TalkWalk

Stunning day for enjoying Winter Stations at Woodbine Beach Toronto. Appropriate and timely theme of migration. Concludes 1st April. Make sure to fit in a beach walk with temporary art installations. @ Woodbine Beach

The covered bridge walkway between Hudson’s Bay Department Store/Saks of Fifth Avenue and the Eaton Centre is as much a sculptural highlight as it is an engineering feat. Like a camera aperture, or the opening to any James Bond film, the bridge beautifully transforms from the rounded archway at Hudson’s Bay to the square opening on the other side of the road into the Eaton Centre. Large windows offer great views of Old City Hall and its clock tower with gargoyles lunging out. The floor gently moves like a swing-bridge as pedestrians make their way over it.

The elephant in the room. This is Tembo, which is the Swahili word for elephant. The adult appears to be confidently making her way, plowing (?), through snowy Commerce Court followed by two youngsters. Sculpted by Derek Hudson, it took a year to create and is welded together from 31 pieces of metal. One of a number of works donated by successful businessman and philanthropist Louis (“Bud”) Odette whose firm Eastern Construction had worked on such projects as Roy Thomson Hall and the CBC building in downtown Toronto. Bud had bought an elephant sculpture while snowbirding (escaping Toronto’s winter) in Florida and ferried it around several foundries in Ontario until he found one that said they could make a life size model. There’s a Tembo in Windsor, and a baby Tembo at the London School of Economics.

Dashing through the snow. Mail mushers. This scene depicts the Canadian mail service delivering parcels and letters in wintry conditions with dogs and sleigh. Bas-relief stone-carved scenes by Louis Temperole are a highlight of the old Toronto Postal Delivery Building (now Scotiabank Arena). “No finer stone carver in the world” were the words to describe artist Temperole in 1939. Check them out when you walk past them on the way to watch the Raptors or the Maple Leafs; or events including Ellen Degeneres, Muse, and Ariane Grande.