Toronto's Forgotten Landmarks: Christ Church - St. James

Great article and photos! I remember when it burned but I had never heard that story before. Always enjoy hearing about the history of the buildings, places and people of Toronto.

Great shots!
A couple small details he was not a professor, both were just service workers at Medical Science Building.
And there was no car crash, only a small box of bones were recovered everything else scavenged by animals.
I was working there the day of the incident.

Le Ghost - thank you for the correction! As I said, I was merely basing it on what I've heard (from the neighbour and a few others) - I will change the info on uer.ca as well to reflect what you said - very exciting, thanks!

Jonathan.

The sign for condo development has been up for years. Are they finally going ahead with it?

I explored the church two years ago on a sunny day and got some great shots. It was months later that I learned its history and discovered is one of those places that a lot of people know about and visit. A friend who lived in the neighbourhood used to walk by daily and was curious. He decided that if he was going in, he was taking an accomplice. This was before I knew that "urban exploration" existed.

AT - heh, ya, I know they have had that sign/ones like it over the years; a fairly credible source has informed me that they actually ARE going to move on it now-

Thanks for the comments!

Jonathan.

I've been down there a few times. Great to learn more from your stories, Jonathan. I joined some younger folks in watching a horror film down there on Devil's Night last year, which makes it all the creepier now.

great story, first time i hear the whole story, the dark pictures really tell a story by themselves

The best part about the condo development effort was the company with an "@aol.com" email address on it's sign. How legitimate does that seem?

This used to be one of my favourite spots in the city to simply visit, if nothing else. I'm sure you can empathize, Jonathan. Great write-up. It's one of Toronto's most mysterious secrets.
I did a project in my third year at ocad to create a counter monument and I chose this site. My idea was to cast the wall along Shaw street (the interior side) and create a concrete replicate, capturing every detail of burnt wood and surface imperfections. Ground zero would be transformed into a park with the monument along the west end of the pit and two concrete pews facing it.

Nick,
that sounds really neat - do you have any pictures of the project? About a year ago I had this dream where CCSJ was a park - and when I woke I did a rough sketch of it as such (cleaned up, walls left etc, but with grass/swing sets et al), and the more I think about, the better it sounds...hah, I guess the idea of nonprofitable land won't sound to good to the developers. They have sketches of what the new condos are going to look like up on billboards on the property now; they start at well over $700K !

Jonathan.

I first went to this church when I was 12 years old with my friends and have been hanging out there ever since. I live across the lane and I thought it was the coolest place ever when me and my friends first found it. It was cool and I remember me and my friends last spring decided to make it cool in there by bringing chairs left behind the mod club into the church to make it a cooler place to hang out in. Later before the summer we discovered a group of twelve year olds hanging out in the church. Although they did draw penises all over the place it was a strange reminder of my past. Things changed when I got mugged there in July, I never went back until late august and was pretty sad that an other fire had recently occured leaving the whole upper floor burnt. I guess there was an other fire recently.. that Sucks

The first time I went in there was sometime in July and I remember smelling burnt wood. I guess the second fire was set not long before, or on the very same day I went. I sucked cause I wanted to go up the stairs on the upper floor after seeing some pictures. The upper floor was still stable enough to support me, but there was no way I would go on the stairs in the condition it was in.