Standing on the edge of the water in Toronto near the island airport is a testament to one of the old industries of the city, and to the former use of a region now dominated by condo development. The Canada Malting Company Plant, known to many Toronto explorers as the CMP, or simply as 'The Malt Plant' has been spared the fate being razed for development, as the City of Toronto sees it as a historical building. Well, the silos anyways... in early August 2010, demolition began on part of the complex.

Nestled at the corner of Lakeshore Blvd. and Etobicoke Creek in Mississauga, Aquaview is a condo complex that has sprung up from nowhere. Featuring a 16 floor view over the lake and what looks like it will be a nice open floor terrace to the one side, Aquaview caught my attention since it stands taller than most of the suburban homes around it.

Built to replace the decommissioned R.L. Hearn Thermal Generating Station in the city's Portlands Region, the Portlands Energy Centre is a state-of-the-art, 550MW, natural gas-fired power station that ties into the 115KV transmission system that powers most of downtown Toronto. Rather than sit on the site of the old Hearn plant, the new plant sits on a site adjacent to it.

From anywhere on the lake and islands, the impressive smokestack of Hearn stands tall for all to see. The generating station itself is the largest building in the portlands, easily visible from the Prince Edward Viaduct. The station itself began as a coal-fired plant, but in later years was converted to a gas-fired plant before being mothballed in July of 1983 amid pollution concerns.

Greenwood Shops; the heart of the Toronto Transit Commission's subway repairs program. Here, vehicles that enter are gutted down and see repairs that the other facilities cannot handle, such as the retooling of the trucks (wheels), door pneumatic repairs, or complete rebuilds from the ground up. All in a days work for the employees here.

Envisioned in the 1950's to replace the aging City Hall, New City Hall was to be a modernist masterpiece that would also be a city landmark and public space. And now, almost a full half-century after construction, it still stands out as a striking example of modernist architecture, complete with a central public space in Nathan Phillips Square.

Built to channel what was once a tributary to Black Creek, the Westview Greenbelt serves as the storm drainage system for the area south of Lawrence, north of Eglinton, and from Black Creek eastward to the Allen Expressway. While the name of the tributary has since been forgotten, the Westview Greenbelt is distinct enough that it won't be.

I have a special like of bridges. Something about building structures to take people from point A to point B, over the terrain, I guess. Even more fun is the support structure under them, especially if you have catwalks to play around on.

The irony of this visit was never lost on me. I was visiting the remains of the Eastman Kodak complex, once the manufacturing home for rolls upon rolls of film, carrying on my back one of the reasons for the demise of the film industry... my digital camera. But such is life in any industry where technology can have major impacts... you adapt or you end up left behind.

The former village of Leaside, once isolated from the city until it eventually was swallowed by East York, and later Toronto itself, was a pre-planned railway village established by CN Railway near their own rail line through the Don Valley and adjacent to the rival CP Railway. Built on the land once owned by John Lea, the residential/industrial village grew and was involved in war efforts for both World Wars.

Symes at one point was an active transfer station in Toronto's waste management scheme, but now it sits unused, save for storage of waste and recycling bins. And random junk that for some reason found its way there.

Once the active gateway of the suburbs, the original bus platforms at Eglinton subway station sit unused, sealed off from the rest of the world by walls inside the station, and a fence outside the station.

A place I've been meaning to go to for quite some time... and yet I left it for too long. It was a shell of itself when I finally got to it, gutted from the inside out. Some of the tanks remained, along with conduits and catwalks, but the majority of the machinery was gone.

Liberty Village, an area once filled with industry, pollution, and soil contamination, has made a dramatic turnaround in the last decade; it is now home to town homes, loft apartments, and towering condo buildings. And it these condos that catch the eyes of people and make them realize this dramatic turnaround for the former brownfield area.

A new condo development along the Toronto waterfront called my name one Saturday afternoon. I heeded that call, climbed 36 floors to the top, all for the view from the top. Construction wise, there wasn't much to see other than building supplies here and there, but it had a great view.

It is not uncommon for upper-class hotels to have rooms dedicated to entertainment, parties, receptions, and convention hosting. In fact, most hotels in downtown Toronto have their own ballrooms for this purpose. But how many of them have ballrooms that have been sealed away since the 1950's?

One of the original large industrial complexes, complete with one of the first taller multi-story buildings to be built in Toronto, the building originally housed the Northern Aluminum Co, which went through several name changes until finally becoming Alcan at the time the building was sold to Tower Automotive of the United States. When Tower ran into financial difficulties, however, the building was sold for redevelopment.

Not much is known about this west-end Toronto meat packers... at least, not much prior to the night of November 6, 2006. That was the night that the building housing the New York Pork & Food Exchange Ltd. burst into flame.

One of the University of Toronto's newer buildings, the Bahen Centre for Information Technology holds many interesting features and some history, despite being built recently.

McLennan Physics is the building on the University of Toronto Downtown campus to hold the honour of being the tallest publically accessible building (the Central Utilities smokestack is taller), which makes it an excellent location to get a high-up view of campus and downtown. Well, it used to be.

Any building that was built before 1982 and is made of bricks is connected to this once-active location; its history stretches across the city due to the bricks in most of the city being made here. Now, the former source of Toronto's bricks sits abandoned, its quarry turned into a natural park while the building itself rots away.

Once an active station on the subway system of Toronto, if only briefly, the lower level to Bay station has the honour of being the only completed and usable station in the system to sit unused, never seeing the public traffic that the other stations see daily. Also, being out of sight, it is also out of mind for many citizens of the city.

Out in Scarborough, along the edges of its magnificent bluffs, sits the abandoned remains of what was once a private residence and an inn; The Guild Inn. Now the area is a city park, with walking trails, art sculptures, and a great view of Lake Ontario for visitors. The Guild Inn itself, however, is very much off limits.

A single flick of a switch, and 230 kilovolts of power would respond to the call. A flick of a second switch, and an entire neighbourhood would be without power. A third switch, and power would be delivered from a different substation. This all could have been a daily event at the hydro control centre.

Long recognized on the Toronto airport strip, the Regal Constellation is one of the oldest hotels on the strip. It now sits in ruin, having been closed in 2003 after the crash in Toronto tourism concluding with the SARS crisis.

Say the word incinerator in Toronto, and you're likely going to hear an essay on environmental issues relating to it from some city dwellers. It wasn't that long ago waste was being burned in the city, however, in several locations; the Wellington Destructor was one of these trash-burning places in the city, working alongside one that used to stand at the Don Valley and Dundas, and another now closed plant in the city Portlands.

One of the oldest and most recognizable buildings on campus, University College, or UC as it is know, is one building that many students with an urge for exploration have attempted in the past, especially in an attempt to stand on top of the main tower.

One of the larger buildings on the U of T St. George Campus, Earth Sciences stands out, especially at night, where the orange glow bathing it's top floor greenhouses can be seen from most spots on campus.

Convocation Hall is one of the University of Toronto's most known buildings. Much like University College (UC), it appears on many official U of T publications, partly because it is connected to the administrative offices in Simcoe Hall, the attached neighbouring building. But there is much more than meets the eye to this old building.