I've been reading Susan Sontag's On Photography. It's a bit heavy-going at times; somewhat unstructured and circuitous. It's a literary work with no bibliography, just her viewpoints. Here's a nugget: "It is not reality that photographs make immediately accessible, but images. For example, now all adults can know exactly how they and their parents and grandparents looked as children — a knowledge not available to anyone before the invention of cameras..."  If one substitutes "our early city of Toronto" for "parents and grandparents," the example is still apt.

The last chapter of the book is "A Brief Anthology of Quotations." Here's an example: "The daguerreotypes of all things are preserved... the imprints of all that has existed live, spread out through the diverse zones of infinite space.—Ernest Renan."

Hooo-kay, back to our pictures. :)

Then. 25 Grenville Street, circa 1918. "Antique and Art Galleries of B.M. & T. Jenkins."

25 Grenville Street, Toronto, circa 1918


Now. August 2011. Yes, it's a facade.

25 Grenville Street, Toronto, 2011

Stay tuned for a big surprise about this structure in tomorrow's Then and Now.