Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Miss Sadie Thompson]

Yorkdale Mall.

There is some sort of electricity saving thing going on.. those lights dangling from the ceiling are harsh.

Sorry for jumping around so much, but it's my first day here and even though I've been transfixed for hours (literally) I'm only at the 50th page or so.

Yes, Nomorea, along Wilson was the most direct way. Catching a Weston Road bus southbound (which we took to go to the Mount Dennis - the closest movie theatre) would only take you so far and then you'd have to make several transfers to get anywhere near downtown (I guess you could eventually find your way to the Humber loop and take a Queen/King streetcar).

Once the (formerly) wonderful Yorkdale opened, we only went downtown at Christmas to see the Eaton's windows, skate at Nathan Phillips Square or, once we were teens, rollerskate at the Terrace and meet cute boys.

Ah, the Yorkdale of my teen years. Hop on the 93 Wilson bus to Dufferin and then a quick walk south. My girlfriends and I would meet up with our secret boyfriends at "the fountain" (pictured) and if they had money they'd take us to the Court Restaurant for cheesecake (or perhaps Diana Sweets).

The first McDonalds I'd ever been in was at the corner of Dufferin and Wilson and we'd run in and buy hot chocolate to drink while waiting in the shelter for the bus home. That McDonald's is gone now and I read somewhere it had been built on former oil tanker lands that hadn't had proper soil remediation.

 

[dbailey62]

^Thanks, how do you access that?

It's closed to the general public as it is in restricted space. It's not even covered in the tours as they don't go down to the tunnel. If you know somebody who works in the WB or the Pink Palace, you could arrange a visit I'm sure.

db

 

[Kingsway]

Sadie, I too remember my euphoria when I first stumbled upon this thread...then the preceding 3 hours as I reviewed every photo...the next step of your obsession may result in blisters as you constantly hit the refresh icon in hopes of Mustapha's next find....

I am still a newb but welcome...

 

[Goldie]

Does anyone else remember the radial cars that ran out of the north side of the Hoggs Hollow loop? They went a long way north in the twenties, but only as far as Richmond Hill in later years.

I certainly remember those radial cars.
I grew up in East York and when we wanted to visit friends who farmed in Langstaff we took the Danforth/Bloor streetcar to Yonge, then the Yonge car to the end of the line (Hoggs Hollow) and then the radial north to Langstaff.
We walked from Yong to their farm which I suspect was colse to the present intersection of Hwy. 7 and Bayview.
It was all farmland in those days - my, what a change today!

 

[Mustapha]

I lived in this house (25 Huron) for 3 years. I still get my haircut there, the large room at the front is now Mark Andrew Hair Studio. Mark used to work at Toni and Guy, but now he works in the comfort of his home for a mere $35 (for men). He'll often offer me a beer or a glass of wine while he plies his trade. It's always a delightfully civilized outing.

It's interesting how several houses are joined to your old place in row house style but they aren't "matching" like regular row houses. They appear to have been built at different times, interesting.

My wife remembers this as a corner store in the 60s; she grew up kitty corner across the street.

Thanks for the welcome.

I'm sitting in an office in the "after" right now, lamenting that it couldn't be in the "before". What character and as attractive as the Royal York. What a tragic, early death for such a lovely building.

Yes, welcome Miss Sadie. Your recollection about your trips downtown brought back to my minds eye the image of the gray painted cinder block concrete wall with red light on it that marked the end of the line for the Yonge subway.
Everyone got off and continued our sometimes lengthy journeys north.

The British Film Institute has posted a good many of these on YouTube, I think they use BFI as their name. Worth a look.

That 1927 ( the year my Mum was born, in London ) The Open Road colour film of London was part of a travel series about Britain produced by Claude Friese-Greene:

Youtube. I need to take a month of holidays to see what I think I want to see on this great resouce/source of entertainment.

I am amazed you had to come all the way across on Wilson to Yonge Street to get downtown. Wasn't there public transport in from Weston?

I grew up four blocks south and two blocks west of the Hoggs Hollow loop. During the war Loblaws was across the street from where it is now and it was our nearest "grocery store" (self-service but certainly not a supermarket). It was a long trek when your legs were only four years old.
Does anyone else remember the radial cars that ran out of the north side of the Hoggs Hollow loop? They went a long way north in the twenties, but only as far as Richmond Hill in later years.

The present Loblaws was a Mills and Hadwin car dealership; prior to that my grandfather told me there was an older building with a farmers market there. Pic below.

nomoreatorontonian:

Here is a pic from last month of the back of your childhood Loblaws. 3438 Yonge; it's now Wildfire Restaurant. Now I have an excuse to use the pic.
No trouble at all. I was out for a neighbourhood stroll.

I miss that old sign. It was always such a treat as a kid to be taken the few blocks from Greenfield up to Elmwood to visit the Dairy Queen.

I still live in the neighbourhood and it really is nice that something from my childhood still exists there. I actually live on Elmwood now.

db

My parents would drive us up to your DQ in the 50s and 60s. Sometimes we would go to the one at Broadview and Pottery Road; it's still there. The view from the latters parking lot is one of Toronto's underappreciated perspectives.

...The first McDonalds I'd ever been in was at the corner of Dufferin and Wilson and we'd run in and buy hot chocolate to drink while waiting in the shelter for the bus home. That McDonald's is gone now and I read somewhere it had been built on former oil tanker lands that hadn't had proper soil remediation.

I was surprised too to see that McDonalds close... I've only ever seen 2 McDs close.. this one and the one at Dundas west and Larch.

It's closed to the general public as it is in restricted space. It's not even covered in the tours as they don't go down to the tunnel. If you know somebody who works in the WB or the Pink Palace, you could arrange a visit I'm sure.

db

"Pink Palace" Bob Rae left ages ago.

Sadie, I too remember my euphoria when I first stumbled upon this thread...then the preceding 3 hours as I reviewed every photo...the next step of your obsession may result in blisters as you constantly hit the refresh icon in hopes of Mustapha's next find....

I am still a newb but welcome...

Stand by please for daily update. Betweentimes, thecharioteer, thedeepend, Goldie or one of the team will also be along shortly.












February 5 addition.

Then: Yonge looking S across Church. *1975>. Sheppard Centre in left centre distance was built that year. [*Thanks Ed007Toronto]

Now: November 2009.

 

[Miss Sadie Thompson]

My plan was to make Mustapha go out in a snowstorm for the 'now'.

For more weather - these were taken 55 years ago - possibly to the day.

My father had decided to move the family to Canada from England and came over on his own to check it out first. Having decided Toronto was the place for him, he made arrangements to buy a house on Baby Point Road.

Since my mother was very adverse to leaving her homeland, he thought it best to bring her and my brother over before the long, cold winter set in. They arrived on October 13, 1954 and my mother's first impression of Canada was unrelenting rain, which culminated in Hurricane Hazel mere days after her arrival. The basement of the house completely flooded, but considering all the death and destruction along the Humber River valley they were very fortunate.

 

[Urban Shocker]

My father did much the same, in January 1970. My mother and I came over in April, once he'd landed a job. The October Crisis and the suspension of civil liberties under the War Measures Act happened later that year - we assumed stuff like that was normal in never-a-dull-moment Canada.

 

[Edward Skira]

Sheppard Centre was built in the mid 70's so that before shot is 1975 or later.

 

[Mustapha]

Sheppard Centre was built in the mid 70's so that before shot is 1975 or later.

Amended my post, thanks!

 

[Dilla]

It's interesting how several houses are joined to your old place in row house style but they aren't "matching" like regular row houses. They appear to have been built at different times, interesting.

My wife remembers this as a corner store in the 60s; she grew up kitty corner across the street.

I don't know his source, but Mark told me the house was used by WWI soldiers at one point, they would stay there before being shipped off, I believe. Also, the cellar doors to the left of the truck in the driveway were used to bring horses into the basement, apparently. There are still troughs in the basement floors for this (at least, that's what I was told they were for). However, now that I think of it, the basement ceiling would be too short for all but the smallest of horses. I'll have to ask Mark about these details again.

I have never noticed before your picture that the house actually has two addresses. There appears to be a brass "5" (I assume with the second number hidden by the tree) on the Sullivan side. Very unusual.

 

[wwwebster]

I have never noticed before your picture that the house actually has two addresses. There appears to be a brass "5" (I assume with the second number hidden by the tree) on the Sullivan side. Very unusual.

The 1914 directory lists Joseph Mahoney at 25 Huron and Joseph Mahoney, grocer, at 51 Sullivan.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

While the Dairy Queen is cool what's more interesting to me is across the street. Those gates sure look like the entrance to a cemetery. Yet the cemetery is a block to the west, and today, that is North York Blvd. They obviously severed the land at some point. Why was this done and were there graves that had to be moved? Would love to know the history of this piece of land.

No graves were moved. York Cemetery first started filling up the area between the cenotaph and where the office/chapel/embalming/whatever complex now stands (it used to house a greenhouse with some exotic plants, but the grounds stuff has been moved way west of Senlac). There were no plots sold or occupied in the east, where Beecroft runs now and where the theatre and civic centre and so on were built.

I don't know when the land was severed. My guess is 1970-something, the Lastman era, perhaps, once plans for downtown North York were hatching, but the severed land wasn't fully developed until 2005 when the Transamerica/Aegon/Cadbury tower was finished. I don't know what buildings, if any, were on the site before the theatre/civic centre was built, but air photos from the 70s would answer that quickly.

The cemetery has still not filled out towards Beecroft...the veterans area on the north, just west of Beecroft, is not full, and the south side is being developed as a large memorial garden. I assume that those stone gates are the same and were moved...that's not the only pair of stone gates leading to old properties that have been moved throughout North York Centre.

 

[Edward Skira]

A fellow on twitter said the land was severed in 1966. The recent Toronto Unbuilt book shows some interesting ideas that were planned for the area in the mid 60's so it must have been in conjunction with that.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

A fellow on twitter said the land was severed in 1966. The recent Toronto Unbuilt book shows some interesting ideas that were planned for the area in the mid 60's so it must have been in conjunction with that.

If that's when it was severed, we also know that the Park Willow apartment in the background was built in 1963, so we can date the photo to a period between 1963 and 1966. I thought it was just a couple years later.

Although...if the Gladys Allison Building - which was built in 1959 and housed the library until it was demolished in 1985 - was built on cemetery land, a 1966 severance may not be the whole story. More investigation may be warranted...

 

[Mustapha]

I don't know his source, but Mark told me the house was used by WWI soldiers at one point, they would stay there before being shipped off, I believe. Also, the cellar doors to the left of the truck in the driveway were used to bring horses into the basement, apparently. There are still troughs in the basement floors for this (at least, that's what I was told they were for). However, now that I think of it, the basement ceiling would be too short for all but the smallest of horses. I'll have to ask Mark about these details again.

I have never noticed before your picture that the house actually has two addresses. There appears to be a brass "5" (I assume with the second number hidden by the tree) on the Sullivan side. Very unusual.

The 1914 directory lists Joseph Mahoney at 25 Huron and Joseph Mahoney, grocer, at 51 Sullivan.

Getting more intriquing. A grocer. Troughs. I'm assuming the troughs are on the floor - would have been used to flush away waste. A dead giveaway would be drains at the ends of the troughs.

If there are remains of pens - attaching points on the wall; brackets, etc, [have a look will you ] the basement could have been used for smaller animals such as pigs. [Did they allow people to raise pigs/sheeps/stable horses in this area at some time??