The Transformers Next Door

[halloweenjack]

No, not giant robots that turn into cars and such, although hey, you never know. These are electrical transformer stations that the city of Toronto has disguised as ordinary houses (avec le Boing Boing). Some of the comments are even more incredible, such as that one of these houses is in a neighborhood that has been taken over by high rises, so now it sticks out anyway (driving by, you might think that the nonexistent residents are gutting it out against greedy developers and sticking it to the Man), or that similar pseudodomiciles owned by the telephone company are staffed by employees on Halloween to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Pick out a house in your neighborhood that is well-maintained, but whose residents you never, ever see, and try to guess what's really behind the facade. My apartment complex sort of straddles a small house on the street side (there are entrances to the complex on either side of it); I bet it's a safe house for the Men in Black.

Comments

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

You know, that's actually kind of cool. There's a transformer station a couple miles from my house that's just out in the open. It's a great landmark, but it really does stick out.

[ex-prunesnp.livejournal.com]

In Somerville, there is a house on Atherton Street which is completely round. It looks like it's fake, and for a while I thought it was a transformer station. Then I found out that it's a bit of a local ruin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_House_(Somerville,_Massachusetts)

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

That's sad--one of my childhood house fantasies (besides the secret passageways (http://jackolantern.livejournal.com/22951.html)) was to live in a house that had a turret; I wanted a round bedroom because--well, just because. An entire round house would just be the bee's knees.

I wonder if they're letting it fall apart because they can't afford to restore it. I've heard of more than one case in more than one city in which the owner of a historic building couldn't tear it down, couldn't afford (or maybe just didn't want) to restore it to the standards of the local historic preservation board, and couldn't even sell it because the new owner would be saddled with the same restrictions, so they just let it fall to ruin.

[ex-prunesnp.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, that is exactly the case.

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

I want a turret, too, a nice round room like some of the rowhouses in Georgetown in DC...

My brothers lives in DC and he said that for Halloween one year, a woman who lives in one of those rowhouses with a turret had the Best. Costume. Ever. She sat in the window of the top floor of the tower, and had yards and yards of braided yarn that closely matched her hair color falling from the window all the way to the ground.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Just as long as she didn't have it attached directly to her own hair, in case some clever lad tried to climb it. ;)