Doors Open Toronto 2024
Two weeks ago, I checked out Doors Open Toronto with my brother. Sadly, it had been seven whole years since we'd last gone, which is too long a hiatus, even with COVID-19. I feel like we did and saw more last time, so I hope B still managed to enjoy it. We did take in two buildings B hadn't visited before, and I suspect that he hadn't been to St. James Park either, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We started off by visiting St. Lawrence Hall. As I'm a complete and utter ditz, I managed to lead us quite a way past it before realizing that we'd gone too far along King Street. In my defence, I have no sense of direction, though I was actually going in the right direction for once; I was just going too far. Anyway, let's hear less about my shortcomings and see something of St. Lawrence Hall:
St. Lawrence Hall was completed in 1850, and its purpose was to serve as a venue for public gatherings, exhibitions, and concerts. I wrote about St. Lawrence Hall at some length in a post about a walking tour I took seven years ago to mark Canada's 150th birthday, so please go there if you'd like more history and photos. Here are more of the photos that I did take this time around:
Bust of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) from 1866
As can be seen above, there were some costumes and props from Opera Atelier on display. Opera Atelier has its offices at St. Lawrence Hall, and they gave a number of performances throughout the day. We ended up watching one of them because I got the wrong location for the history talk we'd originally planned to attend. It was in a smaller room on the same floor. I hadn't realized that there would be multiple performances by Opera Atelier and had assumed that the history talk would be in the Great Hall -- probably because I listened to a history talk in the Great Hall in 2017. Anyway, we did enjoy the performance, so I suppose everything worked out okay.
Here are some photos of the Great Hall:
Some Opera Atelier dancers before the performance
B and I became fixated on these, well, fixtures on the wall. We assumed they weren't simply for ornamental
purposes as each of the molds had holes in the middle. Did they hold poles -- for flags or banners perhaps?
After we'd watched the Opera Atelier performance and had taken pictures of the Great Hall (and some of the historical plaques downstairs), we headed out for lunch. We had originally planned to eat at St. Lawrence Market, but it was really crowded, and there really wasn't anywhere to sit. Instead, we ended up at a rather eclectic bar called Duke's. It was pretty dead that time of day. In fact, we weren't entirely sure if it was open, but we were able to get a table and a meal, and the server was friendly and kind.
After lunch, we headed to Toronto's First Post Office. I'd been there at least twice, but this was B's first visit. Naturally, we didn't end up taking the route I'd originally intended, but I got us to Adelaide and our destination in about the same amount of time, so I think that should count for something.
I didn't end up taking a lot of pictures inside because the place was really crowded. However, I'm hoping that the photos I did take will give you some idea of what the place is like. Built in 1833, Toronto's First Post Office is one of the few Georgian buildings in the city and one of the few surviving buildings from the Town of York (as Toronto was once named). It's now run by the Town of York Historical Society and serves as both a museum and a functioning post office.
As we walked along Adelaide, we passed another Georgian building, the Bank of Upper Canada Building, which was completed in 1834. This was not a Doors Open Toronto location, but that didn't stop me from taking pictures:
On the way to our next destination, we took a short detour (on purpose) and visited St. James Park:
Our final destination was St. James Cathedral. We'd both been there during our previous Doors Open Toronto excursion, so I didn't take nearly as many pictures this time. I'll refer you to my previous Doors Open Toronto post that goes into more history and has more photos. What I will say is that there have been various churches on the site for the past 200 years. In fact, St. James Cathedral, which was completed in 1853, is the location of the oldest congregation in Toronto. The parish of St. James was established in 1797.
Crossposted at https://rusty-armour.dreamwidth.org/196789.html