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Early Toronto Suburbs In Colour--50's-60's

Just imagine what their heating bill looked like... No sir, I wouldn't trust my money to a bank that built branches like that.
 
Just imagine what their heating bill looked like... No sir, I wouldn't trust my money to a bank that built branches like that.

too bad for you then.

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Thorncliffe, yes. The anchor Sayvette store was a draw in the 60s for my parents, so I remember this interior.

OMG...I haven't thought about Sayvette's since I was 5 years old...there was one at the current Dixie Value Mall...I can still remember being excited about going there to buy a new toy with my mom.
 
Just imagine what their heating bill looked like... No sir, I wouldn't trust my money to a bank that built branches like that.

That's one downside, but the buildings are still practical. A layer of a gas like argon between two panes of glass can be an effective insulator.

I have to say though that your skepticism has made me appreciate the glass pavilion design more. Simply out of familiarity with the architecture, I didn't realize how bold it is for a bank of all institutions to go for a design like that.

It's such a shame that so many new suburban bank branches nowadays utilize such cheap corporate designs that are often comparable to big box architecture. Historically, banks have been significant contributors to architecture in the city not just through landmarks at King and Bay, but through the countless Beaux-Arts branches all around the older parts of the city and the wide variety of Modernist branches as well. In the Junction there's a former bank branch that is supposedly the work of Carrere and Hastings.
 
There was an article in Friday's Globe & Mail by UTer Dave LeBlanc about a house owned and designed in the 50's by A. Bruce Etherington, "the designer of over 900 branches of the Toronto Dominion Bank". It says
" By then, he'd landed the commission to design every new branch of the rapidly expanding Toronto Dominion Bank using a modular system that allowed each to “appear to be unique†but were really all related under the skin."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/50s-styling-thats-right-up-to-date/article1387043/
 
There was an article in Friday's Globe & Mail by UTer Dave LeBlanc about a house owned and designed in the 50's by A. Bruce Etherington, "the designer of over 900 branches of the Toronto Dominion Bank". It says
" By then, he'd landed the commission to design every new branch of the rapidly expanding Toronto Dominion Bank using a modular system that allowed each to “appear to be unique†but were really all related under the skin."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/50s-styling-thats-right-up-to-date/article1387043/

very interesting! i love the look of that interior: a totally eccentric and weirdly timeless rustic rough-hewn modernism. wow~

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archi04re05_367890gm-f.jpg


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*

* Photos by Dave LeBlanc
 

My apologies for replying to such an old post in an equally as old thread, however I noticed someone mentioned the area of Dixie and Winding Trail for this photo. This is indeed correct, and the view in that photo is looking northeast on Williamsport Drive towards Gulledin Drive.

I'll stop by sometime soon for a current day photo from exactly the same angle, but streetview will have to do for now. :p
 
My apologies for replying to such an old post in an equally as old thread, however I noticed someone mentioned the area of Dixie and Winding Trail for this photo. This is indeed correct, and the view in that photo is looking northeast on Williamsport Drive towards Gulledin Drive.

I'll stop by sometime soon for a current day photo from exactly the same angle, but streetview will have to do for now. :p


Wow, back in those days this was waaay out in the boonies. Today, not so much.
 
Speaking of Sayvette, does anyone know where the Sayvette in Ajax was? It was apparently the last of the chain to close. There's nowhere that I know of in Ajax's older strip malls that looks large enough to support that kind of store, except possibly one spot in the Harwood Plaza. Ajax has a Zeller's (and many of those were Woolcos and before that, Sayvette) but it's in a much newer plaza.
 
Speaking of Sayvette, does anyone know where the Sayvette in Ajax was? It was apparently the last of the chain to close. There's nowhere that I know of in Ajax's older strip malls that looks large enough to support that kind of store, except possibly one spot in the Harwood Plaza. Ajax has a Zeller's (and many of those were Woolcos and before that, Sayvette) but it's in a much newer plaza.
I believe the Savette was where Shoppers Drug Mart is now, previously a Wal-Mart and previously a Woolco.
 
That's more or less where I was guessing--there's that section with a second floor where they now have offices. Most Sayvettes had at least two floors, I believe.

They got a Wal-mart into that plaza? Must have been one of the Woolcos that they purchased.
 
That's more or less where I was guessing--there's that section with a second floor where they now have offices. Most Sayvettes had at least two floors, I believe.

They got a Wal-mart into that plaza? Must have been one of the Woolcos that they purchased.
It was. It was only there a few years before they built one on Hwy 2.
 
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Some great pics. There's a 8 mm film fest this weekend with the topic of Toronto's heritage.




Sunday January 30 7PM
At Trash Palace 89 B Niagara St
(just W of Bathurst, two blocks S of King) 416 203-2389
Admission to the 8 fest $5

A HISTORY OF TORONTO IN 8 MILLIMETRES
= From the 1930’s to 70’s, Toronto as seen through the lens of the average citizen. =
The best-known events of the city, the changing patterns of everyday life and long-gone Toronto locales, were all captured in amateur films (most of them in full-colour on beautiful Kodachrome stock). We present a cross-section of these unadorned snatches of time, compiled from over 20 different home movie collections. Cottages on Ward’s Island in 1934, Victory in Europe Day, steam trains crossing the city,1970’s fashions, Yonge and Queen Streets in the 1940’s, 1950’s & 1960’s, suburban kids and cars, ladies in fancy dresses and hats, and a solider leaving for war - these are among the subjects chronicled in our eye-catching tour of Toronto's past.

For more information see our facebook page, webpage or contact us with a question at our new email address: homemoviehistoryproject@hotmail.com. **Please add this new email address to your contacts list to ensure receiving announcements about our future events.

the 8 fest Small-Gauge Film Festival runs Jan 28-30, see the full festival catalogue at www.the8fest.com.
 

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