Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[HamiltonTransitHistory]

Goldie, 965 is the Woodbine address
I lived just sourth of here 1968 to 1971 aprox. What is now a Value Mart on the north side of this scene, is a store that seems to stick in my memory. Something about it wrapping around the north east corner, and exiting near the subway entrance. That and when you enter off the Danforth you aremuch higher than the main floor and you have to go down a staircase to get onto it. I will have to go there and see if this is still the case. I doubt it. If I recall correctly, it was neat piece of late 50's early 60's architecture.

mattelderca, your description is spot on. The supermarket is L-shaped, wrapping around a bank and a store on the corner

The Danforth entrance has been closed for a few years.

Only the Woodbine entrance remains, along with the elevator to get UP to the parking lot. The parking lot is overtop the old Woodbine station streetcar loop, and the tracks are still in the street.

 

[brewster]

You are so correct Mustapha. Whoever banned the lights and the canopies for the rain should be shot. The neon and the glitz have always attracted me and I didn't even realize how boring everywhere is without it until you posted this. Yonge and Dundas has it , bring back the neon!!

 

[adma]

The prohibition of overhanging signs is really regrettable. In the first place it makes our streets look really dull and disheartening. Secondly, it forces merchants to deface the facade of the building in order to have any kind of signage at all. Third, it renders signs practically invisible to pedestrians, which basically defeats the whole purpose of the signs in the first place. I don't understand the logic of the regulations. Were there issues in the past of badly engineered signs collapsing on to peoples heads?

Well, also, let's be fair here. If we go back, say, 40-50 years or so ago, to channel the taste of the day (aside from whatever nascent pop-art/Learning-From-Las-Vegas avant-garde), those overhanging neon signs would have been deemed ugly, vulgar urban eyesores. Whereas backlit plastic signage was neat and clean by comparison...

Think of it as its era's version of grimy old brick commercial-retail facades getting EIFS'd up.

 

[adma]

The neon and the glitz have always attracted me and I didn't even realize how boring everywhere is without it until you posted this. Yonge and Dundas has it , bring back the neon!!

When it comes to overhead/atop-buildings, remember than another thing that claimed neon was billboards--why have a single fixed, bulky, rusty, electricity-wasting neon thing advertising ESSO or GOODYEAR when you can have an efficient, ever-changeable billboard (or, if you're *really* fancy, a tri-vision)

 

[Mustapha]

Indulge me. Not finished with Shorpys yet.










Don't.











Look.










Down.

 

[Goldie]

Now THAT'S a photographer!

 

[Mustapha]

Then and Now for Oct 5.



Then. 'Vincent Loop, looking E. June 7, 1926.'

Now. July 2011 - across the street from the present Dundas West subway station near Bloor and Dundas. Some past TTC history here - one of many former TTC loops made redundant and redeveloped.

 

[Browning Avenue]

Also from Shorpys, some Vancouver scenes, Granville Street, 1967.

This one is actually Hastings Street - it's identified as such in the filename, though it's West Hastings and not East (the east-west divider is Carrall Street, a couple of doors down past the Army and Navy store). That once fashionable stretch has fallen on severe hard times the past few decades but A&N is still there, as is the Save-On Meats. And their signs survive!

 

[thecharioteer]

Curse you, the charioteer, up-ing the game by posting a colour picture.

1944:

1955:

1965:

http://neat-stuff-blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/old-school-new-york.html

Last but not least (before we return to Hogtown), Market Street in San Francisco:

 

[mattelderca]

This one is actually Hastings Street - it's identified as such in the filename, though it's West Hastings and not East (the east-west divider is Carrall Street, a couple of doors down past the Army and Navy store). That once fashionable stretch has fallen on severe hard times the past few decades but A&N is still there, as is the Save-On Meats. And their signs survive!

Your right!

 

[brewster]

1944:

1955:

1965:

http://neat-stuff-blog.blogspot.com/2009/08/old-school-new-york.html

Last but not least (before we return to Hogtown), Market Street in San Francisco:

Ok thechairoteer those are just overkill in a good way , but I say bring it on Toronto , lets light up the Danforth and Yonge St from here to Winnipeg.

 

[brewster]

I guess the smoking guy wouldn't go over to well in our politically correct city.

 

[thecharioteer]

I guess the smoking guy wouldn't go over to well in our politically correct city.

Why not? He's outdoors.....

 

[thecharioteer]

Ok thechairoteer those are just overkill in a good way , but I say bring it on Toronto , lets light up the Danforth and Yonge St from here to Winnipeg.

Going back to the original impetus for these pics, (i.e. overhanging signs), I'd be happy if the City just allowed door to curb canopies (their reasoning is based on issues of snow removal and liability):

 

[FinchConnection]

Great work with this thread - unbelievable how much the city has changed. It's a shame we didn't try and preserve some of the finer examples of Canadian architecture.