Toronto photos circa 1989

Some scans from a photo book published in 1989. Things have changed.

BCE Place under construction






The emergence of a waterfront development cluster

Waterpark Place 2 while under construction


Renderings from the proposed World Trade Centre plan


After they were railway lands but before it became southcore, here is the dirty mess that greeted drivers as they entered the city


It a deep valley between imagination and realization. "Things" that were never built:

1. See World Trade Centre renders above.

2. Empress & Yonge towers


3. Pointy Bay Adelaide Centre


4. The other Simcoe Place


Some aerials:

Awesome thread. Thanks for all the great images hypnotoad

Real shame about Pointy Bay Adelaide. It's infinitely better than Boxy Bay Adelaide.

Ah Toronto, ca. 1985-1991. It was a smaller city, a less worldly city and a smaller boom.

Still, they managed to do things that we can only dream about today:

- a 900 foot PoMo commercial tower clad in red granite
- an 800 foot tall commercial spire that would add some variation to our boxy skyline
- a soaring atrium designed by Calatrava
- another soaring atrium designed by Philip Johnson
- Skydome
- a 25km long separate ROW for GO trains in Durham built to the highest possible standards
- an Arthur Ericcson-designed concert hall
- a major expansion of Bloor subway station (analogous to our Union Station project).

We think we live in an unprecedented time for the city now, but it wasn't like the late 80s boom was any less impressive for its time.

Plus "The Kids in the Hall" ruled and we won the World Series.

Filip said:

Real shame about Pointy Bay Adelaide. It's infinitely better than Boxy Bay Adelaide.

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Didn't they already build pretty much the same tower in Chicago and Philadelphia?

Plus "The Kids in the Hall" ruled and we won the World Series.

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World Series was 1992/93.

The revolution in the team that led to those Series started in the late 80s, so I call "close enough". You can't really use arbitrary dates to end "eras" anyway; transitions are much more gradual.