Fire & Ice

The morning of the Queen Street fire I turned on the TV to catch the news like I usually do and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Just as I got into the kitchen I heard something about a massive fire on Queen Street, I live on Queen, so a quick U-turn out of the kitchen and I'm glued to the TV.

Queen is a very long street and I'm nowhere near the fire but I've had a 25-year history with this street. I've lived on Queen at various times from Jameson Ave. to Victoria Park, when I moved to Toronto I lived on Queen West.

The fire was right in the middle of the section that I have always loved the most, a lot of different versions of Brucie have spent a lot of time around there over the years. Lots of funky old buildings with apartments above – my favourite kind of living space. You can replace the buildings but you can't replace the age, the feel, or especially the history.

I thought about going down for a look and maybe take some pictures like Simon did, but I've seen it before. There was a fire in an old building in Calgary when I was there, the temperature was -40 and I happened by the place afterward. I'm an architecture buff and there is nothing creepier to me than seeing a blackened shell covered with dirty icicles as if it is still in the jaws of some horrible monster.

I think I'll wait until everything is gone, it'll be bad enough to see a gigantic hole on my Beautiful Queen and I'm sure the last thing they need is one more gawker down there.

There are some amazing nighttime shots of the aftermath here, and the photo above I nabbed from Torontoist, they have more great photos.