Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Koolgreen]

Wow - page 31 is an epic walk around pre-re-development Regent Park. Well done, @Mustapha ! It's a gift that keeps on giving

and there in the background stands the gasometer goldie has mentioned in the G&W campus......

 

[DSC]

Wow - page 31 is an epic walk around pre-re-development Regent Park. Well done, @Mustapha ! It's a gift that keeps on giving

Yes, one could spend hours re-reading this fantastic thread. Thanks to Mustapha for starting it way back in 2008. (Interesting also to see the names of frequent posters like Urban Shocker who seem to have 'moved on' Even Mustapha - aka Jeff - himself seldom posts these days.)

 

[LPCI]

Hi seemsartless,

This isn't "Glen Castle", what it might be I can't be sure. There was an "Ansley Castle" at the corner of what is now Glengrove and Heather, on top of the low hill just east of the present day John Ross Robertson School.

If you can find a copy of Don Ritchie's "North Toronto" (Stoddart 1992) or a copy of "North Toronto in Pictures" (Toronto Public Library Local History Handbooks 1974). there are pictures of Ansley Castle. Time prevents making scans this evening.

From "North Toronto" page 88: "...the 'castle' had been built for Alfred Ansley, a successful manufacturer of hats..."

From "North Toronto in Pictures" page 19: "...the Ansleys built a substantial house of Portland cement at Heather street in 1909. When demolished in the early 1920s, the neighbours took pieces of it as souvenirs and used it for rockery in their gardens."

More on Glen Grove Park from "North Toronto in Pictures" page 19: "Pilgrims Farm [the name for the area before it became Glen Grove Park] was settled around the time of the War of 1812. James Beatty, a later owner, made it an 'occasional summer retreat' and renamed it 'Glen Grove'. Glen Grove Park was a popular place for Sunday School picnics and church garden parties in the 1890s.The open fields near Yonge street were used as a race course, a baseball diamond, an a cricket field."

I agree with your guess that your picture scene might be on the east side of Yonge - Blythwood Ravine. I could be wrong but I haven't been on Glengrove Avenue east in decades; it's a short no-exit street and I have no reason to be there but I don't think there is an extant house like that.

You have a nice website by the by.

I lived on Glenview Ave on the west side of JRR, and halfway down the block towards Avenue Road on the north side was a huge pile of a house that occupied what would be three lots. It theoretically "faced" Glengrove Ave if one imagines that it was the only house when Glengrove was a driveway. The house is gone now. Sad. It had huge trees and one very ancient and noisy parrot.

 

[LPCI]

Here we go...

From the Ritchie book previously mentioned:

From the TPL book previously mentioned:

That "castle" looks like the Hydro substation that's always been there. They used to disguise the substations to blend in.

 

[Goldie]

King St. E. at Church, 1970

Google street view

 

[Koolgreen]

I don't see them anymore, but as a kid, there used to be blue vent poles around town which looked like lamp poles and had turbines spinning up top....maybe ten feet high.... does anyone know what they were for???

 

[Goldie]

Yonge St. near Gould, 1973

Google street view

 

[UserNameToronto]

Sackville Street & Amelia Street, Cabbagetown. 1972 & 2016.

 

[Goldie]

Sackville Street & Amelia Street, Cabbagetown. 1972 & 2016.

That's a fine restoration,
It looks like a residence now.
Are there still any stores on the street level?

 

[Marmaly]

I don't see them anymore, but as a kid, there used to be blue vent poles around town which looked like lamp poles and had turbines spinning up top....maybe ten feet high.... does anyone know what they were for???

Either sewer vents or ventilation for covered underground landfills (to vent methane).

 

[W. K. Lis]

Likely old city dumps.

Woodville Avenue dump (1914):

Lawrence & Avenue Road dump (1935):

St. Clair & Bathurst dump (1935):

 

[UserNameToronto]

Likely old city dumps.

I like big dumps,
and I can not lie...

 

[UserNameToronto]

That's a fine restoration,
It looks like a residence now.
Are there still any stores on the street level?

It was on the market a few months ago - it was owned by "Me to We / Free The Children" and used as office space from what I can tell. No store presence at street level.

 

[UserNameToronto]

Then & Now. SE corner, Sumach & Winchester. The world-famous "Park Snacks" outside Riverdale Farm.

 

[Red October]

blogTO has a really good "Then & Now" piece on the Wheat Sheaf Tavern at King and Bathurst up right now. Opened in 1849, it has miraculously kept its same name for its entire existence. Also a cool fact - it only got its now-famous mansard roof in 1905.

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2017/01/history-toronto-oldest-bar-wheat-sheaf/

1970's (good lord who ever thought that painting historic buildings white/grey looked good?):

1981:

2011:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Wh...2!3m1!1s0x882b34dfd58c092d:0x2ead559a7cd8f716