Toronto in 1856-57 (Nat'l Post Photo Gallery)

[wyliepoon]

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Four-part panorama extending from King Street West to York Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Four-part panorama extending from King Street West to York Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Five-part panorama extending from York Street to south end of Bay Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Five-part panorama extending from York Street to south end of Bay Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Five-part panorama extending from York Street to south end of Bay Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime

King Street east, south-side, looking west 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

King Street east, south-side between Yonge and Church streets, looking east 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Bank of British North America, north-east corner of Wellington and Yonge streets 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

The Exchange, north side of Wellington Street east of Yonge Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Wellington Street East, north-side between Church and Yonge streets 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Booth & Son, north-east corner of Adelaide and Victoria streets 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Second United Presbyterian Church under construction 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Normal School building 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Osgoode Hall 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Parliament Buildings : Front Street West 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Trinity College 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Rossin House Hotel : south-east corner of King and York streets 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital print

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Four-part panorama extending from King Street West to York Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Five-part panorama extending from York Street to south end of Bay Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Five-part panorama extending from York Street to south end of Bay Street 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Three-part panorama showing Toronto Bay 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Three-part panorama showing Toronto Bay 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel Three-part panorama showing Toronto Bay 1856 or 1857 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

Toronto from the top of the Rossin House Hotel, looking south-west 1856 Photographer: Armstrong, Beere & Hime Enhanced digital prints

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

it's too bad we lost soo much history. shame the city always renews its self from the inside out but that's the way it is.


P.S, links to the gallery please? is it searchable?

 

[wyliepoon]

^The gallery opens in a popup window, so I don't know what the url is. There's a small link to the gallery at the National Post site.

 

[Tuscani01]

Finally a good pic of the normal school! I have always wondered what it looked like back in its hay-day. Thanks for posting the pics! That could have been an amazing icon for Ryerson had the entire building been preserved.

 

[Observer Walt]

Prometheus: While a number of these pictures frankly don't show much worth preserving, others certainly do, and too few of them remain. It's certainly a shame. Through much of our history, tearing down and rebuilding was considered as "progress", and only in recent years has there been a real appreciation of heritage structures, and the techniques of weaving the city around them as opposed to bulldozing them.

Wylie: Many thanks for finding and posting these!

 

[ganjavih]

Very cool pics. Back when Toronto was European...

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

the british had great style. soo much skill was put into how a building looked, down to the last detail.


street frontage used to look great.....

 

[urbandreamer]

I'd move to that city!

Yet it amazes me developers in toronto are still knocking down nice old homes, buildings etc. (I'm thinking of Avenue Rd and Lawrence area homes that are being replaced by ugly townhouses with huge basement level garages--as seen in national post homes section weekly.)

Toronto looked dignified then--i doubt we'd be as envious of mtl architecture if they'd built the CBD in the portlands. I suppose there are tons more photos at the Archives of Ontario? I've never been there--is it open daily and free?

 

[Pep'rJack]

"Avenue Rd and Lawrence area homes that are being replaced"

I was not aware that this was going on - how bad is it? Could you elaborate? What do these houses typically look like compared to other pre-war residential areas in TO?

 

[urbandreamer]

^Look in the National Post weekend Toronto section--ads of homes for sale in the yonge/avenue rd/lawrence and york mills area: big ugly homes with below grade garages prominently out front. Then go up and bike/drive/walk around the area (old yonge st for example) and compare the 1930s/40s architecture to the new stuff. Disgusting what they're doing to the area. Or even further north in old Willowdale. Then there's those quaint post war bungalows in leaside being destroyed.

 

[Jarrek]

And some say Toronto didn't have many historic structures?

 

[salvius]

One nice thing about the lack of towers is the matching urban bulk, something that's quite pleasing to the eye. Instead, now we have the 2 storey here, 30 storey next door, etc.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Old Toronto had some charm, but for the most part these pictures look like they were taken in a hastily built frontier town. It's amazing that any of that stuff survives to this day. This isn't the same quality of building as what you would have seen in Vienna or London or Paris in 1857; these were simple post and beam houses with a very spartan brick exterior and probably an unheated, stone interior. A generation later, cities like Chicago and New York (and even Toronto!) would have steel-framed office blocks with electric lighting and tall, bright windows. It's amazing to see the change in North American building quality between 1850 and 1890.