R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is both a crucial piece of infrastructure and an architecturally acclaimed historic building named after the longtime commissioner of Toronto's public works Roland Caldwell Harris. The plant's architect was Thomas C. Pomphrey with engineers H.G. Acres and William Gore. It is located in the east of the city at the eastern end of Queen Street and at the foot of Victoria Park Avenue along the shore of Lake Ontario in the Beaches neighbourhood in the former city of Scarborough.


Roland Caldwell Harris

Harris was born in Lansing on May 26, 1875 in what is now North York, Ontario, but grew up in Toronto. Harris was Public Works Commissioner from 1912 to 1945 and involved in projects like: * Prince Edward Viaduct opened in 1918 and which included his idea to add a deck under the bridge allowed for the Bloor Danforth line to be built decades later. * Mount Pleasant bridge as part of the extension of Mount Pleasant Road north to
Lawrence Avenue Lawrence Avenue is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is divided into east and west portions (Lawrence Avenue East and Lawrence Avenue West) by Yonge Street, the dividing line of east-west streets in Toronto. Route de ...
East in 1934. * expansion of the streetcar network of the Toronto Civic Railways from 1912 to 1915. * Waterfront Railway Viaduct built from 1925 to 1934 to bring rail lines into Union Station. * extension of University Avenue south of Queen Street West to Front Street in 1931. Harris died on September 3, 1945. His son
Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
Roland Allen Harris was a member of the Queen's Own Rifles. Harris is buried in family plot at St. John's Norway Cemetery.


Site history


Pre-1932 history

The land was once owned by Peter Patterson and George Monro. Prior to the construction of a water treatment plant, the area was the site of Victoria Park, a waterfront amusement park that operated from 1878 until 1906. It closed the same year as rival Munro Park ceased operations. The amusement park was initially served by ferry from York Street (same docks serving Toronto Islands) until 1895 when streetcar service commenced. After the park closed in 1906, Victoria Park Forest School opened and used the site until 1932.


Water treatment plant

With an early 20th-century Toronto plagued with water shortages and unclean drinking water, public health advocates such as George Nasmith and Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, Charles Hastings, campaigned for a modern water purification system. Construction for a water treatment plant began on the site in 1932 and the building became operational on November 1, 1941. The building, unlike most modern engineering structures, was also created to make an architectural statement. Fashioned in the Art Deco style, the cathedral-like structure remains one of Toronto's most admired buildings. It is, however, little known to outsiders. The interiors are just as opulent with marble entryways and vast halls filled with pools of water and filtration equipment. The plant has thus earned the nickname ''The Palace of Purification''. In 1992, the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was named a national historic civil engineering site by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. It was designated under the ''
Ontario Heritage Act The ''Ontario Heritage Act'', (the ''Act'') first enacted on March 5, 1975, allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Province of Ontario, Canada, as being of cultural heritage ...
'' in 1998. The plant appeared on a stamp issued by Canada Post in 2011, in a series showcasing five notable Art Deco buildings in Canada.


Use

Despite its age, the plant is still fully functional, providing approximately 30% of Toronto's water supply. The intakes are located over from shore in of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake. Water is also chlorinated in the plant and then pumped to various reservoirs throughout the City of Toronto and York Region.


Access

The facility grounds have been made available to the public. Despite some concerns of vulnerability to an attack on the water supply since the September 11 attacks, the grounds have remained open to the public, but security has been increased. In the summer of 2007, construction began on the installation of an underground Residual Management Facility allowing processed waste to be removed before discharging into the lake. This construction has since been completed.


In popular culture

The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant has been used in dozens of films and television series as a prison, clinic, or headquarters. *The building of the plant is vividly recounted in Michael Ondaatje's ''
In the Skin of a Lion ''In the Skin of a Lion'' is a novel by Canadian–Sri Lankan writer Michael Ondaatje. It was first published in 1987 by McClelland and Stewart. The novel fictionalizes the lives of the immigrants who played a large role in the building of the ci ...
''. *The headquarters of "The Man" in the 2002 comedy ''
Undercover Brother ''Undercover Brother'' is a 2002 American satirical spy action comedy blaxploitation film directed by Malcolm D. Lee and starring Eddie Griffin. The screenplay by John Ridley and Michael McCullers is based on the Internet animated series creat ...
''. *A prison in the
1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...
comedy ''
Half Baked ''Half Baked'' is a 1998 American stoner comedy film starring Dave Chappelle, Jim Breuer, Harland Williams, and Guillermo Díaz. The film was directed by Tamra Davis, co-written by Chappelle and Neal Brennan and produced by Robert Simonds. The ...
''. *An asylum in the 1995
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
''
In the Mouth of Madness ''In the Mouth of Madness'' is a 1994 American supernatural horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca. It stars Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner and Charlton Heston. Neill stars as J ...
''. *"The Centre," a nefarious think tank in the television series '' The Pretender''. *Base of operations for Genomex, an
antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the chief foe of the protagonist. Etymology The English word antagonist comes from the Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – ''antagonistēs'', "opponent, competitor, villain, enemy, riv ...
ic corporation in the television series '' Mutant X''. *The Royal Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane (next door to Elsinore Brewery) in the 1983 film '' Strange Brew''. *The Henry Ford Centre for the Criminally Insane, as seen in '' Robocop: The Series''. *The Langstaff Maximum Security Prison, as seen in '' Flashpoint'' in the episode ''Just a Man''. *The Mellonville Maximum Security Prison, as seen in an SCTV episode (1982). *A prison in the Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal episode "Solitary Confinement." *"Lake District Federal Prison" in '' Between'' in the episode ''School's Out''. *A prison building in the '' Conviction'' episode "A Different Kind of Death." *A prison in the closing scenes of ''
The Big Heist ''The Big Heist'' is a 2001 crime drama television film directed by Robert Markowitz and written by Jere Cunningham and Gary Hoffman. The film, based on the 1986 non-fiction book ''The Heist'' by Ernest Volkman and John Cummings, tells the stor ...
'', when Donald Sutherland's character enters to serve a 20-year sentence. *"Ekart County Jail" in the 2015 movie ''
Regression Regression or regressions may refer to: Science * Marine regression, coastal advance due to falling sea level, the opposite of marine transgression * Regression (medicine), a characteristic of diseases to express lighter symptoms or less extent ( ...
''. *"U.N. Penitentiary Chesapeake Conservancy Zone" in the 2020 season of
The Expanse Expanse or The Expanse may refer to: Media and entertainment ''The Expanse'' franchise * ''The Expanse'' (novel series), a series of science fiction novels by James S. A. Corey * ''The Expanse'' (TV series), a television adaptation of the ...
. *A Children’s Hospital in Guillermo Del Toro’s 1997 film '' Mimic''. *The office of Richard Jenkins' character, Ezra Grindle, a factory executive with a dark past, in Guillermo Del Toro’s '' Nightmare Alley''. *Womens Prison in
Mayor of Kingstown ''Mayor of Kingstown'' is an American crime thriller television series created by Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon. The series premiered on November 14, 2021, on Paramount+. In February 2022, the series was renewed for a second season which is s ...


References


External links

* {{Toronto landmarks Art Deco architecture in Canada Municipal buildings in Toronto Buildings and structures in Scarborough, Toronto Water treatment facilities