Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[thecharioteer]

Further to the origin of Don Mills Rd:

These old maps are great fun to peruse in detail.
I'm now surprised to find that an earlier (1866) map reveals that the road extension across the valley from Winchester St. and up the east side of the river is identified as "Don & Danforth Road."

And this 1788 map of "Torento" Harbour reveals an early spelling of our city's name!

Does anyone else find this trivia as interesting as I?

See attached thumbnails:

I do! Keep'em coming, Goldie.

 

[Mustapha]

I do! Keep'em coming, Goldie.

More trivia Goldie: might have been touched on in an earlier thread, but the service road on the north side of Riverdale farm running down into the Don Valley is part of the original extension too.

 

[CityPlaceN1]

Keep it coming. These are great.

 

[wwwebster]

More trivia, you say?

Playter's Bridge:

http://pi.library.yorku.ca/dspace/handle/10315/1245

Don Vale House:

http://pi.library.yorku.ca/dspace/handle/10315/1259

 

[Mustapha]

More trivia, you say?

Don Vale House:

http://pi.library.yorku.ca/dspace/handle/10315/1259

You can pinpoint the modern location exactly; by looking at the Toronto Necropolis cemetery hill... perhaps as you whiz by in the southbound lane of the Bayview extension - in fact, I do believe that your car would occupy - for a fleeting second - the exact location of the Don Vale House.





August 15 addition.



Temperance looking W from Yonge.

 

[Goldie]

Don Mills Rd. near the old Riverdale Zoo

Thanks to wwwebster for this nice sketch - see attached thumbnail.

Who will be the first to give us a 'Now' photo of the same scene?

 

[thecharioteer]

Was the building that housed Canadian Tire at Yonge & Temperence the original Birks store?

1934:

 

[Anna]

Was the building that housed Canadian Tire at Yonge & Temperence the original Birks store?

Yes it was.

Was the Aikenheads store/facade moved?

 

[thecharioteer]

Yonge & Temperence looking north:

1903:

2008:

 

[thecharioteer]

Yes it was.

Was the Aikenheads store/facade moved?

Yes, when they built the parking garage for Bay/Adelaide in the late 80's.

 

[Anna]

Yonge & Temperence looking north:

1903:

I was just looking at that picture on the Archives site, and admiring all the hats. Woman in white, man in white in pith helmet, a newsboy(?) wearing a newsboy cap and all the straw boaters. Guy on the east sidewalk looks like he lost his pipe band.

 

[thecharioteer]

I was just looking at that picture on the Archives site, and admiring all the hats. Woman in white, man in white in pith helmet, a newsboy(?) wearing a newsboy cap and all the straw boaters. Guy on the east sidewalk looks like he lost his pipe band.

Me too. To paraphrase Norma Desmond: "They had style then". How depressing on every level is the contemporary view?

 

[condovo]

Talk about visual overload. I almost had a seizure looking at that before picture.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Yes, the dying days of More Is More - though some are trying to revive the concept.

 

[thecharioteer]

Talk about visual overload. I almost had a seizure looking at that before picture.

You didn't read "Ornament and Crime" by Adolf Loos (1908) at an impressionable age did you, Codovo? I'm as minimalist and modernist as the next guy if we're talking about the Barcelona Pavilion or the Villa Savoye. It just doesn't work on most streetscapes.

I think the visual delight of the older view is in the combination of awnings, signage and architecture, whereas the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The modern view is bereft of any sense of texture, colour, movement and definitely architectural quality (save for the sadly truncated Confederation Life Building).

To put it in urban planning terms, the older view represents the chaotic vitality of urban life so cherished by Saint Jane. The modern view represents the deadening rationality of contemporary bureaucrats and some [bad] architects.