Exploring the old buildings around the abandon Nestle Chocolate Factory on Sterling Rd is interesting urban exploration adventure. The monolithic ten story 'tower factory', which you can't really see in the photo below, was at one time listed among the tallest buildings in Toronto. It was certainly the tallest structure in this particular west-end industrial park. Today its not completely abandon, but very securely closed to the public and used for storage, but not production of chocolate.
The area is just becoming gentrified actually, and its all because of the artists in the old buildings all around the factory. Yes it's that same old story: artists adopt an undesirable location for its large, cheap and readily available spaces, burnish it with the fashionable sheen of the avant-garde and watch in trepidation as other urban lifestyle community initiatives inevitably invade the area with their less radical businesses. The artists get forced out by the yuppies whose holdings grow like invasive weeds all around them. Eventually, the artists are choked out by escalating rents and condo-minded makeovers far outside their price range.
There's some really terrific graffiti on the cinder block wall behind the cluster of buildings at 151 Sterling Rd , in the shadow of the old Nestle plant
A squat three-story brick building, at 163 Sterling Rd. rents units to artists for approx $900 a month for almost 2,000 square feet! That was four years ago though...
In Oct 2010 Scott-Douglas the proprietor of Tomorrow Gallery rented the space and made it a popular independent gallery and project venue for artists from all over the city.
While I was poking around getting shots, a guy opened a loading bay door to exit and have a smoke. I asked if I could take pictures inside and he said sure and invited me in...
So I went from the back of 151 Sterling to the front, through the building, which of course I soon realized was an industrial box supply business.
Colt Paper makes custom boxes for auto parts suppliers and other exotic parts shippers. There is a fulfillment house operating on the premises too, shipping board games all over the world. They asked me not to photograph them or their operation and I complied with that request.
I looked for another way out or up or across to other more interesting parts of the bldg. The east end of the structure is maze-like and I don't have a lot of pictures because there wasn't much to see there truthfully except bags of Styrofoam peanuts and plywood for making custom crates and whatever..
The building storage was made larger by using the interiors of tractor trailers permanently parking in an unused loading bay area.
These were filled with wooden pallets and sheets of exotic material, something like Masonite , maybe a synthetic lead lining for shipping photo sensitive or perhaps even radioactive material? I wish I had searched for a label and taken a picture ..
The original worker guy who let me in told me the box supply company has been here for almost sixty years. They own the bldg, and so when they move it will be the last straw - the whole street will be turned into condominiums by Castle Developments, which has already started cleaning-up some of the land north and south of this location, on the same street .. They're getting ready to plant condos. The area is in transition...