Caption: After taking on passengers, TTC CLRV 4133 pauses at the lights of King and Strachan before continuing on a 504 King run for the downtown core, in the gentrified and hip King West neighbourhood.
Once lined with garment factories and heavy manufacturing industry like the Toronto Carpet Factory and Massey Harris's equipment manufacturing plants (later Massey Ferguson), the departure of industry in the 80's and 90's coupled with the desire to live downtown saw this area along King Street converted from heavy industrial to commercial and residential use. Old factories were torn down for new condos and townhouses, with some older historic buildings repurposed into offices, lofts and residential units. The connecting route 63 bus behind 4133 will turn down Strachan for the trendy Liberty Village, to service streets that people once went to work along but now come home to. All the new residents in this area consequently have put a strain on transit, and the King streetcars are often packed to the doors during rush hour.
Another casualty of this gentrification can be seen looming in the background like a beacon in the sunset: one of the lighting towers for CPR's now-removed Parkdale Yard, sitting abandoned with nothing more to light. Time turned Parkdale Yard into townhouses, office buildings and retail outlets, as when all the rail-shipping industry moved out, so too did the need for a rail yard to serve them.
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