An operator’s booth, a rusty old bridge, and what Toronto loses when it scraps its industrial past

Last week, I went to say goodbye to an old architectural friend, but I was too late. Instead, I found long-armed excavators sleeping off their feast, surrounded by piles of concrete and steel table scraps.

Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy when I tell you my pal was the Bascule Bridge just north of Old Cherry Street (there is a new one now) and Villiers Street. It was constructed the year I was born, 1968, and operated until a few years ago. And the bridge itself, although interesting, wasn’t my particular fascination. No, it was the little operator’s booth that cantilevered over the Keating Channel. Accessed by an open-tread staircase attached to an insanely sturdy steel arm, it would become as important a mental marker for me as the neon Duckworth’s Fish & Chips sign, the CN Tower, or the Prince’s Gates.