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Blame the Cleanliness on the Bellhop

Posted by Jerrold Litwinenko / September 16, 2007

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Every now and then we find poignant photos of Toronto life (and stories of interesting encounters) dropped in the blogTO Flickr pool. Today, blogTO reader and fellow photographer Hamish Grant met and photographed a man who spends his Sundays strolling around in a bright red uniform doing good deeds.

Hamish writes:

This is Nick Tobier, a fellow from Detroit who, having left his job as a bellhop, thought it was a waste of a good suit not to make use of it, so he makes it his business to go out on Sunday afternoons and clean bus shelters wherever he happens to be. I met him, broom and scoop in hand, travelling along Queen St. West (this weekend's project), stopping at each transit shelter, sweeping it clean and then moving along to the next one. He can be reached at everydayplaces {{at}} yahoo.com.

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Thanks, Nick, for helping keep our city clean, and Hamish, for sharing this slice of your day!

Discussion

5 Comments

Gloria / September 16, 2007 at 02:00 pm
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A great thing to read on a Sunday afternoon. Spiffy work, Nick.
Hamish Grant / September 16, 2007 at 05:58 pm
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There was an update to my flickrpost: he's an artist.

"BTW, he's an artist who lives in Michigan, working as a professor at an art school. He 'stages public spectacles' like this as his art. In this case he was invited by the Artscape happening this weekend. I'm not sure if he's the one who told you he went around on Sunday afternoons doing good deeds or not, he might have been 'in character' when he told you that."

Doesn't matter if he was doing it for samaritanship or art - it's a good deed done and he did a lot of it - and with style, too.
uSkyscraper / September 17, 2007 at 09:40 am
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A true public service! Many thanks.
syncros / September 17, 2007 at 12:24 pm
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great shots and story hamish.
A.R. / September 17, 2007 at 09:36 pm
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What an urban hero. Seriously.

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