Toronto Financial District
September 22nd, 2002, was a rather boring day for me: I
was entrusted with the mission of escorting my wife and her sister into Toronto for a showing of Mamma
Mia. Not being much of an ABBA fan, I opted to entertain myself for the
duration of the show by walking around and talking pictures of the downtown
area. While I work most days right downtown (using the fabulous GO Transit to commute,
and then walking up to an office across from First Canadian Place), I'd never
taken the opportunity to shoot a couple of pictures of the skyscraper
architecture that dominates the Financial District. This is the first of a couple
of rolls that I'd taken, and at some point I'll get around to scanning
some more of them. Disclaimer: These are meant more as documentary rather
than artistic pictures (apart from one picture which I am quite pleased
with). These were all shot on a Minolta 5xi 35mm camera with an old roll
of ISO200 film in it, and scanned on an Agfa 1220u scanner. They
were then downsized and occasionally sharpened in a photo app. It was, unfortunately, an
overcast day for much of the afternoon, and while that presents great portrait opportunities, it doesn't work
well for pictures which have a hefty amount of sky in them.
Alas, those were the conditions, and these are the results. February 6th,
2003: Originally this was all on a single page, however after getting
several thousand visitors looking for pictures of downtown Toronto, I've decided it wise to split
this out onto several pages (namely to save people who really aren't interested from
having to load several hundred KB of images just to hit back in their browser), and
have added a couple of newly scanned photos.
As a bit of aside about Toronto, as many have queried: When I talk about
"largest building", or "largest office building", I am of course excluding the
CN Tower (which stands 553 meters, or about 1824 feet). For a bit of perspective
regarding the relative heights of Toronto's downtown, the largest building
(First Canadian Place) stands 983 feet (excluding antenna), while the Sears
Tower in Chicago towers at 1455 feet (again excluding antenna).
| Pictures of Toronto - Sunday, September 22nd,
2002 |
Looking South on
Bay at King Street. In the center of the picture is the architecturally
renowned BCE place (with an abundance of corner offices,
which was the impetus for the odd design), with CIBC's Commerce Court tower on the left, and one of the
TD towers on the right. As you will notice, all
of the large, extravagant buidings in Toronto are named after/primarily
occupied by banks. BCE Place is the third tallest office building in
Toronto, at 856 feet. |
Looking SE at the corner of Bay and King Street. This
rather plain looking building is CIBC's Commerce Court West. While it's a standard box
building, the pleasing proportions and stainless steel cladding give it a
timeless, beautiful look. This is actually my favourite building, and on
each walk up Bay Street it's the building I admire most. This is the
fourth tallest office building in Canada at 784 feet. |
Here's Commerce
Court West again. You can slightly make out the reflection of the Scotia
Plaza tower. |