R.C. Harris Filtration Plant
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Image:RCHarris-cropped.JPG The R.C. Harris Filtration Plant in Toronto is both a crucial piece of infrastructure and an architectural acclaimed historic building.
The filtration plant 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. It is located in the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto.
The plant was built between 1937 and 1941 and is named after the long time director of Toronto's public works Rowland Caldwell Harris. The building, unlike most modern engineering structures, was also created to be a vivid architectural structure. Created 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.
The building is surrounded by a large park that stretches to the shores of the lake. Despite some concerns of vulnerability to an attack on the water supply since the September 11th attacks the park has remained open, but security has been increased.
Despite its age the plant is still fully functional, providing 45% of Toronto's water supply. The intakes are located over 2.6 kilometers from shore in 15 metres of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake. The plant also chlorinates and then pumps the water throughout Toronto.
The building of the plant is vividly recounted in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.
The R.C. Harris Filtration Plant appears as the base of operations of the mysterious organisation "The Centre" in the television series The Pretender, as well as in dozens of (frequently low-budget) films (Half Baked, Undercover Brother) as a prison or headquarters.
At present (summer 2005), the steep hills of the park to the south of the plant are under extremely heavy construction and there is no access, and very little chance to see the south of the building.