I left Toronto in 2005. I’ve been back once a year and at times twice since 2008, and one of the first things i have to do each time, is head downtown and just go for a walk along my old haunts. Maybe it’s me getting old, or just how things objectively are, but with each trip back i feel a bit more of my past is being razed and replaced new high rises. Some reaching epic and ridiculous proportions.

This building picture above is part of that family of new high rises, it’s 1 Bloor Street East, basically THE main intersection of downtown Toronto. IF i’m not mistaken it’s 80 floors of muti-million dollar condominiums. I have NO idea who can actually pay for these apartments, but i guess someone can. 80 floors of it…though?

For the last couple of years, the city black right across the street facing it, has been razed and dug. With it are gone some of these old haunts, “Uptown Cinema” which was one of my favourite cinemas of Toronto, where i remember seeing Terminator 3 (what a piece of schlock) as the last movie i saw there. Behind the cinema was a bar – I can’t even remember the name anymore, maybe St. James Pub – which was one of the only places back then that you could get Hoegaarden Wheat Beer, which was one of the few or maybe only white beers you could get on tap at the time, and this one of the few pubs i knew that served it on tap.

All that is now gone, and i’m sure that by the time i’m back in T.O. next summer, the new high-rise will be up. And i hear you, asking me so who is it that is building this new high-rise. Well now that you ask, let me tell you: it’s a rival developer who has decided that in order to one-up the building across the street, his high-rise will be 81 floors! Yup, that’s what this is all about, a big pissing contest, and two dudes comparing sizes.

Specs : f7.1 || 1/250 s || ISO100 || 50.0 mm || NIKON D7200 || 2019