Local Adventure #3: The most fun you can have at a water treatment plant

It was one of those Saturday mornings when I woke up with no plans and no obligations. While it sounds like bliss, for me it causes great anxiety – how will I seize this day? What stories will I have for my colleagues on Monday morning? I have to make this Saturday epically great!

While sipping my morning coffee I flipped through my three-day-old issue of The Grid and was happy to read that it was Doors Open Toronto weekend. Suddenly I knew what I would do with my day of freedom: The R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant.

Each year, the city of Toronto opens the doors of many hallowed and elegant buildings, so that interested citizens can be reminded that this city actually has some pretty cool stuff.  And each year, I have some sort of commitment that prevents me from taking part. So after a brief stop at the Beach location of Menchies (green tea and raspberry foryo with gummy bears and Reese’s Pieces), J. and I strolled up the hill to a beautiful Art Deco building, overlooking the calm, expansive waters of Lake Ontario.

The R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was designed in 1929 and opened in 1944. In these days of gravy trains and cuts to services many would deem essential, it’s hard to believe that a public utility could be designed with such care and built with such lavish materials. While I fancied that our predecessors simply had more respect for beauty, it turns out that not everyone supported the expenditure. I learned all this from the helpful pamphlet handed to me by a Doors Open volunteer. I also learned that it was common for pre-World War II water filtration plants in North America to be built in this style. I suppose both the beauty of water and the importance of making it drinkable inspired some finesse in the architecture.

With high expectations, we entered the humble doors of the plant. My first instinct was to blow through, looking for “specialness”, and if I didn’t find it, scoff and huff and puff. If Nucky Thompson and Al Capone weren’t lounging in the halls, I would be sourly disappointed.

Photo by Michael Chrisman, torontoist.com

But on closer inspection I realized – the Deco is in the details. When was the last time, in Canada, you walked into a government building, or event a restaurant, with round-arched windows? When was the last time you saw a marble and bronze clock in an industrial space? It occurred to me that the beauty of the building was in its subtlety. It didn’t need to try be to elegant; it just needed to be solid and refined and easy to look at.

And I didn’t need to try so hard to have epic, adventurous days. I just needed to browse through my local weekly, find something cool and open my mind.