Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Goldie]

Goldie. Your 1962 plaque. Did you photograph it in 1962 or shortly thereafter?

I vaguely remember a Towers store on Dundas West. Below Bloor. Above Roncesvalles. It MIGHT have been where the Loblaws is now. In the plaza now known as 'High Park Plaza'. I could be wrong on all of these 'recollections'.

I should have mentioned that I found that image of the plaque online a long time ago, but can't recall where or when.
It's nice to know, with a little teamwork, that we've found the original location.
Someone, please give us a "NOW" photo.

 

[Goldie]

IS IT POSSIBLE? No, it can't be. CAN IT?
This Google street view at 2290 Dundas w.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Or is that the anchoring base of an old sign or post..? I'm not seeing a plaque although it could have been vandalized I guess. According to this - https://losttoronto2.wordpress.com/tag/towers-time-capsule/ it's located under the plaza walkway..so right up next to the building perhaps? It looks like there's a different plaque/capsule depicted at another former Towers location too.

 

[DSC]

Or is that the anchoring base of an old sign or post..? I'm not seeing a plaque although it could have been vandalized I guess. According to this - https://losttoronto2.wordpress.com/tag/towers-time-capsule/ it's located under the plaza walkway..so right up next to the building perhaps? It looks like there's a different plaque/capsule depicted at another former Towers location too.

Looks like a sign or traffic control base to me!

 

[Goldie]

Thanks, Bogtrotter.
That may have been the site (losttoronto2) where I found the image some time ago.

 

[Goldie]

First in my series called: 'Right Under Our Noses'.
Who remembers photobooths? That this terribly old school amusement, because amusement is all that it is, still exists right under our noses boggles my mind. [Copy editor job open. Please apply Mustapha.]
Who remembers squeezing a date into one of those and waiting. Anticipating.. the strip of photos. Which back in the day was suffused with the odour of developer.
With the awkward individuality of Gypsy Caravans, these amusements still thrill, or perhaps merely amuse,
succeeding generations./QUOTE]

And, speaking of photo booths, here's one in South Sudan.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Afr...uth-Sudan-using-pictures-as-vacation-from-war

 

[adma]

According to this - https://losttoronto2.wordpress.com/tag/towers-time-capsule/ it's located under the plaza walkway..so right up next to the building perhaps?

That's definitely where it is; set in the sidewalk in one of the Towers/Zellers walkway bays closest to Loblaws.

 

[adma]

And it's also more among the piers than against the building.

 

[Goldie]

Yonge at Esplanade, 1930

New L Tower

Google street view:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Y...2!3m1!1s0x882ad58a370bf499:0x290e8214331ff1b8

 

[Bogtrotter]

Much prefer the before- what a nice facade to the market. They really dropped the ball with the base of the L-tower- ugh.

 

[innsertnamehere]

One really interesting thing is that the grade seems to generally match that of front street - while today there is a significant decline in elevation.

 

[gimbal]

Yonge at Esplanade, 1930

View attachment 122408

And it wouldn't be Toronto without road work...

 

[DSC]

One really interesting thing is that the grade seems to generally match that of front street - while today there is a significant decline in elevation.

I think that is just an 'optical illusion' though I suppose they may have had to increase the grade north of the berm to get under the tracks?

 

[Goldie]

Much prefer the before- what a nice facade to the market.

That "nice facade to the market" was originally built for the Great Western Railway Station (later, Grand Trunk). drawing below: c.1867

Photo below: c.1905

 

[Goldie]

Thanks to "gimbal" from the thread, "Evocative Images of lost Toronto".........for this nice old 1931 panorama of the skyline.
I made a matching image from the same location (roof of the Toronto Harbour Commission Building) in 2013.