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This discussion brought back a scary memory of early childhood: getting my knee stuck in the porch railings when visiting my grandparents' house on Sparkhall (off Broadview) when I was about three or four. Solution: sawing part way through the opposite side of one of the rails till it eased. The...

Grampa might be deep in those fonds, but most of them are of a later date. He certainly would not have been on the 1907 hockey team. Working back from the 1861 census, John Gordon was only 20 when they founded the partnership and Donald McKay was 30. Viewing the census, I was amazed just how...

Fancy goods. A term which covered a whole lot of things in the 1860s. There were 25 merchants in fancy goods in Mitchell's Directory (1864). Some of them went into quite a bit of detail as to what they sold in the bigger alphabetical directory, but just now I couldn't find an interesting one to...

View from the east (1856), behind horse and buggy: Every time I see that photo I wonder if the Stock Exchange had a "no smoking policy" back in 1856.

I think I've got it sorted now. Sir John Beverley Robinson (died 1863) lived at Beverley House, built around 1820, on Richmond Street. His brother, William Benjamin Robinson (died 1873), lived at Sleepy Hollow. But to confuse matters, Caverhill's Directory has Sir John at the corner of...

Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow, according to the map in Boulton's Atlas of 1858, was on College Street west of University. To pinpoint--Murray Street stopped at Taddle Creek. Sleepy Hollow was in a line with Murray Street. Coming forward, is that the old Board of Education building? Thanks for...

I can smell the cotton candy from here!

Where did they put it? From one who remembers the old, but not the new.

The Royal Crescent, Bath Individualism ain't allowed there. Several years ago someone wanted to paint their door green. National furore!

There was a cemetery on the western section of The Meadow in the early days before York became Toronto. From http://torontofamilyhistory.org/projects/ The small cemetery was located on the north side of Duchess Street (now called Richmond Street East) roughly bounded on the east by...

From http://torontofamilyhistory.org/simcoesgentry/5 The curves on Wellesley Street (formerly Wellesley Crescent), and on Dundas Street (formerly Wilton Crescent), go from lot line to lot line of Park Lot 5. George William Allan’s developer would have laid out streets only within the Park...

I've been using Brown's Directory to match with the 1861 census since the beginning of the year. His tippografikle errors are noomrus, even in people's names.

It was TPL's Digital Collections where I found Mitchell 1863-64, but its formal title was only 1864 so we may be speaking of the same book. For those of you who don't know the directory, on each of the odd-numbered pages W Hewitt (forerunner to Aikenheads) lists one of the pieces of hardware he...

and in 1863-64, according to Mitchell's Directory, starting at the Front Street end, the residences of Sandford Fleming John Maughan, jr & sr George Boomer, police magistrate Augustin Noverre, professor of dancing, and his daughters' school Thomas C Chisholm, grain merchant

How long did the fish and chip shop on the east side of Yonge just north of Golfdale last? Didn't it move up to the top of Hoggs Hollow and become a proper fish restaurant? Leave the skin on the fish? Of course, they do, and I do at home as well. Especially when it's not battered (a stoopid...

The summer before Avenue Road was widened, we spent many mornings on it in traffic jams, wondering if we would make it down to Ontario Hydro in time for work. I think we had to contend with street cars as well as motor traffic (or was that on Bay?). At the same time the city were finalizing the...

Thanx, BeeRich--and for showing me a website I didn't know existed. Summer heat in TO was one of the things that made me seek cooler climes.

Like Goldie, I was very taken with your story of Mr Gruen and your photos of the Claridges apartments. The builders' signboard lists so many well known names of firms familiar in the thirties (which I don't remember!), the forties, the fifties and even the early sixties. But there is one thing...

Shortly after Toronto adopted crosswalks I recall walking up Yonge from the Hollywood with some friends on a Saturday night after an supper-time movie. Suddenly a dog-- taking itself for a walk--appeared, waited about 5 seconds at the crosswalk, and four lanes of traffic stopped while he got to...

Going back to the 50s and early 60s, you're right. There was nothing to do at Yonge & Eglinton. It could be a long cold walk in the winter down from the Capital and a further one from the cinema south of Davisville whose name escapes me. But we still often finished an evening at Fran's. Two...