Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Mustapha]

re: Esplanade train picture

"It's so very strange to have half of a picture that looks somewhat familiar, and the other half just completely foreign.

Just as a heads-up, the foot of Bayview is just starting to get some of the park installed there. If you are down that way, it might be good to take some pics while the place is still barren. When I reviewed this thread, I often wondered what it would be like to have a bicycle and run around Toronto in the 1930's for about a week. Also, I would wonder if I would stick out with the way I acted, behaved, and how I spoke. I think it would be fascinating to look around. I also wonder what we currently take for granted, as major swaths of Toronto have been levelled in order to put up things like the Eaton Centre, New City Hall, etc.

I think Toronto has a mandate to grow on a serious level. The GTA isn't that far behind London England, but I'm not sure if they are comparable entities. The GTA has 75% more area and currently a much lower density. This could prove interesting.

"It's so very strange to have half of a picture that looks somewhat familiar, and the other half just completely foreign."
-----Yes, many of the buildings on the north survive into the present. The complex on the right is described in this link http://maps.chass.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/files.pl?idnum=1088&title=+1916 as "Electric Light Wharf". You'll have to scroll down to Scott and Esplanade.

"When I reviewed this thread, I often wondered what it would be like to have a bicycle and run around Toronto in the 1930's for about a week. Also, I would wonder if I would stick out with the way I acted, behaved, and how I spoke.:
-----You can do that while walking as well. Summertime evenings for me are my preferred time for such self reminisences. I go back to the street where I grew up and say the names of the families and visualize the children who lived there; the shops on Yonge - the live ducklings in the window of Stan Muston Florists; the pastries in The Little Pie Shop - the counter staffed by many of the young things from St. Clements school.

You can do this at the Eaton Centre too - pretend you are walking a noir turn of the century warehouse district. Just don't bump into the shoppers.

 

[Mustapha]

April 6 addition.





Then. "1915. Yonge and Temperance."

Now. February 2011. Lots of previous discussion about these corners here at the Urban Toronto forums.

The amount of neon in the old picture surprised me. Wish the Ontario Archives put up a higher rez picture...

 

[Goldie]

Esplanade views

re: Esplanade train picture

It's so very strange to have half of a picture that looks somewhat familiar, and the other half just completely foreign.

Interesting to compare Mustapha's 1933 "Then" photo with this one in 1927.
This view is from further west and shows the Yonge St. rail crossing.
- The tall smoke stack is gone.
- Is that the St. Lawrence Market building (circled)?

 

[thecharioteer]

Another night shot near Yonge and Temperance (from Adelaide) about 20 years later:

 

[BeeRich]

LOL I mean an actual time travel. To best see the city and to best minimize the impact of being there, while only knowing to behave like a dude from 2011.

When we were kids, my Dad used to take us on drives around the waterfront, as well as other places. It was mid-70's and the waterfront didn't have Queen's Quay past the warehouse. There's some serious bad planning down there. But then again, Downtown East of Yonge is pretty flat due to past City Councillors allowing businesses to poison the land. Development costs (for soil cleanup) apparently are quite expensive. SE Lakeshore & Leslie, where the new TTC yard is going, will take a full year to clean up its topsoil, which just began within the past 2 weeks.

 

[Mustapha]

"LOL I mean an actual time travel. To best see the city and to best minimize the impact of being there, while only knowing to behave like a dude from 2011."

---- Ah yes, as long as one remembers one cannot cross paths with ones mom and have her have a crush on you and that sort of thing, like in Back to the Future.

 

[Mustapha]

- Is that the St. Lawrence Market building (circled)?

It is indeed, Golden One.

 

[BeeRich]

That film has major assumptions...albeit enjoyable. Obviously a fully curious "doctor" who has a fetish for time travel would not choose his first trip to go BACK in time, but to the future. He's an innovator, not a historian. His restrictions would obviously be nulled in the future, so it would be the best place to go, in order to conquer his travel restrictions. Anyway...

As for the "lesson of history"...

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).Henry Ford

But, I love the measurable progress of how this community has changed. The City has grown, and I think there's a set of real pressures that have made these changes. The greyscale nature of the pictures has a big impact. All the same, I would love to be able to float anonymously in those days to see how the majority of Toronto was perceived as a different neighbourhood.

"Yes, this Avenue Road Church will become the Hare Krishna location in Toronto."

"I'm sorry, what part of the Christian Church is that?"

Hehe.

"This building here will be known as the Masonic Temple in Toronto, then will host music concerts, then a television show called Mike Bullard".

"Central Toronto? A temple? What is television?"

 

[Mustapha]

April 7 addition.




Then. "King Street West and John Street during snow storm Jan 26 1961."

Ok, then, lets "do" John and King over the next few days...

Now. February 2011. Does anyone know or remember what kind of business "Eclipse Whitewear" was in?

 

[Mustapha]

Another night shot near Yonge and Temperance (from Adelaide) about 20 years later:

This block, both sides, actually hasn't changed that much. Sometimes I take heart that we're not downtown Calgary, where there is much less left of the early part of the last century.

 

[donoreo]

LOL I mean an actual time travel. To best see the city and to best minimize the impact of being there, while only knowing to behave like a dude from 2011. .

Let's just hop in my TARDIS and go

 

[NomoreaTorontonian]

Just think what the ordinary man on the street in 1910 would have thought of jeans and T-shirts.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Nevermind women in pants, riding bicycles.

 

[Goldie]

April 7 addition.




Then. "King Street West and John Street during snow storm Jan 26 1961."

Ok, then, lets "do" John and King over the next few days...

Now. February 2011. Does anyone know or remember what kind of business "Eclipse Whitewear" was in?

Interesting that the company name was altered before 2011.
I wonder why it was reset as two words, "white wear."

 

[BeeRich]

Great memories, BeeRich. However, I always understood that the origin of the name Avenue Road came from the fact that it was the road that led to College Avenue, the original name for University Avenue.

http://www.torontolife.com/daily/urban-decoder/2007/11/05/urban-decoder-roads-14/

Contacted my buddy, and he didn't know. The person from UCC hasn't commented yet. HOWEVER...the 1916 GTA map, shows "Avenue Road" going far North of the current UCC lot, which is indeed there as well. Very strange. In any case, I guess my info got mixed up somewhere, my memory is going (that is for sure), or I misheard him.

What I also find interesting on that map is that Heath Street continues from Yonge Street right on over to Bayview. It's broken by the ravine now, and it's pretty steep. It continues on as Clarence Ave, past Welland and the Belt Line railway. Mt. Pleasant isn't even there (South of Merton). And they called it the "Provincial Lunatic Asylum", right by the Central Prison in Liberty Village. Railways went from the Beach, over to the island via the Eastern Gap (what we currently call it), over to where the Billy Bishop Airport is, then back to the City.