Join #HASHTAG Gallery for our newest exhibition opening reception
Featuring: Terry Blake, 501: Impressions of a Post-Industrial Urban Place
Presented as part of CONTACT Festival
The Toronto street-car system is one of the oldest and most extensive in the Western hemisphere and, with 95 million riders annually, it acts as a cord that ties the city together. The founding of the system dates back to 1861, when the Toronto Street Railway Company was awarded a 30-year franchise to operate horse-drawn railcars in the city. As the city grew, so did the light-rail lines. By the start of World War II, the lines had been fully electrified, spread through much of the city and reached as far away as North York and Richmond Hill. Significant expansion occurred again in the 1990s with new streetcar lines coming in to replace existing bus lines, cementing Toronto’s place as a street-car city.
Route 501 is the major east/west street-car line running across greater Toronto. Over 50,000 trips per day are made along this transit corridor. How do people shape the 501 urban space? How does this urban space shape people?
This collection is a study of urban place. People are drawn to space. The space is changed by people from space to place, and the people themselves are changed, first by the space, then by the place, so the place changes further. A space becomes different and, over time, shaped places evolve in the post-industrial urban environment.
