thecharioteer
Senior Member
Look at those trees on St. George! And Queen’s Park West before it became a highway.
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Evocative Images of Lost Toronto
- Thread starter LowPolygon
- Start date
Goldie
Senior Member
Vanity Fair - Toronto Exhibition 1900 TPL
Geogblog
New Member
The Old Plantation Show. A minstrel show in blackface?
Richard White
Senior Member
The date is wrong on this photo. The Great Toronto Fire noted on the banner occurred in 1904.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Toronto_(1904)
Goldie
Senior Member
Yes, I earlier noticed that banner and have informed TPL of a probable discrepancy.
However, there was actually an previous fire in 1849........so who knows?
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Goldie
Senior Member
Looking east along Esplanade E. towards the Gooderham & Worts Distillery at Parliament St. 1894 TPL
Geogblog
New Member
The Globe confirms that this was the 1904 CNE: [Toronto] Globe 5 Sep 1904 p. 8. Sounds like a minstrel show.
Goldie
Senior Member
zanthope wrote on "Scarborough-photographs-then-and-now" (Aug. 13, 2013, page 16):
In post 223 of this thread, I told of a poor kid that lived on Commonwealth who unfortunately lived in a shacky sort of a home with an outhouse out back."
He posted these three photos of the property (114 Commonwealth Ave.) as it existed in 2013. Amazingly, that property was much the same 5 years later when this Google image was produced.
There must be quite a story behind this, apparently abandoned property.
In post 223 of this thread, I told of a poor kid that lived on Commonwealth who unfortunately lived in a shacky sort of a home with an outhouse out back."
He posted these three photos of the property (114 Commonwealth Ave.) as it existed in 2013. Amazingly, that property was much the same 5 years later when this Google image was produced.
There must be quite a story behind this, apparently abandoned property.
Geogblog
New Member
There are massive amounts of cordwood piled in the yard at Elias Rogers, and also on some of the fuel wharves. Cordwood was still used on a significant scale in 1894. You needed 5-7 tone of coal and a cord or wood to heat your house in winter. But this photo shows just how much space that cordwood took up. Elias Rogers, by the way, was a key supplier of coal to the gas works.
Goldie
Senior Member
And those of us who are old enough will recall the time when home owners in Toronto regularly had bags of coal delivered each year for their furnaces. Usually dumped thru a basement window into a "coal bin."
W. K. Lis
Superstar
I remember many buildings were COVERED with black soot because of the coal. Some people PAINTED their houses to cover the soot.
People upgraded their heating systems away from coal. Over time, people cleaned or sandblasted their buildings and houses to bring out the original colour of the bricks or blocks underneath. Unfortunately, some of the underneath material was not in good condition, resulting in (at worst) demolition, or (at best) brick replacement (if they could find them).
Goldie
Senior Member
I believe much of the upgrading from coal home-heating took place in the 1940s when oil-burners became an economical replacement.
It wasn't until much later that natural gas heating became commonplace. It certainly appears to be the standard today.
In recent years when sandblasting was used to remove the black soot coatings, we were often amazed by the beauty of the underlying brick and stone work.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Many basements were able to be converted to livable space after the replacement of coal with natural gas or home heating oil.
lenaitch
Senior Member
One of the first things my dad did when we bought our house near Finch and Bathurst in 1956 was to convert the coal furnace to oil. The burner was installed where the ash clean-out was and a blower box cut into the back. We still had to contend with the large, round sloping ducts ('octopus') that were legacy from gravity/convection coal furnace. We lived with the wooden coal crib for a few more years. All of that was still in place when I left home in 1973.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Wonder if anyone has old photos of their basements, with and without coal furnaces or boilers?
Doubtful, because taking such photos with film cameras would be considered a "waste" and expensive back then. Then lighting in the basement would be terrible as well.
Doubtful, because taking such photos with film cameras would be considered a "waste" and expensive back then. Then lighting in the basement would be terrible as well.