Walking by today the loading door on Church Street at Wood (as seen in androiduk's great photos above) was open so I took a look inside. It appears that they have about 1/4 of the parking level poured on the S/W corner of the interior. When I lifted up my camera to get a shot an aggressive construction worker walked in front of me and said no pictures. I was going to challenge him as I was standing on the sidewalk but I've got a bad cold and just didn't have it in me, I just wanted to finish walking my dog and come home to rest. What the hell are they hiding?!
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
Walking by today the loading door on Church Street at Wood (as seen in androiduk's great photos above) was open so I took a look inside. It appears that they have about 1/4 of the parking level poured on the S/W corner of the interior. When I lifted up my camera to get a shot an aggressive construction worker walked in front of me and said no pictures. I was going to challenge him as I was standing on the sidewalk but I've got a bad cold and just didn't have it in me, I just wanted to finish walking my dog and come home to rest. What the hell are they hiding?!
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Ballard's still alive. He's ALIVE! And living in that apartment.
 
God damn those buttcon pricks. They CANNOT stop you from taking pictures from public domain. Tell them to kiss your ass. We wanna see inside.
 
Best I could get at this point. Lots of guys around the door and they're not too friendly. A continuous procession of concrete trucks going in and out today.

mlgo19a.jpg


mlgo19b.jpg
 
The scaffolding along the Church Street side is beginning to come down and I noticed that the colour of the brick has changed. The brickwork was a little dirty, I believe it was last cleaned about 15 years ago (it was a very badly needed cleanup back then) but what's revealing this time around is the brick has changed from a deep, bold yellow with a hint of gold, to a very bright yellow. It looks very much like the renderings of the exterior that were released last year. I've no idea if this was a good scrubbing or if they purposely bleached the colour of the brick during the cleaning, in any event it looks very good. I also noticed several weeks ago behind the green nets on Church St. that most of the windows had been removed so presumably they've been replaced too.
 
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Yes, the scrubbed (not, I think bleached) brick looks great and makes one wish that other yellow brick buildings in Toronto got the same treatment - think of the Metropolitan United Church and St Michael's Cathedral. There are new windows - I saw some being hoisted up a few weeks ago.
 
No, no, no--- St. Michael's should NOT be scrubbed. It would lose so much of its character--- every time I see it or bring others to see it, we discuss how the stained brick almost takes you right back to the city's industrial days of the early 1900s.
 
SP!RE said:
St. Michael's should NOT be scrubbed. It would lose so much of its character
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That's one of the odd dilemmas for historical preservation -- just what is being preserved? When the Sistine Chapel ceiling was cleaned to restore it to its originally-painted state, many people complained that the colours were too vivid, because they were used to the muted hues produced by years of dirt and candle smoke. Do we try to keep things as they were when they were created, or do we keep them as we are currently used to them?
 
I agree that these scrubbings can be a little overzealous. There's a difference between removing polution and completely eliminating all the gorgeous patina of time. They are far too guilty of this in France where even Notre Dame now looks like it was built yesterday.
 
Below is MLG's north and east facing sides. Scaffolding on the east side is beginning to come down revealing the cleaned brick, an upper section on the north side was also done by guys on swing scaffolding over several weeks, below that is the colour of the brick as it appears before being restored.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, then click again on the image for full size.

 
It's interesting how many people in the modern world come to think of old 100+ year old buildings as meant to look dark and grey, from a world where everything was apparently black and white. Often, the original hues were quite rich and vibrant and the brick or stone was carefully selected by people whose aesthetic sensibilities weren't that different from ours. Though the darkening effect can work too, especially with Gothic buildings.

Sometimes, a building whose stone has been restored to its original colour can look quite jarringly modern.
 
Nov. 1st Exterior Update

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, then click again on the image for full size.

East and south sides



South side (Carlton St.)

 
Nice! I'm really pleased that they are retaining the panes. I really hope that Loblaws and/or Ryerson are documenting the interior and exterior conversion with lots of photographs.
 
are they doing something with the dome? because its really aged/gotten dirty over the years... Maybe they'll paint some new logos on it too! Maple leafs, ryerson, loblaws, etc..
 
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