The following is the original announcement of the first TTC Type & Tile Tour.
Join me – Joe Clark, reigning obsessif on TTC typography and interior architecture – on a guided tour of subway stations with signage (and/or fonts, and/or walls) that are of interest and unique to Toronto.
Where and when
We’re going to start with one tour (a quicker one, running east-west) and, if that works, we’ll do it all over again the next week on a longer north-south tour.
- Sunday, October 28, 2007, at 1400 hours on the dot
- NEW MEETING POINT: Meet inside Victoria Park station at ground level (downstairs inside the station). (We had to move it from Scarborough Centre because that station is closed this Sunday.) This would be a bad time to be late. Look for me in my purple hat.
Itinerary
- Victoria Park for its bus bays (scheduled for demolition)
- Main Street as a microcosm or musem of nearly every TTC sign variant
- Pape for its upcoming “modernization”
- St. George because it’s a laboratory of successful (and failed) signage experiments
- Spadina for the “artificial stone” at the Walmer Rd. exit
- Bathurst to test the new signs (can you take a streetcar westbound from there?)
What you need
Just get yourself into the subway by legally paying a fare in some way. We won’t leave the subway system. (We might go have a drink afterward.) It would be prudent to get a transfer if you aren’t using a pass. Bring water if you like.
We’ll be complying with all applicable laws, including TTC Bylaw Nº 1, at all times, which means, among other things, no ghettoblasters, no “expectorating,” no “loitering,” and no “commercial” photography without a permit.
We can expect to be under continuous surveillance by TTC special constables. If they’re smart, they won’t bother wearing plain clothes, as they will be easy to spot.
What might happen the next week?
If the first tour goes well, exactly seven days later we’ll go on a bigger tour of the Sheppard, Yonge, and Spadina lines.
Elsewhere on the Web
- “On the Facebook”
- At Upcoming
- Flickr photos (group pool coming up)
- hCalendar entry
- iCal calendar
