No more trading at the Athlone

The Athlone Apartments, 225 MacLaren Street. Unfortunately, I can't find any information online about the building's history, date built, etc. Just some apartment listings with scant information. That's unfortunate, since I go by it often on my way home from Bridgehead just up the street at Elgin.

There aren't even many good pictures of the building online (though this one has some indoor views of a bachelor apartment). Which means this post is probably going to get a lot of hits for people searching for it. This one shows nicely the bands of deocrative brickwork on a warm mid-September day in 2009:

But it still doesn't show the whole front of the building. I'm looking for something in particular. It's at the very far left of the facade, which you can see in this shot from February 2010:

It's this rusty old "Trades Entrance" sign directing tradesmen to the side entrance, from back in the day when people cared about keeping service people out of the main vistas. Robin Kelsey posted a photo of the sign on his blog in February of 2008. Mine was taken in the same September day in 2009 as the others above.

Unfortunately, the sign was removed sometime this year (also gone are the parking meters).

The light above the trades entrance, however, is still on.