The preliminary designs for Caledonia Station, an underground stop on the new Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT line, were presented last night at an open house held by the TTC and Metrolinx. The concepts drawings were mounted on white boards and placed throughout the room at the York Memorial Collegiate, which played host to local community members eager to determine what changes are in store for their neighbourhood. There were representatives on hand from the City of Toronto, the TTC, and the design teams to answer questions.

Given the subways vs. LRT fiasco at City Hall, the one thing that residents wouldn't stop asking TTC Community Relations Team Leader David Nagler was whether or not the project was actually going to happen. While he acknowledged the skepticism, he was also quick to reassure everyone that the project is moving forward this summer (we can expect to see more obvious signs of construction as early as August).

The Canada Linseed Oil Factory has stood on Wabash Avenue for about a century, and for nearly half of its lengthy existence it has been abandoned. The hulking shell of a former industrial complex sits at Sorauren Park, silently calling out to all urban explorers and curious adventurers. The building's ominous presence is a testament to Toronto's diminished and now largely forgotten industrial past.

The factory equipment that once inhabited this building has long-since been removed and replaced with graffiti, debris, and people like me who mill about the space admiring a tangible piece of history.

Most people know that Toronto has a lost subway station--the infamous Lower Bay--but what's often left out of the story is how it got abandoned by the TTC. After all, why bother to build a station only to mothball it for several decades? The answer lies in a failed TTC experiment to create three subway lines out of two stretches of track: the Yonge-University line (as it was in the 1960s) and the new Bloor-Danforth line.

"Roncy? That has to be the stupidest sounding neighbourhood nickname you use on blogTO." So went a conversation I had the other day with my partner (who evidently isn't always a fan of our titling practices). I don't mind Roncy myself — if indeed that is the diminutive for Roncesvalles (some would have it as Ronces or even Roncies) — but the discussion did get me thinking of other neighbourhood nicknames that I'm not much a fan of.

The photos of the week collect each of the editor-selected photos of the day into one post for a contest to be decided by our readers. Sponsored by Posterjack, the photographer whose image receives the most votes will be awarded with a voucher code for a 24"x36" poster print of their work.

All the rules and fine-print can be found in the original announcement post on the blogTO Flickr page. One thing to add, however, is that the voting period ends at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, after which the winner will be contacted with the good news.

Queen West seems a natural street to knock off as I continue to fill in some of the more obvious gaps in our collection of historical photo posts. Although Yonge Street is typically considered the most important street in Toronto (and for good reason), it wouldn't be difficult to make the argument that, at least historically speaking, Queen Street deserves consideration for that title.

Part of the reason for this, as is explained in the Queen Street West Heritage Conservation District Plan, is that Queen (then known as Lot Street) "was the baseline established by the Royal Engineers, when they laid out the town of York (now Toronto) in 1793." At the behest of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, much of York was divided into 41 lots, the boundary lines of which define our current streetscape.