Throughout October, UrbanToronto is celebrating 20 YEARS, with stories looking back over the last two decades. Each day we are also checking out our ever-changing street scenes, comparing an older "Then" shot with an up-to-date "Now" shot.

Then: Looking west towards downtown from where King St E meets Queen St E (2005), image by Edward Skira

Today's 'Then & Now' takes us to the intersection of Queen Street East and King Street East - just before the road crosses the DVP via the Queen Street Viaduct. Looking west along King in the 'then' photo above, the view west from this bridge was fairly low-rise until you reached the downtown core. You can see the financial district towers in the distance, and beyond those the CN Tower. To the far-left of the image are the newly-completed residential buildings in the Distillery (70 & 80 Mill Street), and in the foreground-left is bare land — much lower than King Street — which remained that way until 2011 when construction of Corktown and the Canary District was underway for the PanAm Games. 

Scrolling down to the 'Now' photo, taken in October 2023, the view west is almost unrecognizable save for a few buildings. On the left of the image is Phase 1 of the River City Condos, beyond which are a number of mid-rise mixed-use buildings along both sides of King that have blocked a portion of the financial district skyscrapers. Looking further still down King you can see the Globe & Mail Centre, behind which the top of CIBC Square peaks. To its' right is the L-Tower, and to the left is the Harbour Plaza Residences. Looking west along Queen, the tallest building on the right of the image is Massey Tower, to the left of which is the under-construction 88 Queen

Now: Looking west towards downtown with Corktown to the left, 2023, image by Jack Neal

Come back tomorrow for another Then and Now from over UrbanToronto's last two decades!

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Thank you to the companies joining UrbanToronto to celebrate our 20 years in business.

Related Companies:  Adamson Associates Architects, Bass Installation, BESI - Building Envelope Systems Installations, Bluescape Construction Management, Castlepoint Numa, CCxA, Cecconi Simone, Citi-Core Group, Diamond Schmitt Architects, Doka Canada Ltd./Ltee, Egis, EllisDon, Figure3, First Gulf, Grounded Engineering Inc., Hariri Pontarini Architects, Hines, Isotherm Engineering Ltd., Janet Rosenberg & Studio, Kramer Design Associates Limited, L.A. Inc., LiveRoof Ontario Inc, LRI Engineering Inc., Milborne Group, NAK Design Strategies, Peter McCann Architectural Models Inc., Precise ParkLink, Rebar Enterprises Inc, RJC Engineers, RWDI Climate and Performance Engineering, SPX Cooling Technologies Inc., Trillium Architectural Products, TUCKER HIRISE Construction, Tulloch Engineering, Turner Fleischer Architects, Unilux HVAC Industries Inc., Urban Strategies Inc., Vortex Fire Consulting Inc. , Walters Group