My family mainly doesn't live in Toronto anymore. So today was just a regular day for me where I needed to make a severe dent in a lot of work that actually relied on a few stores. I'd much rather those employees are having a nice day at home or with their families. However, I wouldn't mind getting some stuff done.
Alas.
Instead I decided to make a little blog dedicated to the upheaval of the graffiti issues in the city specifically the former Brickworks. I recalled my last visit to the Brick works, before last summer when a construction crew and a security guard showed up and yelled at us to leave.
Personally I enjoyed bummin around on the roof on a sunny day (seriously, have you seen that view) as much as I enjoyed looking at the graffiti in the catacombs beneath. But sitting up there was literally sitting up on a huge piece of history.
The site had lived once as an actual functioning brickworks. Generations later it then found a new life as a platform for the creatures who thrive on urban decay to display their messages. It is very much a big part of me, who only explored the site maybe three times.
When these photos were taken, it was a sunny, muddy, spring day. Exploring the innards of an abandoned building at the foot of an escarpment was like one of my first dates with the city that made me think that maybe we had some chemistry, some potential for a beautiful relationship.
Without further adue here are some photos of my last trip to the Brickworks.
Anywhore. There are more somewhere. But they are in a box and I do not have a scanner. I will miss what the Brickworks was. But I am excited to explore Evergreen's new exploration of the space just as much. Renaissance is very much part of this city, the Brickworks was just better at it. I think what could be described as vandalism by many people is just a token of the past.
I think that while the space spent a very long time abandoned and un loved, the kids of Toronto gave it a new soul, a new meaning. And trying to eradicate that would just be cruel & un natural.
