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Ask Torontoist: What’s that UFO in the Humber Valley?

By Val Dodge

Ask Torontoist features questions posed by you, and answered by our elite team of specially trained investigative experts (also known as our staff). Send your questions to ask@torontoist.com.

Reader Lee Chapman asks:

When you cycle from the lake up to Old Mill subway on the Humber trail, there is this interesting piece of architecture. It’s a disk on posts. Somewhat intended, it seems, as a shelter. It looks like a space ship landing pod, almost. What is it really for?


2009-08-26-humber-ufo.jpg
Photo by klepl from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Torontoist answers:

This beautiful structure is but a humble public washroom, dating from the time when Torontonians (well, pre-amalgamation Metro Torontonians) actually took pride in public infrastructure. You’ll be disappointed if you try to use it for its intended purpose, though: it’s been shuttered since 2002 because of extensive and repeated vandalism, no doubt aided by its simultaneously isolated and easy to reach location. An urban legend holds that the washroom is the work of a young Raymond Moriyama (designer of the Toronto Reference Library, Ontario Science Centre, and many other modern landmarks in Toronto and beyond) , but it was actually designed by Alan Crossley in 1959.
Thanks to Jennifer Kowalski and Mary Battaglia at Parks, Forestry, and Recreation for information.

Comments

  • http://undefined Christopher Drost

    also when viewed from space it looks like it blends perfectly with the concentric circles of the humber filtration plant
    http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.635827,-79.479443&spn=0.003599,0.007424&t=h&z=18

  • http://undefined Ben

    ah, that’s why it always stinks there. I assumed it was the river.

  • http://undefined Ben

    Thanks for this explanation. I always wondered about this thing. It’s pretty ornate for a public washroom.

  • http://undefined torontorob

    I’ve wondered about this building so many times en route to the Old Mill. Thank you very much for the explanation! I’d love to see some great ‘Close Encounters’-style filming done at this site.

  • http://undefined BJH

    If you stomp in a circle underneath it, it hums.

  • http://undefined AR

    Ornate, no? But it is an attractive design. Heck, it seem that more attention was paid to its architecture than the average subway station from that time, to put a twist to the common epithet of the Bloor-Danforth line.

  • http://undefined AR

    Also, this is the kind of thing that Toronto Life’s Urban Decoder used to cover. Now they “decode” whether or to wear sandals to work and how safe scooters are.