Russell Hill Road Elegy

A couple of months ago and not far from this house, I discovered wonderful acoustics in one of Toronto’s historic Water Filtration Buildings. There does seem to be increasing awareness about preservation, so to come across this wonderful old home right in the same neighbourhood - in the midst of being torn down - came as a shock.

If given the opportunity, I have no idea what I would have played as an ode to an historic house like this, ripped from the fabric of our downtown core. Perhaps Massenet’s Elegy:at least that would be something, with it’s fleeting reminiscence of happier times measured out frugally for a few bars midway through an otherwise heart-rending pathos of loss and despair.

Several weeks have passed since I took this photo, and I guess at this point I would only be able to play in the muddy pit that remains, with only acoustic now afforded by the remaining broken bricks and a silhouetted smattering of mature trees scattered on the periphery of the lot.

One can only wonder: what’s the status on the resplendent Century Home just down the street, at the base of Russell Hill Road across from the Water Plant? Presumably it’s ‘dead-in-the-water’, it’s days numbered as of a hearing at City Hall last week, a meeting that I was unable to attend.

Locus: The Newel Post, barely visible (photo, center)