Holy Heritage

Rumpel Felt Building, facing Duke

The downside of having the shortest commute is that my stats aren't impressive. I am at the bottom of the mileage heap, but it isn't for lack of commuting. In fact, I have commuted every single day. I haven't commuted by car or foot a single time, either direction, since the moment the bike was handed to me. Though with such a short distance, that isn't hard to achieve. I have to admit, I am looking at the folks who have broken 100km with shame and envy, but it hardly makes sense to regularly commute farther than point A to B, particularly in this weather.

Rumpel Felt is another great old listed industrial building on my route, and since I cross Victoria at Duke Street, I have plenty of time to contemplate the pictured side of the building while waiting for the incredibly slow lights. There is a rusty dump-chute of some sort (to the left of the pictured area) that is so interesting that at first I didn't notice the inexplicable garage-style door that opens to nothing on the third floor. My first guess here is that it was an opening cut for installing or removing heavy equipment. Alternate guess: steampunk shuttle bay door? The traffic light here really is slow.

Lang Tannery, facing Joseph

Back at the Lang Tannery, there is a square patched hole facing Joseph on the second floor. Walking back from a lunch in Victoria park with some co-workers last week, one of them wondered what the hole was from. It took me a minute, but I remembered that this was roughly where the overhead link was from the now-demolished boiler house (only the chimney remains). There are old drawings of the complex near the bike racks, and we were able to confirm that was in fact where the junction was. Of the dozens of bricked up openings on this building, I was pleased to be able to explain the history of one of them.

The curb along this stretch is an example of my new pet peeve since I have been bike commuting: non-flush curbs. The pavement here is about an inch and a half lower than the curb base, just enough to make it dangerous to bike tires. Wellington is like this too, and it inserts a dangerous edge 10 inches or so into the roadway. This pushes cyclists further into the road, creating a sort of negative bike lane, and serves no purpose that I can determine. Anyone want to illuminate me here? Why not keep these surfaces flush?

- Eric M
Google

Follow-up from last week - the legacy elevators (two of them apparently) still exist! Thanks to Brendan, I located one of them in a whole section I didn't even know was accessible.