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Work is going ahead at the old CIBC building at 180 Laird Drive with the expectation that an established restaurant and bar will take the location in the near future. A building application which was accepted on August 27, 2014 shows the name Local Public Eatery under the heading for “description”. That’s not where one would expect to find the applicant’s name on a City permit but it is the name hanging over five trendy dining and drinking establishments in B.C., Alberta and Toronto’s Liberty Village. The Toronto Local says on its website that its “kind of like your living room, with better food and people to serve you beer, fanatical about craft beer and rotating new selections, passionate about great food and the best ingredients.” Back at 180 Laird Drive however workers at the old bank building say they’ve been told the tenant will be a Joey restaurant. Joey, as dining cognoscente will know, is a lush, chandeliered and inventive dining place with valet parking at several locations here. Curiously, Joey also has a very strong western presence and its owner, a dynamic businessman named Jeffery Fuller, is headquartered in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. It has some locations in Washington State too. The little two storey building on Laird is smaller than many Joey restaurants. It was built in the heyday of industrial Leaside by the Imperial Bank of Canada before it merged in 1960 with the Canadian Bank of Commerce to form the CIBC. Many changes are required to fit it out as a restaurant. One document at City Hall reveals that a “retractable cover for a second floor patio” is under review. In any case, the large interests behind the plan are not not readily available to explain just what name will go on the building when it is done. The owners, First Capital Realty, did  not respond to an inquiry by post time.  Photos from top: 180 Laird as seen in 2012 before the bank moved to Leaside Village, construction on the east face of the building now and the elegant Imperial Bank crest over the front door.

It may not have what it takes to be a Hollywood Armageddon movie but as a spectacle its pretty good. Five bucket trucks and hordes of orange-jacketed workers have taken over Belsize Drive today (Tuesday, September 30, 2014) to “protect you from another ice storm,” in the words of the foreman. Well alright then. Scene is at Gresham Rd. 

It is an especially curious feeling when you get just a few feet into Carnvarco Road off of busy Laird Drive. You know it’s Leaside and perfectly safe, but the surroundings seem somehow creepy. There can be no doubt that this forlorn corner of the Leaside Business Park is merely marking time until it is redeveloped like so much of the property east of Laird. Because its a dead end, there is no through traffic. It is a laneway-like street that time seems to have forgotten. The 1940s Quonset hut and similar wartime remnants are scattered around. Large sinister courtyards extend to the north. One can only imagine the activities beyond those ancient doors. But, starting at the far end with Rosedale Landscaping Company and counting off Otto’s Masonry, Wilkin’s Chimney Repair (since 1977) Good Bones Antiques and Kayak Sport Canada, they are all worthy businesses. It is a revelation to peek through the thickly grown-over metal fencing to see huge stacks of firewood and 1950s wrecker cars. Some just sit out on the street. There’s no traffic. All of this was the preserve of the once mighty Canada Varnish Company (Canvarco) now long gone. It is said that the land on the east side has recently been sold and may yet emerge as more retail development. Some say a grocery store is the works. Hard to imagine considering the overflowing bounty of food stores in South Bayview. Still, if you hold to the view that Loblaws on Redway Road was one of the more serious business mistakes made in Leaside, you can begin to see how that firm might want to be back on the street, so to speak. The property on Redway is well suited in the short term to parking TTC buses. All of this speculation out of the way, one thing is certain. It’s an education to venture down Canvarco Road. Try it.

Congratulations to Bayview’s own Angela Lam of Stainton, Murray & Lam, Barristers & Solicitors on the birth of her second child.  The little one took her time, but decided to make her grand entrance yesterday afternoon — she was more than a week late.  Congratulations to Angela and family!

Here is a popular local picture treasure reproduced and tweeted by Rudy Limeback, We see Millwood Road looking east from Bayview Ave. in 1965 and today. A larger rendering of the picture showing the then Esso and Shell stations on the south corners of Millwood can be seen at Rudy.ca   We loved it in 2009 too with some detail of what is where now.   

Loblaws will run a pilot program in Richmond Hill which permits shoppers to buy groceries online and then pick them up at a drive through at the store. It is known as click-and-collect. The above diagram shows how the British supermarket chain Tesco explains it to customers. It appears that you have to undertake to pick up your groceries within a certain two-hour period. According to the Toronto Star, the Loblaws at 301 High Tech Rd. has been set up with a bright orange click-and-collect area that includes assigned parking. Customers will be able to have the groceries they chose and pay for online, loaded into their vehicles. Loblaws announced the idea in brief earlier this year. “The service is not yet available to the public, but we’re excited by the prospect of offering busy customers another option to complete their shopping, saving considerable time in the process,” said Loblaw spokesperson Kevin Groh. Pick and pay is said to be a popular option for grocery shopping in Europe. 

Two girls participating in the production of a commercial for the Bank of Montreal Thursday (September 18. 2014) had to give up their comfortable coats for a moment or two so a key scene could be shot. The chilly shooting depicts a summer scene and the ladies had to take away the coats to make it look like it was balmy outside 115 Bessborough Drive where this was shot. The commercial is about the lemonade business of these two girls and a thirsty jogger. Somehow or other BMO gets its message in there. The mid-morning temperature in Leaside was hovering around ten degrees Celsius.  

Ungainly but serviceable

NASA has announced a multi-billion dollar contract to build the Space Taxi, a 21st-Century generation vehicle to get astronauts back and forth from the international space station. The craft will be built mainly by Boeing with the assistance of Space X, a closely-held private aerospace firm. The Space Taxi program will mean that the U.S. no longer has to rely on the Russians to shuttle crews back and forth in space. It is an arrangement born in the chummy aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, But it is an arrangement that has soured. Vladimir Putin is seen to be a kind stealth conqueror of his neighbors and the Americans are close to humiliation that they have to seek his permission for their space efforts. For those who think about money, that’s what this is all about. Even as the Americans retired their obsolete Space Shuttles they were hurting to find money to build new ones. It was among the most painful examples of how the mighty U.S. has been unable to do the great things expected of it.  Reuters