It is one of the great regrets of my life that I didn't spend more of my twenties ordering Rob Roy's and Scarlet O'Hara's at The Silver Rail, a cocktail lounge and I think steakhouse at Yonge Street that survived beautifully from 1947 to the late 1990s. I only went there once, liked it a lot and always meant to go back, but never got around to it. It was just one of those places (Like the Brothers Restaurant at the top of Yonge by the Scientology Headquarters) that I just expected to be there for ever. The Silver Rail

I now know that whenever there is a place that I really like that I think that way about alarms bell should start ringing and I should haul my ass over there and chain myself to the doors in protest because more often than not they will disappear in a couple of weeks or months. I can't remember how I found out it had closed; I may have seen notice about the closing party in NOW or EYE, or I may have just walked by it and seen the sign in the window, but regardless of how I found out, I was crushed.

Trying to find more images to help me drown in my nostalgia even more, I came across the quite good Archives of Ontario

This is The O'keefe Centre for the Performing Arts, now known as The Hummingbird Centre, The Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, having landscaping completed on the Lower West Terrace prior to the 1960 opening. I worked in various roles for the theater for eight years, and I spent a lot of time here during my breaks, when the saplings in the photo was full grown and reached to the upper terrace. The trees in the garden would blossom into pungent flowers around this time every year while the trees on the terrace itself provided a shade canopy, a place for the birds to hang out, and sheltered us from the bustle of Yonge Street, making for a very pleasant urban space(until they got chopped down in the mid to late 90's). Here's a drawing I did in my sketchbook when I worked there:

This yellowing transparency from 1956 is of a section of the 400 that I drive on almost every day, the place where the highway dips just before you cross the flat expanse of The Holland Marsh that I've pictured in the masthead for this blog.

Apparently I'm not the only one who has a wierd affection for stretches of Canadian highway. Here's a website entirely devoted to The King's series of highways, of which the 400 is a part.

Labels: Hummingbird, nostalgia, Okeefe

8:00 AM

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