More often than not I can't wait to escape the monotony of the city that I've spent the better part of my life in. But today I visited a couple of the sites on the Open Doors Toronto tour and discovered a bit of some of Toronto's best kept secrets.-- George Brown's House, Coach House Press and Queen's Park.
First we went to George Brown's house, a grand Victorian-style house on Beverly Street that once housed the man who started the Globe and Mail newspaper, or as I prefer to call it, "the Old and Mail". He died from complications from a shotgun wound inflicted by a Globe and Mail employee, a bit of info that I can't help but love because I can't say the stresses of Journalism haven't made me want to shoot someone in the leg once in a while.=p. The house's library includes over 2,000 books, which I was surprised to find are restored by Toronto Parks (an unlikely pairing I thought) and apparently his daughters were among the first women to graduate from the University of Toronto.--The accomplishments of strong women are always interesting to me but I guess it struck a chord at this particular time because I've spent the last few weeks in my Feminism an Society class studying First Wave Feminism and the actions taken by women to gain equal opportunity to education. Go Brown ladies!
Next we went to Coach House Press, a small independent book publisher and printer that is literally stuffed into a small coach house hidden in a back lot on the UofT campus. I'd heard a lot about some of the book launch events that they often hold and I've purchased quite a few of their titles at Word on the Street or smaller bookstores like Pages. They tend to favour quirky urban fiction stories, which I LOVE, so needless to say I was really excited to finally get to see the real thing. However, unfortunately the Toronto Star's rating of a partial 'D' was quite inaccurate because I'm not sure I'd even begin to categorize it as "partially accessible". Not only did the large numbers of people come to find out how a printing press works, make it virtually impossible to navigate the machines and carts piled high with dusty books and papers, the four inch step down at the front door wasn't letting me in anytime soon. I poked my head in to see as much of the printing process as I could from the top of the step but luckily I managed to get in the back door with the help of a board to see the binding and glueing process. Very cool!! I was amazed to find out how much manual labour they use to make each book.--All book covers are folded by hand and all printing and binding is personally supervised by someone. Every book!! They publish the popular UTOpia series and I was shocked to find someone folding each cover by hand. It's a very widely distributed series (today they were working on the fourth run). I've seen it at big chain book stores like Chapters. That's a lot of hand folded book covers!
I picked up 'Nellcott is my Darling' by Goulda Fried, 'Social Acupuncture' by Darren O'Donnell and 'Miss Lamp' by Chris Ewart. Now just to finish this course so I have time to read them...
Last we went to Queen's Park, which I didn't expect to be very exciting but was pleasantly surprised. First there was the unnaturally friendly security guard we met just inside the accessible entrance who showed us where the "LG" as he called him, David Onley leaves his scooter in the basement *heh* (possibly my favourite part) and then we went on the tour that took us through the Legislature, the Speaker's Apartment (I didn't know anyone actually lived in Queen's Park!) and the wing that once burned down because of careless maintenance workers, which has a beautiful mosaic floor that is made up of millions of hand cut, hand laid tiles. WOW!! The portraits of all the past speakers were cool too. Apparently at the end of their term each one is allowed to choose the artist to paint their picture. Most of them were fairly conservative but there were a couple of more modern, flamboyant ones that didn't quite fit in=). I was also interested to find that the major media outlets (CBC, Globe and Mail etc.) all have offices there too.
The coolest part was he legislature though. There are several random faces carved into the intricate patterns that adorn the perimeter of the room. Not carvings of past Prime Ministers or MPPS, but carvings of the artist's faces. They apparently weren't allowed to sign their work so they left their faces behind instead=). The best face though is a small, kind of shriveled-looking face that the tour guide described as looking like a tomato. It's supposed to be a joke likeness of Queen's Park's namesake Queen Victoria. Good thing she died before she could come and see it. *Hehe*
We wanted to try and make it to the Toronto Labyrinth (which I hadn't heard of before this year's Open Doors) and the CBC, but sadly 5:00 came too quickly and we didn't get a chance to make any of the other sites. I won't have time to get to go anywhere else this weekend but I really look forward to next year. Though next year I would like to plan to write an article critiquing the level of accessibility that the Toronto Star's map indicates for each site. I'm curious to know how they developed their accessibility criteria in the first place. I'm feeling my next pitch to Abilities. How 'bout you?
3 comments:
Thanks for buying the book! Once you're done, please let me know what you think.
take care.
Thanks from me too! I appreciate it, and would also like to know what you think of Miss Lamp when you have the time.
Have a good day.
Thanks from me as well!
Have a good day.
Chris.
Post a Comment