Tommy Thompson Park started as an expansion project for a then thriving industrial Toronto Harbour. Reclaiming space from the lake for growth of an evolving metropolis was order of the day in late 1960s, but the thing with change and evolution is that it sometimes outpaces the speed of some long term planning. By the time new expanded port came into existence, the great St.Lawrence Seaway opened and changed Great Lakes industries forever. The half-finished port expansion became irrelevant almost overnight. As is the habit in our city, this started decades of debates of what to do and how to pivot with this newly minted part of lake coastline. Fortunately, we settled on parkland option, the prevailing lakefront planning sentiment of the late 1970s.
Now, nearly 50 years later, the constructed peninsula we most commonly call The Leslie Street Spit has became one of the most popular parks from which to enjoy postcard-style views of the city, go birding, or just escape from the frenetic pace of urban life. This 10 kilometer peninsula is rapidly becoming one of the larger nature sanctuaries in the region, most interesting for sure. And all this just minutes from some of the most intense urban intersections in Canada’s largest city.
This entire park sits on the foundation of construction debris. Clean landfill is the term professionals like to use, concrete, tile, rebar, and construction steel have been all piled into the lake for decades. Now the layers of vegetation and some skilled landscape work have covered this pile of concrete, glass and metal with park features, giving us a natural oasis where one can enjoy wetlands and forest within a 10 minute bike ride from busiest of the intersections in the country. Nice as it is, this is not the most interesting part to me.
Concrete forms, parts of buildings and former lives line the lake-facing side of the park, still under construction, still evolving. Rebar sticking out of concrete blocks, parts of poured stairways, segments of walls with tiles still on them, facing out towards the lake horizon. What a metaphor for our existence here, and on Great lakes, for centuries we built on these shores, traded, fought over access, and then destroy it all to start all over again. Industrial age gives us a more permanent reminder. Landfill reclaims the water, reshapes the shoreline and acts as a foundation for what we do next with this space.
Birders, joggers and cyclists typically stick to the trails and observation areas neatly built out through the park conversion process. It is a spectacular place, but on the leading edge of the park, the boundary of the transformation is where rough and chaotic pile of rubble meets the lake. It is almost as if we are witnessing the meeting of the permanence of the lake and its relentless force with our continued effort to make our mark and shape our presence, make the mark, lay the claim, then demolish and build anew on top of it.
It is important to take this photograph, before the last phase of park transformation, already under way, closes up this exposed chaotic foundation under well ordered rock formations and soil and flora, not to see the light of sunshine for many many years. Sometimes, what appears ugly on the onset is important to remember. On the lakefront like in life, the best of the experiences and opportunities come from wading over a jagged wreckage of the past. Hard to pass up on this thought and the image.
As the light starts the new day, it is as if it is signaling another round of demolish/construct cycle, the way we move forward, just as the lake waves keep coming for the shore, without pause or a second thought. A reminder that we ought to keep looking ahead, moving forward and accept wreckage as a part of the way ahead.
Technical Notes:
- Digital Capture – Nikon Z7ii with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S lens
- Processed with On1 Software