R. C. Harris Filtration Plant

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Southern facade of R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant.

The R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto is both a crucial piece of infrastructure and an architectural acclaimed historic building.

The treatment 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 commissioner 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 facility's grounds have been made available to the public. Despite some concerns of vulnerability to an attack on the water supply since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the grounds have remained open to the public, but security has been increased.

Despite its age, the plant is still fully functional, providing approximately 45% of Toronto and the Region of York's water supply. The intakes are located over 2.6 kilometres from shore in 15 metres of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake. The plant also chlorinates and then pumps water to various reservoirs throughout the City of Toronto and the Region of York.

At present (summer 2006), the grounds are under heavy construction and are not publicly accessible. It is expected that the grounds will reopen in the summer of 2007.

[edit] Appearance in popular culture

The building of the plant is vividly recounted in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.

In Undercover Brother, the plant was used as the headquarters of "The Man".

In Half Baked, the plant was used as a prison.

The R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant appears as the base of operations of the mysterious organization "The Centre" in the television series The Pretender, as the antagonist corporation Genomex in Mutant X, as well as in dozens of (frequently low-budget) films (Strange Brew, In the Mouth of Madness) as a prison, clinic or headquarters.