Because I live near Allan Gardens, it's the buildings around the Carlton-Yonge-Bloor-Parliament area I see most, day to day.
Some examples that spring to mind as particularly vexing corners to me are:
The north-east corner of Church and Wellesley.
I fear this building is a disaster waiting to happen, in the spirit of Walnut Hall or the Empress Hotel. Architecturally, it's what's left of a great little thing, but so decrepit, altered and repeatedly patched that it's a depressive embarassment. The building's floorplan is basically 'L' shaped - I'd like to see it historically restored, with all the commercial excresence stripped from the ground floor. The inner courtyard could perhaps be built up or improved along with the rest. It could be a gem, along the lines of the restored historical building at the Shangri-La site.
The north-west corner of Church and Wellesley, to Dundonald.
A cluster of dingy and ill-kept buildings cluster around this corner. Immediately north of it, there's a parking lot and a beer store. An unlovely social help centre called Progress Place doesn't help street vitality either, despite recent renovations. With Cawthra Square Park and the 519 community centre on the other side of the street being only irregularly engaging, this stretch kills the northward momentum of the village.
This block - from Wellesley to Dundonald along Church - is crying out for a shot of glamour and good design. It would be the perfect place for a good-sized, mid-rise development. It'd be great to see one with some deep basement clubs and high-ceilinged street retail with mixed uses above. A local movie theatre would be nice, too
. Throw in apartments and/or a condo-hotel and you're cooking.
Carlton and Church.
Maple Leaf Gardens is back - and floodlit! It looks great. It's alive! But the remaining three-quarters of the intersection make for an awfully unlovely corner.
The north-east corner has two period deco buildings that are a bit plain. They're also, unfortunately, dumps - even the limestone is crumbling and has been patched over with styrofoam and stucco. Though one of them houses an important local medical office, they're more or less closed to the street. With a giant parking lot here going north along Church, the combined properties could be a great place to put a signature gateway building. There's some case for the preservation of the buildings, but given their terrible condition, the narrowness they impose on the sidewalks and the heavy alterations that would have to be made to make them work...well, I don't think it's a strong one.
The south-east corner has a low mid-rise on it from the late '70's or early '80's, that's also dingy and an aesthetic downer. The restaurant in the base is successful, and the building is usually occupied....but it would be great to see it replaced with something engaging and refreshing. The student housing rising behind it - as well and the fortress-based precast condo behind it don't do it any favours.
The south-west corner has a great, small CIBC building on it. I wouldn't want to see it touched. Unfortunately, it has bare space around it that feels pressingly empty - . It butts up against the extended base of the Lexington to the west - with it's bleak high concrete side wall showing. South of it, townhomes put a blank wall against Church Street - something the demolition and rebuilding of just one or two of them at the east end could remedy.
Homewood And Carlton:
It looks pretty good in these pictures! But walking by, it's not a great corner, and it shows all the more for it's wonderful location at the park, and improving economic fortunes.
Homewood used to be much like Pembrooke to the south - a lot of skid row, a lot of red light district - the ragged edge of downtown. In the last three decades, the street has been continuously improved. But this corner is still depressing.
The apartment corner on the north-east corner is a fine little 1920's construction, but there is talk of bedbugs and dubious management. It has no public relation to the park or street. Ideally, I'd like to see it renovated, and a third of the ground floor facing the park excavated and made into a small restaurant or coffee house.
Immediately north of it are a row of townhomes in awful shape that have a troubled tenancy - it's a halfway house row - somewhat internally interconnected, where a murder was committed just over a year ago. The down-and-out clientele hang out, out front, continuously. There's often garbage showing out front, as well. The housing conditions inside are not ideal. I think it is a disgrace.
Personally, I'd like to see the clientele moved to a new, more efficient building, and this row deeply renovated from the inside.
The north-west corner has an ugly little building on it that's seen better days. This one should definitely go, IMO. Where's Hariri Pontarini when you need them?
Carlton and Bleecker:
A resigned row of partially occupied storefronts sits here on the north-west corner. Two of the spaces are successful - with local diner-level restaurants. Two of the stores seem to be occupied by the same type of grocer - dusty, old, and underused - and least one of the stores is empty. A strange strip that could use improvement - with a church parking lot behind it. It's all the more out-of-place for it's being set between a fine somewhat-deco church on one side, and a wonderful polychrome brick church on the other - and an intact late-nineteeth century row across the street.
There's another empty semi-active, semi-occupied building situation going on the north-west corner of Carlton and Ontario.
