Playing tourist in my own city Pt 2

After our tour of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, we came out onto Yonge Street and caught sight of this attractive renovated building, the Dineen Building, at no. 140 Yonge St, another Doors Open site.  This used to be the home of the Dineen Company, a prominent hat and fur company.  It has undergone extensive renovations but many of the historic features are preserved.  You can check this interesting article on the Urban Toronto site to see some photos of the interior during renovations.  There was a lineup to get in when we were there so we saved it for another year.  But judging from the pictures, it's well worth a visit.

Continuing on our trek south, we visited One King West, originally the old head office of the Toronto Dominion Bank, now a luxury hotel.  This is the grand staircase that took us up to the grand banking hall.

 Grand banking hall set up for a wedding.

This is the vault entrance.  This was once the largest bank vault in Canada.  The door weighed over 40 tons but was apparently so well-made that a paper-clip dropped in the opening will stop the door from closing. 

Our next stop was lunch at the Marché in BCE Place.  The highlight of the lunch was the berry flan and the stroll through BCE Place, always spectacular and particularly so when I had my camera with me.

This rather reminded me of a similar building in Milan.

For the month of May, there is a photo art installation "Pyramid" by James Nizam as part of the Scotiabank Contact Festival.  You can read about the art on the Contact website. 

You see below my own photo of the reflection of the arches in the glass entrance.  Truly amazing - the reflection of the reflection on the glass - the juxtaposition of layers of reality and illusion.  Astounding!

This was not the first time we visited BCE Place but every time we did, we couldn't help but be awed by the artistry of the design.  For a change of pace, we headed towards the more stolid Canada Life Building, a few blocks north, at Queen and University.  In front of the building, I noticed this graceful statue on top of a granite column, a memorial of the Boer War.  Forty years in Toronto, and I have never actually "seen" this winged statue.

This Pelican statue is the only thing I liked in the Canada Life Board Room.

Clearly I wasn't the only one who thought this portal worth photographing

Another one to add to my collection of elevator doors

View from the 17th floor.  I was mildly disappointed because I thought we had lined up to take the elevator to the open observation deck.  But it turned out it was not outdoors.  These shots of the city were taken behind glass.  View of the the Ontario College of Art, designed by British architect Will Alsop.

Looking south towards the CN Tower

East towards the old and new City Halls, Nathan Phillips Square

The Trump Tower in front of the Bank of Nova Scotia Building (the most amazing thing in all this is that I didn't know this was the Trump Tower.  But I walked by the Bank of Nova Scotia Building earlier and recognized it.  I did a Google search for "Bank of Nova Scotia Building behind" and identified the Trump Tower that way.  I'm completely in awe of Google - if I had the money, I'd buy its stock.  It's going to take over the world!

Playing tourist in my own city

The annual Doors Open Toronto enabled me to play tourist for a day.   When we travelled abroad, we would go madly looking for beautiful architecture and unique buildings - in fact these are in abundance in our own city.  The old CIBC building in Commerce Court North and the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres are two such buildings within a 10 minute walk of each other downtown.

Staircase to the lobby of Commerce Court North from the basement mall

Stunning lobby 

The limestone building was completed in 1930 as the headquarters of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and was for three decades (until 1962) the tallest building in the British Commonwealth

Door handle details

The front door portal

Walking north a few blocks from 25 King West up Yonge Street at No. 189 is an unassuming building that houses the Elgin and the Winter Garden Theatres.  You would never have guessed what the interior looks like when you see the building from the outside.  

Once you're inside though, you'll realize that you are in a very special building.  

The faux marble is everywhere but it created the ambiance for the hallways and inside the Elgin Theatre itself.

We have gone to the Elgin many times as it is the home of the baroque opera company Opera Atelier but we have never gone as "tourists", have never taken pictures of the inside, have never gawked!  In general, we behaved ourselves as concert goers.  Visiting it during Doors Open was another experience all together.

The ornate boxes

The balcony and the ceiling above

Seven stories above the Elgin Theatre is the Winter Garden Theatre.  These are the last surviving Edwardian stacked theatres in the world.   We walked up several flights then up three sets of escalators to get to the The Winter Garden Theatre.  It has a very special look - literally that of a winter garden, with trees for columns and millions of leaves, faux, dried or otherwise preserved. 

The Doors Open crowd listening to the history of the theatre and descriptions of how the leaves were preserved.  Someone asked how they are cleaned - response is they build scaffolding in order to do the cleaning.  You can imagine they won't be cleaned every month!

The boxes are very differently decorated from the ones at the Elgin

The hand painted fire screen

A closeup look at the tree and the leaves

It was a great way to spend a Sunday - exploring my own city!  After lunch we visited One King West, BCE Place and the Canada Life Building.  More in the next post.