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Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

A Tale of Two Facades

Take a look at this building:

Facade of High Park Manor, on Bloor Street near High Park Avenue, Toronto.

…and then this building:

Facade of Sunny South, on Bloor Street near High Park Avenue, Toronto.

Believe it or not, these buildings aren’t just in the same neighbourhood, they’re right beside each other. I took both photos on the same day, perhaps 15 seconds apart. Good landscaping and decent signage make a big difference.

(I really hate the sign on High Park Manor, from the all-wrong-for-the-building choice of typefaces, to the fluorescent-backlit sign that makes the place look like a convenience store rather than an apartment across the street from the city’s largest park.)

5 replies on “A Tale of Two Facades”

High Park Manor isn’t an apartment building, it’s a group home/assisted housing/what have you for mentally ill people.

That’s where all the crazies in the park live.

@yipyip: I was always under the impression that the crazies wandered up from Lakeshore. Clearly I pass by High Park Manor at the wrong/right (depending on one’s perspective) times.

Never been inside the place, but I tend to agree with Joey. It doesn’t really seem like a mecca for the mentally ill.

But this doc has it listed as a retirement home, so it’s not an apartment building. The highly-contrasted, lit signage is probably for the benefit of the aged residents.

It’s not an apartment building. It’s supportive housing for people with mental illnesses, not “mentally ill people” or crazies.”

I recommend to all of you that have posted a comment about the “crazies”, to please watch the PSA on this link. People with mental illness are living and working all around us and they do not just “wander up from the lakeshore” like monsters crawling out of a swamp. http://www.bringchange2mind.org/

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