Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Mustapha]

thecharioteer, those aerial pictures are always a favourite of mine.

Also interesting that your Goads maps show that there was a public school at the NW corner of York and Richmond at one time. Never knew that; have never come across a picture of it either.





March 12 addition.




I'm a bit mystified by this one. The Archival citation: "Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 3, Item 147 Title Ryerson Avenue north of Queen
Date(s) of creation of record(s) May 8, 1914."


Then:

Now:

This can't be right? The "Then" picture shows a lane. The "Now" picture shows a full width street. The frame building on the right looks to be the same in both pictures but could just be a coincidence?


.

 

[androiduk]

Maybe I'm not seeing it right but it looks like the street widens to the left about where that wagon is. If that's the case, they would just have to knock down that one building on the left to make it a full street.

 

[yonderbean]

Speaking of the University Ave extension, a while back I stitched together the whole row from those archive photos.

Large size here.

Plus the partly still intact stretch just west of University.

Large size here.

 

[thecharioteer]

Great work, yonderbean! The building in the upper left hand corner is the Queen/York corner building that started this discussion.

 

[Goldie]

Speaking of the University Ave extension, a while back I stitched together the whole row from those archive photos.

Large size here.

Plus the partly still intact stretch just west of University.

Large size here.

I'm amazed by the fine detail in your 'large size' files! Thanks yonderbean.

 

[Mustapha]

Maybe I'm not seeing it right but it looks like the street widens to the left about where that wagon is. If that's the case, they would just have to knock down that one building on the left to make it a full street.

I see what you mean; that makes sense. The building on the left was obviously some sort of movie house.

yonderbean, that is just sick. I mean this in the best way Bravo. They should mount this on a plaque near the intersection of Queen and University.





March 13 addition.




Then: Wellington and Jordan NW corner. 1960-ish? One of the Wiley pictures from the Toronto archives.

Now: March 2010.

 

[adma]

Because of TD's presence, that'd be closer to 1970ish than 1960ish. (But incredible to think of how intact and solid that Second Empire thing on the corner was pre-demolition--maybe it isn't so much a "lost heritage" thing that appalls today, as a matter of the embodied-energy waste involved...)

 

[Anna]

Because of TD's presence, that'd be closer to 1970ish than 1960ish. (But incredible to think of how intact and solid that Second Empire thing on the corner was pre-demolition--maybe it isn't so much a "lost heritage" thing that appalls today, as a matter of the embodied-energy waste involved...)

That's the Ontario Club. They held out for a while when CIBC was buying up the block, but finally sold and moved into the entire 5th floor of the building that replaced it. They were there for about 35 years, but in later years requested rent concessions. They were supposed to move into 1 King W, but now they are homeless...

It's interesting that Commerce Court North was retained - but the Ontario Club building wasn't... Although that part of Jordan Street was closed up during construction, that entrance wasn't added until the 90's.

 

[wwwebster]

The building on the left was obviously some sort of movie house.

Browsing through the city directories at archive.org, the building was numbred 524, and was variously known as Majestic Hotel (1903), St. Denis Hotel (1908) and St. Denis Theatre (1912 & 1914). All through that, the neighbour to the west was a billiard hall. By the 1918 directory 524 was gone and the corner property was the billiard hall.

Incidentally, in 1914 the store on the other corner was Alexandra Co., milliners, and if you zoom in you can see hats on display in the window.

 

[Anna]

Here's the 1910 map:

 

[thecharioteer]

March 13 addition.




Then: Wellington and Jordan NW corner. 1960-ish? One of the Wiley pictures from the Toronto archives.

Now: March 2010.

The Ontario Club is just below the Bank of Commerce tower in this 1930 aerial:

 

[Urban Shocker]

Here's an interesting site - One Hundred Glimpses of Toronto - Queen City reproduced. You can flip through the pages, or they turn themselves. I've stopped it on the page that shows the club:

http://www.archive.org/stream/onehundredglimps00torouoft#page/36/mode/2up

 

[Urban Shocker]

... and, yes, it really was an age of Richardsonian Romanesque architectural heft that these photographs captured. But there are a few images of civic buildings from an earlier - architecturally Neo Classical - Toronto, when the Family Compact still ran things - or at least when the values of the newly rich mercantile class weren't as strongly influential. And images of an in-between, transitional time when the Customs House at Front and Yonge and the Post Office at the top of Toronto Street came into being, constructed in the rather feminine Second Empire style.

 

[Mustapha]

Browsing through the city directories at archive.org, the building was numbred 524, and was variously known as Majestic Hotel (1903), St. Denis Hotel (1908) and St. Denis Theatre (1912 & 1914). All through that, the neighbour to the west was a billiard hall. By the 1918 directory 524 was gone and the corner property was the billiard hall.
Incidentally, in 1914 the store on the other corner was Alexandra Co., milliners, and if you zoom in you can see hats on display in the window.

Here's the 1910 map:

So, androiduks conjecture about the laneway being widened was right. This confirms it.


Anna's map shows the space large enough to be a theatre; if a bit on tight side.


Thanks wwwebster and Anna.


I looked searched in the Toronto Archives under search word "Majestic" and found these two pictures. I wonder if they are of our Majestic/St Denis. Both are from 1913.





This interior shot shows a set of doors looking a lot like the ones seen in the exterior picture.

This interior shot shows a set of foldaway stairs that could only have been used in a interior trying to make use of every inch of space.

Anyways, they tore all this down ages ago so why are we even discussing this?



.

I'm wondering now about these doors. Since the theatre was on the north side of the street. The seats would have faced north as well. These doors would have been on the west side of the building; but that wouldn't have been possible since another building abutted...

 

[Mustapha]

March 14 addition.



Then: Carlton looking W across Church street. Maple Leaf Gardens construction just beginning on the right. Jun 26 1931.

Now: December 2009.