Toronto Sun Life Financial Tower & Harbour Plaza Residences | 236.51m | 67s | Menkes | Sweeny &Co

urbandreamer said:
It would be interesting to see that photo retouched in colour! It's hard to imagine the city my grandmother and great (great) grand parents etc knew so well! She always seemed to remember the city as a grim industrial town with a few pockets of genteel wealth, centred around the UofT. Perhaps I would've seen the city differently?
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That's because it WAS a grim industrial town with a few pockets of genteel wealth. :)

If you've ever seen one of the nineteenth-century aerial overviews of Toronto, you cannot help but notice that the image is completely dominated by hundreds of smoke-belching factories, located in almost every corner of the city. It really is quite a startling difference from the current appearance of Toronto.
 
Mongo said:
If you've ever seen one of the nineteenth-century aerial overviews of Toronto, you cannot help but notice that the image is completely dominated by hundreds of smoke-belching factories, located in almost every corner of the city. .
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I think you mean 20th century (1900s) photos. They didn't even have planes in the 19th century. (Sorry to be a pedant but I find it somewhat troubling that people are already forgetting what the 20th century was. ;-)
 
Sorry to be a super pedant but he said "aerial overviews"... Not views from a plane. There were many examples of balloon-based aerial photography in the 19th century. Perhaps he was referring to one of those he may have seen of Toronto.
 
^And at the Toronto archives there are countless old photographs of Toronto taken from the spires of St.James cathedral and the like. They could be considered aerial overviews as well.

:)
 
Traynor said:
^And at the Toronto archives there are countless old photographs of Toronto taken from the spires of St.James cathedral and the like. They could be considered aerial overviews as well.

:)
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I forgot about the church tower. It's all starting to make sense now. (stupid internet.)
 
Actually, I was not referring to aerial photographs at all, but instead the numerous oblique map drawings that were drawn as if from a considerable height in the air.

I have a book, the "Historical Atlas of Toronto", that is full of old maps and aerial overviews. In particular, there are bird's-eye views drawn in 1876, 1884, 1889 and 1893, that depict a rapidly growing city, becoming noticeably larger and more heavily industrialised with each successive image.
 
Mongo said:
60 Harbour Street was REALLY close to the waterfront in 1919, when the building was two years old -- it almost looks like if you tripped walking down the entrance stairs, you would end up taking a dip in the water.

Given the building's purpose, it seems to me that having it on a location next to the water is more historically meaningful than having it stay at its current location, surrounded by busy highways.
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But like others in this thread, you're committing the error of reading its original situation as an intended "permanent condition" a la Liverpool's Three Graces--when, in fact, landfill plans were already well underway. And if anyone was in a prime position to know, it was none other than the building's prime tenant: the Toronto Harbour Commission.
 
Traynor said:
^I agree. And I'm prepared to be bashed by the usual preservationists for having that opinion.

I think building a jetty-type spit of land into the harbour from Harbourfront somewhere and moving the old Toronto Harbour Commission building there, would free up the land for developing
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Is that what it's about? "Freeing up the land for developing"?

and at the same time place the THC in a prominent location for a waterfront museum. It would be reminiscent of it's original placement in the harbour and better located for tourism. Harbourfront is a tourist local anyway and a museum there makes good sense.
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Sounds more like a patronizing sop from he who thinks that what happened to 800 Bay is an improvement. So, again w/my observation about "message-board urbanists who came into this whole realm as development/new-construction geeks rather than heritage/existing-condition geeks"--I mean, it seems to me as if this whole thing about moving the THC to the waterfront is more about putting a so-called constructive smiley-face upon "freeing land up for developing". Look, kiddo: "the usual preservationists" can see right through you.

Of course, my more semi-blase attitude re the actual subject of this thread--90 Harbour--may contradict everything. But remember: broadening the heritage playing field isn't the same as levelling the heritage playing field; rather, it allows greater elbow-room for fine-tuning said playing field. That is, it offers the opportunity to "value" 90 Harbour that once might not have existed; OTOH if one were to argue on behalf of 90 Harbour as being "the equal" of 60 Harbour (and, folks, again: it's nothing to do with chronology, or classical-vs-modern, etc), there's the seeds of undermining one's own argument. (But on the whole, I'd rather that 90 Harbour be demolished than for it to have a Traynor "800 Bay" number done on it. Similar vintage, you know.)
 
adma said:
But like others in this thread, you're committing the error of reading its original situation as an intended "permanent condition" a la Liverpool's Three Graces--when, in fact, landfill plans were already well underway. And if anyone was in a prime position to know, it was none other than the building's prime tenant: the Toronto Harbour Commission.
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Have you spoken to the original Toronto Harbour Commissioners (by seance, I assume) about their plans, if any, for the long-term plans for this building?

Even if they knew that the shoreline was going to be pushed south via landfill over the coming decades, what difference could it have made? They could not build it any closer to the water than they did.

I see its original location, sitting on a square of landfill jutting into the lake, to be as clear a declaration of the building's close connection with Toronto Harbour as you could ask for. That connection has been lost, and the building is now isolated from the shoreline, virtually surrounded by rushing autos.

So I will try to ignore your arrogant, condescending attitude that anybody who disagrees with you is wrong by definition.
 
Instead of trying to impress Torontonians with these new cheezy beaches on our waterfront, why not invest the money to move this beautiful historic building down to the waterline..maybe to Canada square..
 
You would prefer moving a building to continue to be surrounded by parking lots over the parks, decks, seawalls, and, beaches that have been introduced in the last half decade.

It would easily be one of the largest and heaviest moves in history and likely the first to contend with a subway. It would be neat to have it on the shoreline but I couldn't think of a bigger waste of a limited budget.
 
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Mongo said:
I see its original location, sitting on a square of landfill jutting into the lake, to be as clear a declaration of the building's close connection with Toronto Harbour as you could ask for. That connection has been lost, and the building is now isolated from the shoreline, virtually surrounded by rushing autos.
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Though that connection may have been lost, a new connection between the building and the city around it has been formed. Like Fort York, the old THC building remains a tangible marker of where the city used to meet the lake. Walking by and knowing the building's history reminds us, even if only on a subconscious level, of the shifting shoreline and the evolution of our harbour. We can look at old images of the harbour and match the building up in our minds with its surroundings today. It works in this way as a landmark by which we can gauge the progressing infill of the harbour. It's about as out of place in it's current location as all of those old farm houses throughout the GTA now surrounded by sprawl, but still speaking to and reminding of us of the area's rural history. I haven't been to Black Creek Pioneer Village in a very long time, but knowing that most of the historic buildings there were moved from elsewhere - that the village is more fantasy than history - diminishes the experience for me. I'm afraid the same thing would happen if the THC building were to be moved: it would lose some degree of authenticity.

Besides, the THC is gone, the harbour of 1917 is profoundly changed, and the area has changed in a lot more ways than the location of the shore line. The building comes out of a certain time when Toronto was a very different city. Moving it to the new lake shore would not put it back into context, but would situate it in an entirely different context. Maybe the building should be sold off and repurposed. A new TPA headquarters on the new waterfront would create a new connection with the harbour without disturbing the legacy of Toronto long gone - Toronto as an industrial port town.
 
^ urgh no

Have you seen the piss pond between Spadina and Rees? A disgusting floating garbage patch
 
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