The Toronto Reference Library is the main branch of ” the world’s busiest urban library system,” with more than 1.2 million library cardholders and 30 million website visits per year. It’s on Yonge Street north of Bloor Street – uptown Toronto, on the edge of Yorkville, the glitziest (and most expensive) shopping neighbourhood in the city. The exterior is unremarkable – passerby would never know that on the other side of the brick wall is an expansive atrium, a multitude of computer stations, areas for reading, studying, researching, 3D printing, drinking really good coffee and, of course, stacks and stacks of books.
On the second floor facing west are a row of rectangular windows, each with two vertical panes jutting out and joining in a ‘V’ shape. This photo is the view straight through one of these windows to the construction site opposite (itself with its own empty frames of windows from a bygone era); it also captures reflections created on the angled windows of streets beside the library and a view of a lounge below the window.
Far more numerous than I can ever recall, their wings are divided so that, unlike a monarch that will land and sit still while feasting, the front half of a Swallowtail wing flutters continuously while the bottom half seem to remain motionless. This habit makes them appear to be forever on the move, anxious to move onto the next Zinnia or Echinacea bloom.
