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Monday, March 29, 2010

Bay and Nepean Demo, Part 3: 259 Bay Street

[It seems there is a problem with the images. Update: the problem is on Google's end.]

Last time, I posted the second in a series of posts on the demolition of houses at Bay and Nepean. In that post, I looked at 255 Bay Street, on the left in the photo below taken in late November 2007.

Today, we'll look at 259 Bay Street. It is not a particularly spectacular house, and as a result this is the shortest post in the series.

As we can see in the photo below, it's a fairly ordinary house, but it does have quite a bit of character underneath the paint and graffiti. The sidewalk has been poured all the way to the foundation, but the window dressings, including shutters and eyelash-like brickwork, give it its charm.

Certainly more charming than a pile of rubble.

In the laneway, big rocks discourage motorists from using the laneway. Here in late May 2009, we see anti-Olympics graffiti on the side wall, reading "Rise Up / Resist / Riot 2010"

Removal of the rubble revealed graffiti in the basement, too.

At the rear, we see that the backyward had also been paved over, probably to save on landscaping costs. In May 2009, after a few years of human absence, we see nature beginning to reclaim its ground.

An architectural curiosity is the small window at the back of the house that was partially obstructed by the roofline of the rear addition. More photos of the rear of the building are in the previous post.

Here we see the rear foundation wall of the original building, with some holes in the middle for what I assume is a woodstove and flue.

Lastly, a foreshadowing of the next post. In the background of this late-November 2007 shot looking through the laneway between 255 and 259 Bay we see not only the tower crane for Hudson Park phase I (which was just reaching ground level at the time), but also the rears of the next two buildings in the series.

Tune in in four more days--Friday Noon, for Part 4: 357-359 Nepean Street.

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