Fantastic photos. This'll be fun to watch.

What was here on this parcel of land before that we might be digging up now?
 
casaguy said:
Fantastic photos. This'll be fun to watch.

What was here on this parcel of land before that we might be digging up now?
Click to expand...

This was discussed back around Christmas as most of us couldn't remember it ever being anything else except a parking lot. If I recall someone posted saying there were stores along here, one of which was a head shop.
 
casaguy said:
Fantastic photos. This'll be fun to watch.

What was here on this parcel of land before that we might be digging up now?
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to hear speculation on this one.

Also this may sound stupid but how do they deal with water encountered so soon? They aren't even very deep yet and already see that much water. A brief explanation on possible cause and effects to the digging process here because of the water would be very interesting to me...
 
I'm going to guess the water is simply from snow melt. The ground would have lots of water in it this time of year I'd think. Then again, it could be something else I don't know about.
 
I don't know, we haven't had a whole lot of precipitation in the past 3 months, I think they've got a water problem. I saw a story on CBC how our unusually dry winter season is going to hurt some farmers & certain crops this coming season.
 
On the other hand, I was standing in my garden in my bare feet yesterday, and the soil was completely saturated with water. I imagine that a large pit dug into the ground would have a puddle at the bottom, from water being squeezed out the sides of the pit.
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
I saw a story on CBC how our unusually dry winter season is going to hurt some farmers & certain crops this coming season.
Click to expand...

The CBC has to do a 'plight of the Canadian Farmer' story once a week, it's in their charter. Depending on the weather they'll switch stories to 'Heavy Rain Swamps Farms, Hopes and Dreams Shattered'. Next in the rotation comes a story on Newfoundland fisherman, then the Governor General's latest trip, then the Queen of England's new hat, then back to farmers.

Sorry for sarcasm, I have CBC-issues.

Depending on the location in Toronto, you hit groundwater eventually and need to use pumps to keep a site dry. If they install big permanent-looking pumps, that's the issue.
 
Kraylin said:
It will be interesting to hear speculation on this one.

Also this may sound stupid but how do they deal with water encountered so soon? They aren't even very deep yet and already see that much water. A brief explanation on possible cause and effects to the digging process here because of the water would be very interesting to me...
Click to expand...

We talked about this in the thread before (and we got yelled at for going off topic), this may be part of a tributary of one of Toronto's Lost Rivers. "Taddle Creek".
This is the Wikipedia article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taddle_Creek

There is a website for Lost Rivers in Toronto as well:
http://www.lostrivers.ca/

I think there are others as well.
 
casaguy said:
Thanks for that.

Funny how no one here can really remember what's been there for the past 20 years. It couldn't have just been a parking lot all this time.
Click to expand...

I've lived in or very near this area longer than 20 years now and I can't remember what used to be there! It seems to me that it's been a parking lot for one hell of a long time. I can probably remember every movie that I saw at the Coronet cinema across the street but not what used to stand on the N/W corner of Gerrard & Yonge. Whatever was there must have come down no later than the mid-70's, that's about as far back as my Yonge Street memories go.
 
I can't say for certainty what was on that corner, however...

I got my driver's license in August 1979 and as was the custom on Friday and Saturday nights in those days in small towns all over North America, we cruised the main drag. Yes, I said small town, because Toronto in those days, despite having a couple of a million inhabitants, still thought like a small town. We hadn't started thinking of ourselves as 'World Class' yet. Anyway, I digress... There was no Entertainment district in Toronto yet and the phenomenon of suburban dance clubs in strip malls was still a few years off, so we all headed downtown to find nightlife.

Yonge Street in those days on a weekend was bumper to bumper of young people doing the loop. You would drive from Bloor to Temperance then swing back around and drive north back to Bloor and turn around near the Public Library. The whole while hooting and hollering at pedestrians (mostly of the female persuasion). Ahhhhh life was simple in a small town.

I clearly remember that there were indeed several buildings along that stretch and one indeed was the "Glass Head Shoppe" or something like that. It was well lit at night and if memory serves, had plenty of late night pedestrian traffic.

That is how I remember that intersection.
 
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Interesting discussion. Some more photos from today. More of the previous structure exposed. Not that it sheds any more light on what was on the site before, but I find it interesting, nonetheless.

All the photos can be viewed in full resolution by clicking the image and clicking "All Sizes" above the image on the flickr page. The whole set of images can be viewed at my flickr set.





 
Here is the entire block, including the "chicken palace".. pretty interesting stuff

Sorry pictures are big, Have no clue how to resize

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