The Daily Photoist: Stripes

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Sewer? Don't even know 'er! Whenever Torontoist sees an open utility hole, we have to peek down inside because there's a whole other fascinating world down there! The colours and lighting in this subterranean shot by Flickr pool contributor inventor_77 beautifully highlight the geometry of an underground tunnel in the Etobicoke West Dean flood drain, almost appearing as if it were a set on a movie soundstage.

Toronto's sewer system arrived in 1843 when a new private corporation, the Toronto Gas, Light and Water Company, connected some of the more wealthy citizens to a small water network via wooden pipes. By 1872, when the City resumed control over water distribution, most people still didn't have clean drinking water available and a typhoid epidemic erupted in 1890 when an intake pipe broke and further contaminated the already disgusting "drinkable sewage" water supply. Toronto was one of the first North American cities to add chlorine to drinking water, and while we still drink from Lake Ontario, the city is now serviced by four filtration plants and pumps 2,900,000,000 litres(!) through the system each day.