Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[thecharioteer]

The block immediately S. of the Old City Hall, 1928

Bay at Richmond, 1928

View attachment 69785

View attachment 69786

One more, from 1911:

 

[thecharioteer]

Then; through the years. The less famous vinyl emporium - A&A - just to the north of the more lamented Sam the Record man.

View attachment 69931 View attachment 69932 View attachment 69933

Clark McDougall's "A & A Music", 1969:

1980's:

 

[Goldie]

The neon and flashing lights of Yonge have always been the symbol of an exciting Toronto.
Dundas Square seems lacking in that excitement because the "lights" are simply big TV screens with commercials.
I prefer the jungle of colour!

 

[UserNameToronto]

Clark McDougall's "A & A Music", 1969:

1980's:

View attachment 69936

A Citroen SM! Be still, my beating heart!

 

[Mustapha]

A Citroen SM! Be still, my beating heart!

I saw lots of these in Amsterdam over a week visit. In use as daily drivers. This was 10 years ago.

 

[Mustapha]

Yonge looking SE-ish from opposite Gould. Then - 1981, and tonight.

I think I did this pair a few years ago. Anyways, I was in the neighbourhood and had my trusty Olympus EPL5 with 25mm f1.8 attached and handy so I took a snap.

In the Then pic, the overhang thing with the square podded lights was, I'm pretty sure, a Frans Restaurant.

In the Now pic there is nothing left from 1981 on the other (east) side of Yonge except for the ghostly brick outline of the old Edison Hotel.

 

[J T CUNNINGHAM]

"In the Then pic, the overhang thing with the square podded lights was, I'm pretty sure, a Frans Restaurant."
Mustapha.

It was and included within was their own bakery.

Regards,
J T

 

[adma]

The then pic would more likely have been 10-20 years earlier--you can tell by the pylons of the Downtown and Imperial, and the Edison being pre-sandblast, among other things...

 

[thecharioteer]

From: http://torontoist.com/2011/01/historicist_the_hawk_nests_in_toronto/

For outsiders and locals alike, Yonge Street has long been Toronto’s main drag. In the 1960s especially, it was the place where all the seedy titillations of the big city were on display under bright lights. The twenty-year-old protagonist from F.G. Paci’s novel Sex and Character (Oberon Press, 1993) described the allure of the Yonge strip upon his arrival from Northern Ontario in the late 1960s:

The Yonge Street strip was my favourite haunt. I like strolling up and down the garish neon emporiums and fast-food outlets, the leather shops and dirty bookstores with the movie booths in the back. There were jazz and rock bars jumping with music. There were triple-bill theatres plastered with gaudy posters where derelicts and bums could sleep in the afternoons. There were strip bars advertising nude women by the breast-load. … Hawkers and pedlars set up shop beside the store fronts and clogged the sidewalks, selling their watches and leather goods. Street kids and panhandlers and prostitutes slunk in the doorways, ready to pounce.

 

[railmus]

View attachment 70099 View attachment 70098 View attachment 70092 View attachment 70093 View attachment 70094 View attachment 70095 View attachment 70096

From: http://torontoist.com/2011/01/historicist_the_hawk_nests_in_toronto/

For outsiders and locals alike, Yonge Street has long been Toronto’s main drag. In the 1960s especially, it was the place where all the seedy titillations of the big city were on display under bright lights. The twenty-year-old protagonist from F.G. Paci’s novel Sex and Character (Oberon Press, 1993) described the allure of the Yonge strip upon his arrival from Northern Ontario in the late 1960s:

The Yonge Street strip was my favourite haunt. I like strolling up and down the garish neon emporiums and fast-food outlets, the leather shops and dirty bookstores with the movie booths in the back. There were jazz and rock bars jumping with music. There were triple-bill theatres plastered with gaudy posters where derelicts and bums could sleep in the afternoons. There were strip bars advertising nude women by the breast-load. … Hawkers and pedlars set up shop beside the store fronts and clogged the sidewalks, selling their watches and leather goods. Street kids and panhandlers and prostitutes slunk in the doorways, ready to pounce.

Ah, yes. The good old days!

 

[thecharioteer]

Yonge and Yorkville:

1860:

1910

1960's:

1970's:

2005:

2015:

2015:

The future:

 

[r937]

St Clair Ave East bridges over Vale of Avoca, looking east to Inglewood

1924 -- new bridge under construction, old bridge still in use

west end of old bridge was at Avoca Ave and Pleasant Blvd

2016 -- old bridge abutments still visible from east end of new bridge

by the way, they kept the iron railings from the old bridge, and re-used them along Avoca Ave

 

[Soop]

The pictures of A&A records makes me think of how in the mid-90's it became a Future Shop. That FS at the time had a full range of CDs available and a price guarantee...find a lower price and they would beat it by 10%. So we would have a list of CDs we wanted and price them out at Sam's (I can't remember if Sunrise and HMV were there yet). If they were cheaper at Sam's we would then go and buy them at Future Shop. They would have to send someone down the street to Sam's to check the prices.

 

[Goldie]

That photo of Yorkville (1860) is amazing - it surely rates as one of the earliest photos of the City:

 

[Blovertis]

I like how you can see what looks like complete wilderness in the background.