Toronto – on a rainy Saturday night. And don’t forget the 500,000 people who showed up for the International Caravan that, according tot he ’98 Mobil travel Guide, were suppose to be here the third week of June and not the end of July. That’s fifty pavilions scattered throughout the downtown area between Bloor St West, Sherbourne St, Quay and Spadina Ave. That is not a large area, by the way.
The pavilions present ethnic foods, dancing, crafts…all this made things really interesting at 3 p.m.
Since I’m not vary familiar with the area [I have a Mapquest map that shows Bloor and Landsdown Ave crossing and a star that represents where I’ll find 940 Landsdown Ave, building 15, 3rd floor] and the traffic was unbelievable [I’ve never seen the L.A. freeways look this bad] and it’s raining, it made the first day in Toronto extremely interesting.
Once in the area, it took me an hour to finally find the building and I parked across the street . I’d given up any hope of waiting for the slight shower to give me a break, so I snapped a picture from across the street then managed to dodge the traffic that was suppose to stop once I pushed the crosswalk button and it flashes yellow. Cars do not stop, they only slow down a bit. I made it from one side to the other side of the street in the hopes of just looking around a bit. That’s when I noticed a light on so I tried the door and much to my surprise, it opened.
The little lobby area sported a desk to one side with 6 security cameras all turned on – two of them actually working—the other four showed snow. One wall had an open door leading to another larger room with desks, but nothing in there looked interesting. The other wall had a ‘production’ map taped to it. After 10 minutes, a security guard wandered in looking happy to have a bit of company. After he informed me that the due South office were now the offices of Jet Jackson, he pointed me to their office…down an alley, turn right and up the flight of stairs. I took a couple photos incase it was the right location. A few minutes later found me at the top of the stairs peering through the window on the door. The lights were on, the door unlocked and the rain urged my in. I opened the door, stepped boldly in and called out a tentative ‘Hello?’ as I quickly looked around the immediate area. Jet Jackson scripts, shooting locations and schedules were against the wall with the door. A bit down this little hall were bins with corrected scripts and such but that’s as far as I got before the alarm went off.
Still, a good 5 minutes past by and not even the guard had shown up. I edged out the door and tried not to look guilty when the guard finally did appear. He apologized for taking so long, turned off the alarm and said that no one normally locks up around here. He then said that he’d checked and they were filming Jet Jackson right behind the building and chance were the office staff were being used as extras. He then said he’d be happy to take me back there and let me watch. I thanked him very kindly but declined. I told him I had other stops along my way and very little time. As we walked back to the front, he asked me where I was from and told me he’d lived in L.A. up until a couple years ago. He gave me names of relatives, I did the same, we didn’t know any of them, but you never know…
Back at the car I pulled out the second Mapquest directions to attempt locating a couple places near Landscape. The Dale Restaurant [Victoria Secret – Fraser buys the soapstone carving] and Duffy’s bar. Both on Bloor. Both can be seen on the next part of this tour.
The rain, heavy now, the 5:00 traffic and the lack of parking spaces meant the most I could do was hang out the window of the car and take a quick photo. By now, the storm centered over my car, making it nearly impossible to do more than return to the hotel, order dinner and settle in for the evening.
Sunday turned out to be cloudless, sunny and about 80-ish. Very pleasant. I grabbed my maps, written directions and tackled the downtown are [see boundaries mentioned earlier] I started out at 10am on the corner of Bloor West and Spadina.
