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Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

mattelderca said:
Another of my childhood corners!
We lived in the Georgian Arms, on the south west corner. The south east corner was service station that went from "in use" to those 70's townhouses in the now shot while I lived there. My bedroom window overlooked the construction site. I spent quite few hours sitting in the open, third story window (sash double hungs with no screen, you sit in the frame with the window up)listening to CFTR and CHUM, (on a transistor radio) watching the demolition of the service station. The north west corner was a variety store, cold pop and chocolate bars. East on Queen was Myers IDA pharmacy, a women there knew me from a previous street and used to give me free treats. East again to the Keg variety, I remember it as kind of a "hippie" hangout. It had the best Tigre stripe ice cream cones! Near the Keg was the ever so intriquing and exotic British Leyeland dealer. Next door to the apartments was an AMC dealer, but those MG's were much bigger eye candy for young boy.
I bought a fifteen dollar bike from the superintendant of the building on the north side of Queen, next to the park. I put more miles on that bike. My favourite spot to ride to was a tree, next to the snackbar at Balmy beach. The one next to the canoe club. The other great place to ride was the laneway that stretched from here all the way to Woodbine south of the streetscape. Of course all the Nature Trails and parks were great too. The big foot bridge across the park just north of here was perfect for flying paper airplanes off of. I had a friend named Leslie who lived in the same building, knew her for six months before I found out she was a girl. All in all good times in the early seventies at this intersection!
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Thanks for this tour of your old 'hood. I really like the format. I lived on very nearby Scarboro Beach Blvd. [yes, that's the correct spelling] in the 80s for awhile. Two of my kids were born into one very cramped unit of a fourplex. We left before they were of school age.
 
I've received private emails asking if J T Cunningham and I are one and the same, and asking if we/me are using dual personalities to keep things humming in this thread.

I can assure all that, ...

//// that

//////


:)


Have a great weekend everyone. Check out the Art Show at Nathan Philips Square, the Salsa Festival on St. Clair and the Afrofest at Queens Park.
 
"It's been 18 hours and no sign of a frozen shrimp ring." QUOTE Mustapha.


IT'S THAw i n g.

Regards,
J T
 
"I've received private emails asking if J T Cunningham and I are one and the same, and asking if we/me are using dual personalities to keep things humming in this thread.

I can assure all that, ...

//// that

//////

QUOTE Mustapha.


I am Mustapha's UGLY TWYN BROTHER!



"Have a great weekend everyone. Check out the Art Show at Nathan Philips Square, the Salsa Festival on St. Clair and the Afrofest at Queens Park."

QUOTE Mustapha.


Mustapha will be at all of the above; I, not one. (too many other nefarious shenanigans to consider.)



Regourds,
J T

(LOL)
 
west_end_kid said:
Yes! I thought it was in Coronation Park as well but you are right it's much further west. Thanks for that.
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Come to think of it, the Gzowski memorial might be the most unsung "funky 60s contemporary" landmark in Toronto. (I'll betcha that its abstracted Egyptianisms pay tribute to his tomb in St. James.)
 
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My mother and her friend were reminiscing recently about going to Ports of Call, in the early 60s, I think. My mothers friend was a well-known Toronto model and she remembered posing on an elephant outside of Ports of Call for a photo shoot! i believe she was even newly pregnant at the time, and felt a bit precarious on the elephant.



Mustapha said:
March 16 addition. Let's take a one day break from the Yonge and Dundas area.




Then. A 1920s view of Yonge, looking N. Taken from the rail bridge over the subway. We are just S of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury. I had to say that again, I feel like a British diplomat when I say it.

The building at top right was the Rosedale Hotel. It served the North Toronto railway station which is out of the picture to the right.

The Rosedale Hotel was torn down at some point [please don't cite me on this one as a date source :) )and; when I was in short pants in the 1960s, it was the site of a restaurant complex known as the Ports of Call.

Did any of you - ahem - older people go there? It had some sort of "Kon-Tiki" historical value that has survived down through the years to be of some import to a segment of our hipster population that in interested in this kind of thing. Strangely enough my daughter, perhaps being one of them, has vintage 60s "Polynesian" nick nackery in her home. But I digress.



f1231_it0423.jpg






Now. March 2011. Why no, I was in no danger at all taking this picture.



DSC_1237.jpg
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DSC said:
This site may have been noted before but the (Irish based) John Hinde postcards have quite a few Toronto scenes from the 1960s and 1970s and their archive has been digitised at : http://www.johnhindecollection.com/canada_toronto1.html

Interesting article on Hinde (and this archive) at http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...celebrates-john-hindes-postcards-2307780.html
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The colours on those old post cards really 'popped' didn't they?

I have a very small collection of Toronto postcards, about 50, and a larger collection of San Francisco Chinatown scenes. Postcards are enjoyable to collect, relatively cheap and don't take up much room. They display well too. I used to have some in my office, I would rotate them out for new ones; kind of like an Art Gallery; they were always conversation starters.
 
bessmarvin said:
My mother and her friend were reminiscing recently about going to Ports of Call, in the early 60s, I think. My mothers friend was a well-known Toronto model and she remembered posing on an elephant outside of Ports of Call for a photo shoot! i believe she was even newly pregnant at the time, and felt a bit precarious on the elephant.
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Heya bessmarvin,

Welcome.

I'm currently looking for Ports of Call memorabilia - menus, matchbooks, etc. No images on the internet of this place. Almost as if it never existed. If anyone here has anything, could they take a pic or scan and and post it?
 
July 11 addition.





Then. "March 31, 1924. 13 Bloor W. looking E." We covered a bit of the territory here when we talked about the Traders Bank at the NE corner of Yonge and Bloor recently - there it is again in the left distance - but this is another street scene that has the appeal of an old time Hollywood movie.

This image - a moment of time long ago - frozen in amber, film emulsion or digital bytes, take your pick. Here it is for us to enjoy 87 years after these people - caught in mid stride - have long finished going about their business that day.



79.jpg





Now. May 2011.



80.jpg
 
Though I wonder if technically, the "before" location would be in the middle of the present-day street (or at least at the edge of the present sidewalk), given how Bloor was widened some years later...
 
Mustapha said:
July 11 addition.





Then. "March 31, 1924. 13 Bloor W. looking E." We covered a bit of the territory here when we talked about the Traders Bank at the NE corner of Yonge and Bloor recently - there it is again in the left distance - but this is another street scene that has the appeal of an old time Hollywood movie.

This image - a moment of time long ago - frozen in amber, film emulsion or digital bytes, take your pick. Here it is for us to enjoy 87 years after these people - caught in mid stride - have long finished going about their business that day.



79.jpg





Now. May 2011.



80.jpg
Click to expand...

Twelve years earlier in 1912, this pic was taken when Bloor was still primarily residential. The iron fence in front of the first house is in both pics, but by 1924 a commercial addition has been added to the front:

bloor1912.jpg
 
adma said:
Though I wonder if technically, the "before" location would be in the middle of the present-day street (or at least at the edge of the present sidewalk), given how Bloor was widened some years later...
Click to expand...

Good point. It would be intersting to see a drawing overlaying the curbs and sidewalks of pre-widened Bloor to our current "narrowed" Bloor and see how they compare.
 
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