Year: Opened 1928, expanded 1944.
Location: #5 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Status: Abandoned, decrepit and rather dangerous.
Accessibility: The city has erected a huge barbed-wire fence around any entrances to the building. The fence is only a problem if you don't want to climb up and over barbed wire, or you can't squeeze between the gates. Either way, recently every door at ground level we know of has been welded shut. Don't expect to get in that way. In fact, turn your attention away from the courtyard entirely and look for another way in. There's always one if you look long enough.
Hazards: Without mincing words, the building is a dangerous place and you could easily kill yourself if not determined to do otherwise. The air is of a rather abysmal quality in places and dust masks would be nice for those areas. I guarantee any city worker who found you coming out of there in jeans, a long-sleeve shirt and a dust mask would have a heart attack, but it's better than nothing. This is the archetypical Abandoned Building, with all the dangers thereof. As usual, use common sense and watch your step.
Interesting features: Loads. This building isn't somewhere you sneak into, quickly peruse and then sneak back out -- it's an industrial labyrinth, filled to the brim with fascinating stuff. This is somewhere you spend hours exploring and still find yourself wanting to come back to. Yes, it is nifty.
Recommendation: Consider this building highly recommended to anyone in the area. It's a huge, fantastic place that can easily become an obsession. Plan to visit it, and plan to do so several times.

While we milled about, trying to find a decent way in, Asher and Krall happened across a six-foot ladder with a swinging hook at the top which I couldn't actually figure out how to use (but which, I'm fairly certain, there is actually a picture of on infiltration.org). As it ended up, a chap named HyperViper scurried up the side of the fence and hopped over the barbed wire -- the rest of us opted out of this, on account of us Being Pussies. Instead we poked, pulled and prodded along the fence until we realized that the gate, which was locked shut, was actually quite loose and if one stood on the lock and pried it just right, it could be coerced to the point where one could simply squeeze through sideways and jump to the ground. This became the entrance method of choice -- we slid through our respective bags and weaseled through the gap between the gates with varying respective levels of difficulty.
It should probably be noted that just as Asher was on her way through, the CityTV van started up. We panicked, froze, and panicked some more, but the van left. Um.
At any rate, once we were into the overgrown courtyard, we distributed flashlights among our little crew. The area was covered with vegetation, graffiti, and bits of homes of the homeless. By the time we stragglers were through, HyperViper and the rest had already found an entrance, so we passed out dust masks (we came up two short, unfortunately) and went in to check it out.
The first thing I noticed was that it was very dark (that tends to be the most apparent factor right off the bat on this kind of excursion). Man, I'm writing terribly tonight. It must be all that goddamn logic gate stuff. Digital simulations, I swear to god, they'll be the death of me.
At any rate, the next thing I noticed was that there were a few small holes in the floor which led down to either some kind of tank of water, or an extremely flooded subbasement. We made our way forward a little ways, past some old, rusted machines, and came across a rather bizarre site: the Teddy Bear Cemetery.

Unfortunately there were fewer teddies left when we returned to photograph this strange phenomenon. Scary nonetheless.

There was a huge pile of stuffed bears of all shapes and sizes, crushed, torn, gutted and otherwise violently mutilated. It was rather inexplicable and, to be frank, pretty damned scary. We moved on from the grisly scene and came to what seemed to once have been the main elevator for the building.

Next to it was a long, steep spiral staircase, and I took this up a floor. Eventually everyone followed. The floor here opened into a large room covered with straw and sawdust, as well as two offices. Unfortunately, much to our dismay, the journey was elected to end at this point due to a wide variety of reasons -- the sort that only arise when you're doing a building with a crew large enough that the law of averages and the odds of dying dictate that mathematically at least one of you won't make it out alive, you know. Goddamn.
So, we turned, we left, we bitched about it. We didn't see nearly enough.
And goddammit, we will be back. Soon.

And now the real shame of the matter -- the malt plant will soon be defaced, molested, vandalized by some organization called Metronome to build "Canada's first Music Museum". I called their info line (1-877-411-SILO) and found that they plan to break ground sometime next year, so waste no time in getting to this building to check it out before it's sullied by the hands of corporate art.
So the Metronome Building will have a token Malt Museum. So what? They're going to destroy the graffiti, the artifacts, the cat jaw on the first-story roof, everything. They're going to rip down a beautiful monument of industrial-era utilitarianism and replace it with a 21st-century techno-memorial.

Also, call 1-877-411-SILO and swear at them a lot, goddammit.
We'll be re-visiting this building as soon as we can -- it's just too cool not to.
So.
Yes.
-Flame0ut