News   Dec 20, 2024
UrbanToronto Year-End Poll: Vote on the Best Buildings of 2024, presented by Sapphire Balconies
 1.2K     6 
News   Dec 20, 2024
UrbanToronto's Social Media Presence Skyrocketed in 2024
 894     2 
News   Dec 20, 2024
Mattamy Homes Records A Year of Accomplishments
 1.8K     0 

Church-Wellesley Village

I just came in from a long walk with my dog and stopped by the park to see what was up. Lots. They are testing the lighting tonight. Briefly, here's how it works. The tall light standards are to illuminate the park at night. The short light standards along the walkways are LED feature lights, along with the strands at the north and south park entrance off Church Street. Watching them test I see that each light (and strand or set of strands) has it's own address, so they can mess around with them and have different lighting patterns throughout the park and entrance. The photos below have different colours because they were testing different colours and patterns while I took these. Oh - there's also the historic feature wall at the north side of the park - it's lit with LED's too and is so dramatic. It all looks STUNNING in there. While I was taking photos everyone was stopping, looking and commenting about the lighting - everyone loves it. I still can't connect the SD card to my new PC, so I took these with my iPhone which doesn't deal with light well at night, or colour. Just imagine that it looks way better than these photos illustrate.
By the look of everything tonight I presume the fences will come down tomorrow and the park will re-open, everything appears complete.

North side of the park -







Inside the north part of the park (notice the LED's on the historic wall) -









South entrance to park -



Back of park -



 
Thanks for the photos and comments - no matter the T-support, the lighting itself is pretty impressive. I can see it being a very popular spot at night - and that's a good thing with added eyes on the park.

AoD
 
I was in this park tonight too for about half an hour. In that time I must have heard about 20 people comment on the lighting and everyone seemed to love it. When was the last time you've heard 20 different gay guys agree on anything? lol (with my friends, NEVER!) So many people were stopping to take pictures and discuss the feature. I especially liked when the milti-coloured pride colours came on. You can't see it in these pictures but the colours are quite vibrant. It's the only lighting feature of this type in the city, in fact, I haven't seen anything like this in any city I've been to. The coloured lighting in the back of the park is quite nice too. I'm so glad we have Wong-Tam in office because I think she deserves a lot of credit for this wonderful park. The mural in this park is quite nice too! (as are the comfortable benches)

My only complaint was how the bottom of the poles looked raw but I was told that they would be capped very soon. Now I just need to get Wong-Tam to fix the drinking fountain. I'll be calling her office tomorrow about that but also giving praise for bringing some WOW factor to the village.


Lately Toronto has been building some really interesting parks with unique features. It's really nice to see this city finally put some effort and creativity into design, instead of just talking about it. It bodes well for both June Collwood Park and Berczy Park.
 
Last edited:
Torontovibe said:
My only complaint was how the bottom of the poles looked raw but I was told that they would be capped very soon. Now I just need to get Wong-Tam to fix the drinking fountain. I'll be calling her office tomorrow about that but also giving praise for bringing some WOW factor to the village.
Click to expand...

I agree, this is going to be a very popular spot at night. Me included!! Finally a place to sit with many other people to people-watch, enjoy a coffee with friends & such. Brilliant! Councillor Wong-Tam ROCKS! Btw, I also noticed that Pizza Pizza on the corner of Church/Wellesley have painted large rainbow flag colours on the sides of their sign. More than being nice to see, it breaks up all that horrific orange-overdose at that corner!

I probably saw you Torontovibe, I hung around for about an hour taking it all in. Do me a favour? If you contact Councillor Wong-Tam's office re: the water fountain, can you also mention that all the lights that are in-ground in front of each of the AIDS Memorial plaques are not working? I snuck in about three weeks ago, there were 4 or 5 burned out (roughly) but tonight they were all out. The AIDS Vigil is next Thursday, it would be nice if they were all in working order. Thank you! :)
 
Another image from a tweet by the THINC design:

thinc design ‏@thinc_design
Testing of new LEDs went great tonight at #cawthra park. Park opens tomorrow just in time for worldpride2014 #wp14to

Bqi-dASCUAAc5tB.jpg

(image from THINC design)

AoD
 

Attachments

  • Bqi-dASCUAAc5tB.jpg
    Bqi-dASCUAAc5tB.jpg
    48.3 KB · Views: 627
dt_toronto_geek said:
Btw, I also noticed that Pizza Pizza on the corner of Church/Wellesley have painted large rainbow flag colours on the sides of their sign. More than being nice to see, it breaks up all that horrific orange-overdose at that corner!
Click to expand...

They've also replaced the old signage and have new fancier ones up now.
 
Freshii looks like it's going to be open for business today. The papers are down and I saw some employees inside.
 
smart idea to be up and running during pride.
most food service businesses make the equivalent of 2-3 months of sales during that 1 week


to_l said:
Freshii looks like it's going to be open for business today. The papers are down and I saw some employees inside.
Click to expand...
 
Who's ever idea it was to put up a stage, put on a show and close Church Street to traffic this weekend, is going to get a raise. I was there today and the street was packed full of people and so were the bars and restaurants. I haven't seen like ups like that for a long time and since the bars will be open til 4 am, cha-ching!!! Now the Village can have 10 days of partying to make lots of money. I hope they do this road closure every year from now on. It was so nice to just enjoy the festive vibe. The new Barbra Hall park was filled with lively fun.

I was feeling the festive Pride vibe, so of course, I had to film a video. (to follow later)
 
Last edited:
Now this is what you call some serious fireworks. World Pride 2014 is doing a super job!

[video=youtube_share;r6ADKixzWs0]http://youtu.be/r6ADKixzWs0[/video]
 
I didn't see a thread for World Pride 2014, so I'm putting this here. (The World Pride Opening Ceremonies - Part 1)

[video=youtube_share;1N_QcqV9JZM]http://youtu.be/1N_QcqV9JZM[/video]
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top