Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[NomoreaTorontonian]

I was wondering why the Bay Street car was travelling along Bloor Street.

That was a bad day in the labelling department. Or maybe 6775 wasn't supposed to be the street number.

 

[Mustapha]

December 10 addition:

Then: Queen, looking NNE from Jarvis. December 24, 1929.

Now. October 2009.

 

[UserNameToronto]

I really wouldn't mind it if the Armory was turned into...well, just about anything else.

 

[dbailey62]

I really wouldn't mind it if the Armory was turned into...well, just about anything else.

I was in the Armory before an event about ten years ago and ended up chatting with a man in uniform (with one of those curly pointy mustaches) and when I asked him to compare this place with the old armoury at Armoury and University, he told me in great exasperation how the old place took months to tear down as it was so well built while the new armoury had a leaky roof from day one!

 

[LowPolygon]

December 10 addition:
Now. October 2009.

too bad about that building--its such a dead stretch all the way to Sherbourne now. also, it is extraordinarily ugly.

 

[thecharioteer]

too bad about that building--its such a dead stretch all the way to Sherbourne now. also, it is extraordinarily ugly.

Perhaps it just falls in that unfortunate limbo between Old-Fashioned/Ugly and Retro/Chic and has not yet been rediscovered by the Dominion Modern crowd.

 

[junctionist]

It doesn't look ugly at all, though brown is an unpopular colour today.

 

[Archivist]

I'm quite receptive to modernism (and brown), but this building leaves me cold. I don't always think that the "before" looks better in these wonderful before and after comparisons, but in this case, boy, would I take the before.

 

[Uncle Teddy]

Those photos show exactly why Queen and Sherbourne went to hell. Vibrant street was replaced by a park and the dead zone created by the armory. Throw in lots of public housing and shelters and you have the perfect storm.

 

[Goldie]

Bowles Lunch

Click on thumbnail to enlarge.

 

[thecharioteer]

December 10 addition:

Then: Queen, looking NNE from Jarvis. December 24, 1929.

Now. October 2009.

Moss Park has an interesting history, evolving from the 19th Century estate of William Allan, to the rather lifeless park and banal armouries that exist today. But in between the demolition of the original Allan estate in the early 1900's and the urban renewal of the 60's there existed a diverse, vital community with shopping on Queen Street, a mixture of housing on Jarvis, George, Shuter and Sherbourne and an active park in the centre.

The original Allan estate at the NW corner of Queen & Sherbourne, prbably 1830's, prior to the laying out of Jarvis through "Hazelburn":

1910 Goad Atlas:

West half of the present park (the armouries actually sit on former Jarvis land, not Allan):

East half of the present park:

The gardens (1915):

The park (1922):

1926:

1928:

Girls Hockey Team (1922):

Queen, looking west from Sherbourne (1923):

 

[Mustapha]

I'm quite receptive to modernism (and brown), but this building leaves me cold. I don't always think that the "before" looks better in these wonderful before and after comparisons, but in this case, boy, would I take the before.

And that black fence - a new addition - gives the impression that this is no longer just an armoury, but is now a neighbourhood military base. Fort York doesn't have one, I wonder who authorized this and why.

Those photos show exactly why Queen and Sherbourne went to hell. Vibrant street was replaced by a park and the dead zone created by the armory. Throw in lots of public housing and shelters and you have the perfect storm.

I'm imagining a Queen EAST if this neighbourhood had been allowed to stand. It's only 1 block between Jarvis and Sherbourne but what a block... from the Henry's Cameras and Victorians readapted as office blocks then past the Armoury to a part of town that polite society would rather ignore.

The buildings and businesses on the south side across from the armoury; try as they might, have been futilely trying to gentrify this area. For awhile about 20 years ago, it looked to my eyes as if something good might take hold. Nowadays I don't even see strollers along this stretch of Queen anymore.

 

[Edward Skira]

I'm on Britain Street and things have steadily got better over the past five years or so. New developments are starting to remove parking lots and all of the crack dens that I was aware of have gone. But there's still much to do here.

 

[thecharioteer]

It would also appear that the topography has also been homoginized in Moss Park. One of Toronto's "lost rivers" appears on the nineteenth century map, and the older photos show hills as a result. Not sure if the park was totally levelled after the massive demolitions (Ed007, any help?).

 

[LowPolygon]

Moss Park has an interesting history, evolving from the 19th Century estate of William Allan, to the rather lifeless park and banal armouries that exist today. But in between the demolition of the original Allan estate in the early 1900's and the urban renewal of the 60's there existed a diverse, vital community with shopping on Queen Street, a mixture of housing on Jarvis, George, Shuter and Sherbourne and an active park in the centre.

Queen, looking west from Sherbourne (1923):

you're right--it really looks like a thriving, stable area of commerce and community. what's amazing to me is how dense and uniform the Victorian streetscape is on Queen east of Yonge, as opposed to west of Yonge.

Once you get on the other side of the two big department stores and City Hall, Queen Street West appears to have been an area much more diverse in appearance and use: grander and larger scale commercial buildings, theatres and hotels, interspersed with a lot of ramshackle lath and stucco buildings. in other words, Queen west looks to be the poorer and more tawdry of the two. Maybe because of the proximity of The Ward?