JasonParis
Moderator
Capturing Toronto's grimy past
Feb 12, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume
Urban Affairs Columnist
One chronicler's portraits of lakeside structures makes icons of eyesores, forming record of a smokestack city largely unaware of itself and its history
Photo of Charles Francis, tannery yard operator of the Wickett and Craig Tannery on Cypress St., Toronto, 1990.
Peter MacCallum doesn't claim to be the conscience of the city, but he might well be its memory.
The self-taught Toronto photographer has devoted decades to documenting our industrial past, especially on the waterfront.
And at a time when that area of town is undergoing wholesale transformation, MacCallum's record has become more crucial than ever.
"For the greater part of our history," says the 60-year-old practitioner, "the waterfront has been industrial. All kinds of industries were there, including some that were very dirty. All have left their mark."
One of MacCallum's first subjects was the 19th-century Wickett & Craig Tannery on Cypress St. on the west side of the Don River. His pictures show an operation that changed little over time; up to the last year it was open, 1990, it was a dirty, dangerous and odious place.
"I've never smelled anything like it since," MacCallum admits. "It was foul smelling downstairs; sweet smelling upstairs. It was my first really big project and basically I had the run of the place. Though the experience was fascinating, it was a terrible place to work."
The building has been demolished. Ironically, the site will become a park, defined on one side by a berm that will protect it from flooding and on the others by new sustainable housing.
However desirable, waterfront revitalization raises hard questions about our relationship with the past, in particular aspects of it now deemed beneath the city's dignity.
MacCallum has also documented the dismantling of the tank farm just east of Cherry St. in the Docklands and the east end of the Gardiner Expressway. Neither case is likely to raise heritage hackles, but what about the old Hearn Generating Station or the Victory Soya Mills? Though both could be reused in any number of ways, chances are slim that anything remarkable will happen in this city.
The fact is that for all the talk about Toronto as a creative city, we are singularly lacking in imagination. In London, by contrast, the Bankside Power Station was famously remade into the Tate Modern. Since opening in 2000, it has become the most popular contemporary art gallery in the world; last year it attracted 5.2 million visitors.
Now privately owned, the Hearn is expected to find new life as something other than a movie studio, but so far there has been no word. In the meantime, the province, in a fit of panic, ordered the construction of yet another power station directly east of the Hearn, which may limit the area's future appeal somewhat.
"My work has to have some metaphorical content," explains MacCallum, who exhibits his work at the Peak Gallery (23 Morrow Ave.). "I try to photograph everything. I see the waterfront as having a history. It bugs me the way planners talk about it as if all remnants of former industries are eyesores. To me, even those cement plants on Cherry St. are landmarks."
As for metaphorical content, that's never far away. One way or another, these pictures form a record of a city largely unaware of itself and its past. However grimy that history may have been, it got us where we are today. Given the ongoing collapse of manufacturing, it's worth remembering that Toronto was a smokestack city until quite recently. And it remains to be seen what we will look like once the reinvention is complete.
Meanwhile, MacCallum has concerns about the regeneration of the waterfront, another metaphor for Toronto.
"I don't think this attempt to push forward the visual solutions on the waterfront will produce vital public space without preserving some historic elements," he argues.
Some would point to the Distillery District as an example of the kind of preservation we need, but MacCallum's not impressed.
It is, he says, a place for tourists.
In the meantime, MacCallum survives his self-imposed mission by arranging to donate his photographs to the Toronto Archives. No, they can't pay him for his work, but at least they can issue a tax receipt.
Feb 12, 2008 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume
Urban Affairs Columnist
One chronicler's portraits of lakeside structures makes icons of eyesores, forming record of a smokestack city largely unaware of itself and its history
Photo of Charles Francis, tannery yard operator of the Wickett and Craig Tannery on Cypress St., Toronto, 1990.
Peter MacCallum doesn't claim to be the conscience of the city, but he might well be its memory.
The self-taught Toronto photographer has devoted decades to documenting our industrial past, especially on the waterfront.
And at a time when that area of town is undergoing wholesale transformation, MacCallum's record has become more crucial than ever.
"For the greater part of our history," says the 60-year-old practitioner, "the waterfront has been industrial. All kinds of industries were there, including some that were very dirty. All have left their mark."
One of MacCallum's first subjects was the 19th-century Wickett & Craig Tannery on Cypress St. on the west side of the Don River. His pictures show an operation that changed little over time; up to the last year it was open, 1990, it was a dirty, dangerous and odious place.
"I've never smelled anything like it since," MacCallum admits. "It was foul smelling downstairs; sweet smelling upstairs. It was my first really big project and basically I had the run of the place. Though the experience was fascinating, it was a terrible place to work."
The building has been demolished. Ironically, the site will become a park, defined on one side by a berm that will protect it from flooding and on the others by new sustainable housing.
However desirable, waterfront revitalization raises hard questions about our relationship with the past, in particular aspects of it now deemed beneath the city's dignity.
MacCallum has also documented the dismantling of the tank farm just east of Cherry St. in the Docklands and the east end of the Gardiner Expressway. Neither case is likely to raise heritage hackles, but what about the old Hearn Generating Station or the Victory Soya Mills? Though both could be reused in any number of ways, chances are slim that anything remarkable will happen in this city.
The fact is that for all the talk about Toronto as a creative city, we are singularly lacking in imagination. In London, by contrast, the Bankside Power Station was famously remade into the Tate Modern. Since opening in 2000, it has become the most popular contemporary art gallery in the world; last year it attracted 5.2 million visitors.
Now privately owned, the Hearn is expected to find new life as something other than a movie studio, but so far there has been no word. In the meantime, the province, in a fit of panic, ordered the construction of yet another power station directly east of the Hearn, which may limit the area's future appeal somewhat.
"My work has to have some metaphorical content," explains MacCallum, who exhibits his work at the Peak Gallery (23 Morrow Ave.). "I try to photograph everything. I see the waterfront as having a history. It bugs me the way planners talk about it as if all remnants of former industries are eyesores. To me, even those cement plants on Cherry St. are landmarks."
As for metaphorical content, that's never far away. One way or another, these pictures form a record of a city largely unaware of itself and its past. However grimy that history may have been, it got us where we are today. Given the ongoing collapse of manufacturing, it's worth remembering that Toronto was a smokestack city until quite recently. And it remains to be seen what we will look like once the reinvention is complete.
Meanwhile, MacCallum has concerns about the regeneration of the waterfront, another metaphor for Toronto.
"I don't think this attempt to push forward the visual solutions on the waterfront will produce vital public space without preserving some historic elements," he argues.
Some would point to the Distillery District as an example of the kind of preservation we need, but MacCallum's not impressed.
It is, he says, a place for tourists.
In the meantime, MacCallum survives his self-imposed mission by arranging to donate his photographs to the Toronto Archives. No, they can't pay him for his work, but at least they can issue a tax receipt.
