An industrial building once a foundry where plows were made is now a warehouse for basketware and accessories. Bacon Basketware Limited, a basketware warehouse in Aurora’s downtown neighbourhood has been operating for many many years and evidently still is. This interesting industrial building that is located on Wellington Street, one block West of Yonge Street distinguishes itself with an intriguing choice of colour seen from Wellington Street, an earthy light green. The walls on the back of the building are exposed brick of a few different shades, perhaps even types.
I always thought that early designed industrial buildings had an interesting architectural look, a look I admire a lot – a grid of many windows, sometimes on all four faces of the building. However, it is interesting to note that the first industrial buildings were meant to be utilitarian, that is, function and practicality over appearance, and since early industrial buildings had no electricity these attractive windows had the function to flood the building with natural light.
The Bacon Basketware Limited building has plenty of windows all around. Windows facing Wellington Street, the very top ones and the bottom basement ones are bricked now, in addition to two large docking door openings and some windows in the middle row. At the back of the buildings, the majority of windows are boarded up. I don’t know why that is? Perhaps electricity eventually became available. Perhaps it was safer to have no windows, as they could also be costly to replace every time vandalized. Or simply walls on the inside were needed. Or all of the above.
I often hover around this building, sometimes observing the green side of the building and sometimes the back. Today I will feature the back of the building. It is deteriorated but intriguing at the same time and often gives a feeling of abandonment. That’s what I thought for a long time when I used to be an uninformed passer by. This commercial building definitely shows signs of aging and it is hard to believe that it is still actively operating.
I did a little digging into the history of Bacon warehouse and found out that there was once a fire in 1975. Scroll down to read the contrasting news between The Era and THE LIBERAL papers.
The Era, Newmarket-Aurora-Keswick, Ontario, July 9, 1975
THE LIBERAL, Wednesday, July 9, 1975
Anna Lozyk Romeo
Aurora, ON
