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| Tannery facing Charles St. |
Biking to work cuts about 10 minutes off my commute, and initially I thought that I would take advantage of this extra time to explore and get some additional exercise in the mornings. But so far, the extra ten minutes in the morning with my coffee and family has been too tempting. This morning, I thought that I would motivate things by bringing my camera with me on the commute (I have no mobile device, so this means my bulky DSLR). Rather than going further, I set the goal of just noticing a couple of things near my normal routes that I had never noticed.
The highlight this morning was noticing something new about the Tannery (where I work at Charles & Victoria) itself. I’ve loved the Lang Tannery since I first encountered it back in the early 90s, when it was a very different place. (I regret the loss of the wooden-gate cargo elevators with manual controls, but I can understand that charm and elevator safety are generally at odds.) You could discover a new historical wart or forgotten flourish on this building every day, inside and out, and never exhaust the supply.
This morning I noticed for the first time that the tie-rod caps on one surface have decorative lions in cast iron (pictured). As far as I can tell, only one section along Charles has this feature, though many of the lions appear to have been lost over the years.
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| Laneway at Water, facing Duke |
When walking, my favourites are the many unnamed laneways in the downtown, with their lopsided garages and generally less finished features. Because they are narrow and so many backyards face them, they tend to be much better for urban birdwatching than the busy, wider and more polished main streets.
I’ve generally been avoiding the laneway most directly on my route (pictured) because of the potholes and the fact that the left hand turns tend to be challenging - the two-way stop left turn off the laneway on to Weber is more dangerous and time consuming than just sticking to the lights and four way stops. But, this morning, just for fun, I spent an extra couple of minutes to double back along the laneway.
Biking, potholes and birdwatching are a deadly combination, so I have to stop if I want to enjoy the birds.
- Eric M
Google
There are still 2 wooden gate cargo elevators with buttons!
ReplyDeleteBrendan: Is tourist access to these elevators available to the standard worker bees of the building?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely to one of them. Head past the Communitech space through the back hallway and turn left, head through the door and up the ramp and through the double doors. Voila, you will see it. Give it a try!
ReplyDelete