Queen St. Fire: the Aftermath

A day after the fire on Queen St., there is just a hole where Duke's cycle shop used to be. If I remember right, there was a dollar store next to it that has also burned to the ground. You can see that the apartments that backed onto it from Richmond St. are completely gutted.

It really is a sorry thing to stand in the cold and stare at the remains of something you walked by every day and completely took for granted. As I snapped these photos, I wasn't alone. Many others were gathered with me on the north side of Queen St. to peer through the newly-erected fence at the devastated south side. As we snapped our photos and rolled our video cameras, we could smell the charred, acrid ashes of the rubbish heap.

Still visible is the iconic Suspect Video sign, basically the only recongnizable bit of the store that is left. Inside, I imagine, are piles of melted DVD cases with the discs fused inside them, blackend bits of vintage VHS tapes of foreign-language movies, essentially irreplacable now, and ashes of comic books and movie mags from eras gone by.

Out front, shards of icicles dangle dangerously from the lamp post, transformer and hydro lines, remnants of the fire department's gallant but failed effort to save this historic bit of real estate.

As I said yesterday, I really was sad to contemplate the demise of Preloved. Really a lovely little shop. I hope they decide to open up again somewhere else.

In case you're interested, you can donate to the "Queen St. Fire Fund" at any Scotiabank branch. The money will go to help the residents of these buildings who are now homeless in the middle of winter.

Queen St. Fire

Yesterday, a fire destroyed most of a city block at Queen and Bathurst, near my house. I took a few shots on my way to work.

This shot was taken standing at the corner of Queen and Ryerson, just across the street, at a little after 8 A.M. When I first went to my walkout at the top of my house at 6:30, I had been able to see flames shooting into the sky. You can see that the most intense flames are out by the time I took this picure, but even so, I could still feel the heat of the fire on my face. If you look, you can see that the road is wet and there are no icicles hanging from the wires in front of the involved buildings. That means the heat was keeping the water from freezing, even though it was -20 degrees with the windchill at that time.

The firefighters were still hosing the site when I got home from work at about 6:30 in the evening. My understanding is that afterward, when they were sifting through the buildings, there was another flare-up as the embers settled, and they had to pull out and douse the site again.

This second photo shows the plume of smoke streaming east and southeast from the site. The condo building on Richmond and over toward Spadina were completely enveloped in smoke. I can only imagine what these people's homes smelled like at the end of the day. I caught a faint whiff of it in my own house when I got home, even though I live to the northwest, the opposite direction that the smoke was blowing.

I had to walk over to Spadina that morning to get the streetcar, essentially the same direction as the smoke was drifting. I must have breathed in more of the smoke than I realized at the time. It was late afternoon before the unpleasant tickling and burning sensations were gone from my lungs and sinuses.

It's such a shame. I think one of the stores that was lost, along with longtime Queen St. fixures like Duke's and Suspect Video, is Preloved. I liked to browse in there, but I never bought anything because it seemed a bit expensive. Now I wish I had, of course. Too late now. I hope the business owners find the energy and resources to reestablish themselves somewhere new.

As for the people who lived in the apartments above and behind the storefronts, it makes me sad to think that they have lost every worldly possession, and have no homes in the middle of bitterest part of winter to boot. I saw one woman on TV who said she doesn't know what she's lost because she hasn't been back to check to see what she can salvage. She must still be in shock or denial because, trust me, there is nothing to salvage. You can see that from the TV reports, and passing by it again this morning just confirmed that for me.

I'd like to take a few more photos before they demolish the site, which is what I understand they're planning to do this weekend.