Stop for Pedestrians

It's been an eventful week to say the least, starting with the unexpected TTC wildcat strike on Monday, which sadly didn't prevent me from getting to work. It was kind of amusing to watch people look totally confounded when they tried unsuccessfully to walk at the locked electronic doors into the station at Don Mills.
I guess it also totally sucked for those people who walked to work because it was the start of 3 of the hottest days I've felt since last summer, and when I mean hot I mean that on Wednesday we heard on the radio that with the humidex the high was 44C -- isn't that like 111F? -- it was just ridiculous, especially for May. It really makes you wonder what July is going to be like.
Perhaps those people who arrived at work in rumpled suits won't be declaring how much they love the hot weather after they got to sweat their asses off just to make it into work. It's not like they're hanging about outside all day in it. I have to say that one of the most annoying things is hearing people praise the hot weather. Sure it's nice to have hot weather when you can escape from it all day and you get small doses of it, but it's not fun to work in it and suffer the effects of smogiliciousness in Toronto. And people get bloody cranky! The ideal temperature is around 23 and that's just the way it is. If people want super hot, they should live in the Caribbean.
Anyways, it was a miserable time but my crew was sent out to a site in Bronte (right on the lake!) that is quite interesting because the historic building on the property is in the midst of controversy before the OMB. The developer wants to move it, but that would totally diminish it's historical context. It was once a stagecoach inn on the lakeshore highway between Toronto and Hamilton and probably beyond. I have to say that the fate of this building doesn't seem very good, because the Ontario Municipal Board is development happy and in their opinion, to have this plot of land on the lake overlooking a yacht club is just too precious to not be developed for profit.
Archaeologically speaking, there is one of the richest midden deposits we've come across in the last few years, over 1000 artifacts in a 1m square test pit! We also explored inside the house which is totally creepy and derelict -- apparently there were tenants living here until a few months ago which was appalling to us considering the condition of some of the rooms.
There were creepy things like mannequin pieces and a dentist chair in the attic and an old clown marionette in the basement. There was also a second storey room that could not be accessed through a door on that floor, but rather through a hole in the ceiling from the first floor with a ladder built onto the wall. What the fuck is up with that? This house could have seriously been a setting for a horror movie.
Before we actually arrived on Monday, Andrew went into the house after the developer's lacky had come by and unlocked it for us, and he heard footsteps above him... yet no one exited the house because the only unlocked door was the one he was standing by. All the windows and doors have been boarded and bolted shut. That alone added an air of creepiness to the entire place.
By far the best thing about this site was how many locals came up to us to show us old pictures and tell us old stories about the house. At one point, one woman who had lived in the house as a child came by to tell us about it. Until a few years ago it had been in her family's possession since the 1850s.
I feel like I talked so much to these people between Monday and Wednesday that I could write extensively on what I've heard, but that's not my job. I just hope these people are able to save their building in a manner that does the historical record some justice. It's not like extant stagecoach inns are common in the area anymore.