtO Park marks a shift “in the relationship between Toronto and its waterfront,” the city’s website states. The urban beach’s signature yellow parasols evoke a cottage resort along with Muskoka chairs in the summertime but take on a new feel in the white of winter.

 

Marina Quay West
Marina Quay West, adjacent to the Toronto Music Gardens and Yo-Yo Ma Lane, is anchored in the dusky music of lapping waves and the lakeside leisure community. This photo shot from a boardwalk jetty depicts a fishing skiff and schooners in one of the two main marinas along the central waterfront.

 

Canada International Air Show
The Canada International Air Show brings out the sky-high love - via fighter jets - as seen from Queens Quay Blvd. Held every Labour Day weekend, the airborne spectacle features CF-18 Hornets, Snowbirds and commemorative planes such as the British Spitfire.

 

Bird on the hunt
A great egret dives for a meal. Taken in a meadow marsh near the mouth of the Humber River, this photo hints at the diversity of wildlife populating the periphery of Toronto’s waterfront.

 

Redpath Sugar Refinery
Berthed at Redpath Sugar, this bulk carrier is one of hundreds that have laid anchor there during the plant’s 57-year history. The only remaining sugar refinery in Canada, Redpath has refused to follow its former waterfront counterparts - distilleries, flour mills, grain silos - into extinction. Its conveyer belts and massive sugar shed - it can hold a mini-mountain of 60,000 tonnes of white gold - stand amid glass-and-steel condos inhabited by residents who occasionally catch a whiff of molasses venting from the plant.

 

Hockey on the lake
Some young stick-handlers take advantage of the frozen ice on a lagoon at the Toronto Islands. The calm inlets of Ward’s Island and Centre Island often freeze over in winter, creating an ideal surface for pond hockey.

 

Skyline patriotism
The flag waves from the stern of a boat on Lake Ontario. “We love the variety and the extremes that people experience... whether holding on to our past or how living in a lakefront city can be a beautiful experience any time of year,” says Carol Jolly, executive director of the Waterfront Business Improvement Area, which is behind the photo project.