That first shot shows exactly why lower Yonge is so retail poor. The Eaton Centre and PATH sucked everything up. Thanks for the new update.
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More Lost Toronto in colour
- Thread starter LowPolygon
- Start date
Tewder
Senior Member
Not to intrude on this thread any longer is it possible to move these last few posts on French vs Canadian brands of diversity/multiculturalism to their own thread?
Yes, yes and yes... but did I claim the situation in France was 'perfect'? Ethnic ghettos and tensions exist here too by the way only we don't acknowledge them or express them. We repress them down, accuse anybody of racism who does not support state-funded Multiculturalism or open-door immigration policies, and amp up the 'it's a small world after all' propaganda. That's to be proud of indeed!
Toronto isn't exactly the picture-perfect image of diversity you suggest either. Beyond our Kensington Market tourist traps it would seem our 'Bramladeshes', 'Tehranistans' and myriad other examples of cultural ghettoization would suggest we are hardly the utopia of integrated diversity we so smugly like to portray ourselves as being. Simply being 'multicultural' in terms of demographics just doesn't cut it when we do not encourage any integration or any unity of shared common experience or identity.
Yes, yes and yes... but did I claim the situation in France was 'perfect'? Ethnic ghettos and tensions exist here too by the way only we don't acknowledge them or express them. We repress them down, accuse anybody of racism who does not support state-funded Multiculturalism or open-door immigration policies, and amp up the 'it's a small world after all' propaganda. That's to be proud of indeed!
Toronto isn't exactly the picture-perfect image of diversity you suggest either. Beyond our Kensington Market tourist traps it would seem our 'Bramladeshes', 'Tehranistans' and myriad other examples of cultural ghettoization would suggest we are hardly the utopia of integrated diversity we so smugly like to portray ourselves as being. Simply being 'multicultural' in terms of demographics just doesn't cut it when we do not encourage any integration or any unity of shared common experience or identity.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
adma
Superstar
That United Cigar Store (I presume) sign on the right is such a 60s/70s-pop astonishment, I'd be almost certain it's a Brothers Markle creation...
LowPolygon
Senior Member
That United Cigar Store (I presume) sign on the right is such a 60s/70s-pop astonishment, I'd be almost certain it's a Brothers Markle creation...
its entirely possible its their design--they've been at it for 40 years i think!
the colours and shapes certainly reflect that era's taste for appropriated slick psych-pop versions of Miro or Calder's organic forms...
its entirely possible its their design--they've been at it for 40 years i think!
the colours and shapes certainly reflect that era's taste for appropriated slick psych-pop versions of Miro or Calder's organic forms...
Tewder
Senior Member
OttoSchloss
Active Member
I think a lot of that attitude stems from fanciful nostalgia. For the better part of the 20th century the cities populations only really differed by a few hundred thousand people -compared with the 1.5 million now. If anything political uncertainty was an excuse for businesses to move out of the city and relocate to Toronto but in reality the shift was occurring anyway. Also Toronto was a more attractive place for business financially and still remains one comparatively because of taxes etc. Remaining bitter about the inevitable is a waste of time and dare I say it, a tad parochial.
Montreal makes a better second city anyway.
Mustapha
Senior Member
That United Cigar Store (I presume) sign on the right is such a 60s/70s-pop astonishment, I'd be almost certain it's a Brothers Markle creation...
adma, it was a clothing store.
adma
Superstar
Thanks--proof of how easy it is to educated-guess a "C" as "Cigar"...
Edward
Senior Member
So is that Yonge south of Dundas where the Eaton Centre is today?
adma
Superstar
Yes, indeed.
condovo
Senior Member
Yes. I believe Toronto actually pulled ahead of Montreal economically in about 1960. The 'Troubles' in late-60s to early-80s Montreal just hastened existing trends.
kool maudit
Active Member
i love this old toronto... it's so gloomy and heavy -- all those stained maroons and rotten creams.
you know, for all this talk of montreal and second cities and whatnot, montreal photos from the same era show the same sort of gloomy metropolitan heaviness, the almost daring brightness of the naive little shopsigns... i think big north american cities were just like that then.
here's the bottom line so we can get over it: montreal was larger but not significantly larger than toronto between 1930 and 1970. it was significantly more worldly between 1930 and 1950, though - paradoxically - the TSE was ahead of the montreal exchange by the 30s. the separatism thing just exacerbated existing trends within the manufacturing/industrial world and the greater north american economy. now toronto is both larger and more worldly than montreal, though we have these weird little glimmers of our 1910-1940 era that are frustrating to torontonians because they are totally the product of a bygone era and can't be built now. don't worry: we are green for your 70s modern and 2000s strut. it's cool. ok?
i'll be in toronto this weekend and can't wait to see the city. i remember growing up there in the 80s and driving into the last vestiges of this world when my dad and i would go downtown. that hotel on simcoe and front just embodies it, as does "the sword."
it felt like a big, hulking city in a way it sometimes doesn't now - isn't that strange? it's so much larger now. same with here, actually.... i have some photos of montreal in 1942... i mean, i know the intersections, i know there are more buildings now... but all the details then tricked the eye into following a different scale, and somehow it all looks like it was so much bigger then.
you know, for all this talk of montreal and second cities and whatnot, montreal photos from the same era show the same sort of gloomy metropolitan heaviness, the almost daring brightness of the naive little shopsigns... i think big north american cities were just like that then.
here's the bottom line so we can get over it: montreal was larger but not significantly larger than toronto between 1930 and 1970. it was significantly more worldly between 1930 and 1950, though - paradoxically - the TSE was ahead of the montreal exchange by the 30s. the separatism thing just exacerbated existing trends within the manufacturing/industrial world and the greater north american economy. now toronto is both larger and more worldly than montreal, though we have these weird little glimmers of our 1910-1940 era that are frustrating to torontonians because they are totally the product of a bygone era and can't be built now. don't worry: we are green for your 70s modern and 2000s strut. it's cool. ok?
i'll be in toronto this weekend and can't wait to see the city. i remember growing up there in the 80s and driving into the last vestiges of this world when my dad and i would go downtown. that hotel on simcoe and front just embodies it, as does "the sword."
it felt like a big, hulking city in a way it sometimes doesn't now - isn't that strange? it's so much larger now. same with here, actually.... i have some photos of montreal in 1942... i mean, i know the intersections, i know there are more buildings now... but all the details then tricked the eye into following a different scale, and somehow it all looks like it was so much bigger then.
OttoSchloss
Active Member
You have a point about cities in North America at that time. They did have that same heaviness and gloom. Look at any old photos of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and you'll see the same thing.
Everything is positively scrubbed in comparison now (and that's why it always perplexes me when people say this city or that is looking so run down when in fact the only difference is people are more likely to litter with abandon and for cities like Toronto and Montreal there is just more graffiti)
Everything is positively scrubbed in comparison now (and that's why it always perplexes me when people say this city or that is looking so run down when in fact the only difference is people are more likely to litter with abandon and for cities like Toronto and Montreal there is just more graffiti)
kool maudit
Active Member
there's more graffiti, but i think people might actually litter less -- littering seems so 70s... i remember my friends dad taking us to mcdonalds drive-thru, waiting till we ate and then just holding the paper bag out the window (on the 401) and letting go. the environment wasn't big yet.
i was looking at more older montreal and toronto pictures yesterday in an effort to figuure out why both of these cities c. 1975 - when they each had about 2,800,000 in their metros - look larger than they do now. i think it's the survival of small scale signage and lettering... the eye was sucked down to a very human scale, against which the buildings seemed immense. now ads and signs are vaster, and play over broad areas, which causes the eye to get used to a broader grain, and the big buildings seem more natural and less supernaturally hulking.
who knows, really?
i was looking at more older montreal and toronto pictures yesterday in an effort to figuure out why both of these cities c. 1975 - when they each had about 2,800,000 in their metros - look larger than they do now. i think it's the survival of small scale signage and lettering... the eye was sucked down to a very human scale, against which the buildings seemed immense. now ads and signs are vaster, and play over broad areas, which causes the eye to get used to a broader grain, and the big buildings seem more natural and less supernaturally hulking.
who knows, really?
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