Heritage: Faces on Places II

Heritage Toronto's "Faces on Places" walk gathered in front of Ryerson University's South Kerr Hall and its Dora de Pédery-Hunt bas-relief art on 22-August-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Terry Murray has become a bit of a celebrity around Toronto for her book, Faces on Places: A Grotesque Tour of Toronto. I was first introduced to Murray when she gave a Heritage Toronto walk past some of those faces in the downtown area in 2008, and this blog previously addressed her appearance at the Swansea Historical Society. When a revised Heritage Toronto "Faces on Places" walk was announced for this year, I had to be there.


Ivy was partially obscuring this Elizabeth Wyn Wood bas-relief of a figure skater on Ryerson University's Recreation and Athletic Centre in West Kerr Hall on 22-August-2010

The previous walk had been criticized for having its key objects too far from the ground and thus difficult to see. This walk featured faces and art much closer to pedestrian level. The early stages of the tour focused on Kerr Hall at Ryerson University. While Murray was able to point out and talk about a variety of controversial pieces, ivy had obscured others, a fact she has already lamented on her web page.


Terry Murray talked about the faces on Kerr Hall at the Ryerson University campus in Toronto, Ontario on 22-August-2010

The champion for this walk in sheer density of faces came at the 1848-era Oakham House, located on the Church Street periphery of Ryerson University, with twelve heads hanging off the building. Of those, the identities of only original owner William Thomas and his wife Martha were known.


A bowed head stood atop the seventh story of the Toronto Hydro building at 14 Carlton Street on 22-August-2010

One set of faces was well off the ground--up on the seventh story of the Toronto Hydro building on 14 Carlton Street. Murray claimed to have walked by the building for twenty years before noticing the bowed heads on top of building--since she had them in the walk guide, they were readily noticed by the approaching group. Sometimes, that's all the reason one needs to go on a Heritage Toronto walk. Interestingly, the building was originally intended to be much larger, so these faces would not have been on top of the building.


John Lyle, known as an advocate for Canadian content in architecture, included this farmer on a tractor on what had been a Dominion Bank and was an Elephant and Castle restaurant on 22-August-2010

The walk ended with a real gem, the one-time Dominion Bank at 380 Yonge Street which is presently an Elephant and Castle. Its architect, John Lyle, was a strong proponent of Canadian themes, and it featured both Canadian wildlife and medallions with the images of France's King Louis XIV and Britain's Queen Victoria--which I had never noticed in all my walks down Yonge Street. The mix of low-level faces that most people had likely also overlooked was a recipe for a very interesting Heritage Toronto walk.

Heritage: Faces on Places

Author Terry Murray spoke at the Swansea Historical Society meeting on 4-November-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's meeting of the Swansea Historical Society featured as speaker the medical journalist and author of Faces on Places, Terry Murray. While I had attended a Heritage Toronto walk that included many of the places downtown that she featured in the book, I definitely wanted to attend the meeting to find out what faces she had found on places closer to where I live.

I was not disappointed. While a history of some of the installations that had interested her in this topic and some of the adventures she had while documenting sculpture in Toronto made for an entertaining presentation, there was local content. Over the course of the evening she mentioned at least three places within walking distance of my residence where there was sculpture that either I had never noticed before, or never looked at closely.


A montage of the "reading, writing and arithmetic" sculptures on the side of Swansea Public School, sculpted by Murray Brown in 1953, was captured on 7-November-2009

I set out on an unseasonably warm autumn day today to take a look at two of the places she had talked about. The first proved to be right along Windermere Avenue. During an expansion of Swansea Public School in 1953, the sculptor Murray Brown was apparently commissioned to do another version of the "reading, writing and arithmetic" sculptures that were common in Scarborough at the time. (Neither Scarborough nor Swansea was then a part of Toronto.)


Four gargoyles were found on the north face of the tower at Morningside-High Park Presbyterian Church in the Swansea neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario on 7-November-2009

Terry Murray's real passion is for gargoyles, sculptures that not only decorate a structure but serve the function of draining water away from them. She did find gargoyles in Swansea at the Morningside-High Park Presbyterian Church. As the building is a community icon, opened in 1917 and serving as a polling place amongst other civic uses, I knew how ornate the church was, but had never paid attention to the higher portion of the tower, where the gargoyles are located. I combined the four on the north face of the tower into a montage above.

For more on gargoyles and other building sculptures around Toronto, see Terry Murray's blog or find a copy of her book.