This is a huge complex of beautiful Victorian industrial buildings that was a distillery opened by Worts and Gooderman in 1859. There are many buildings, cobblestone laneways and a smokestack about 100 feet tall.
The distillery remained in operation, under different owners, right up to 1990. It became very popular as a location for movies. David Crongenburg used it for his version of The Fly among many others. In 2001 it was bought by a real estate development corporation and two years later opened as a tourist attraction, featuring shops, resturaunts and a professional theatre company.
They host a lot of events there but sometimes it's just fun to go down on a nice day and wander around, admiring the architecture and grazing the way too many pastry and ice cream shops, not to mention the Mill Street Brewery, one of my favorite microbreweries in the city.
It was quiet when we went there, which is kind of nice, it gave us time to dally about, taking images of this architecture that was intended as functional but still has a kind of beauty to it
The buildings here are not pretty. At first glance they are big and heavy and perhaps, with their dark brick, even oppressive. But there is a beauty to them, in the arched windows and doors, in the little details in the cornices and the cupolas. And beauty and atmosphere in the brick lanes and gas lamps.
Here's the video of our visit, it doesn't include the lovely lunch we enjoyed, but seriously, who wants to see that
Distillery District Outing from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment