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Evocative Images of Lost Toronto

Don't know about the windows, but I seem to remember that Kresge seemed pretty much the same t/w the end--which, perhaps, was its (and the chain's) "problem": the aura of queasy entropy that walloped you like the french-fry-grease odour whenever you entered. I'm not sure what a modern equivalent to that (to c1980 eyes, at least) "offputtingness" might be; maybe various lingering Coffee Time outlets (and I'm not talking about aesthetics, either). Or maybe more to the point, the "good riddance" impulse some may understandably have t/w the Scientology building...

The Yonge + Richmond Kresges also had that aura. It's like the stores were, by the late 70s at least, yelling out "somebody kill me, please" by way of shouting down the retro-moderne enthusiasts...
 
thecharioteer said:
What I do find as a bit of discovery is the elegance of the old Kresge store, which vanished without a peep for the current building in the late 80's. I remember the building as a nice-enough background building, though much of the original details and windows were probably gone at that point. In the context of our discussions about the Modern Movement in the "Scientology Building" thread, it was as close to a Mendelsohn building as Toronto got (though about 20 years later than its European counterparts) and an interesting counterpoint to the Neo-Classical bombast of Eaton's College Street store across the street:


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Beautiful photographs, charioteer. It was a gorgeous building, interior aside.
I remember very well how elegantly this canopied building hugged the sidewalk on the gentle slope southward on Yonge from Carlton.
Its partner further down Yonge, on the corner of Richmond, was not as beautiful, was more of a oddly monolithic hulk, but still had some very nice qualities….


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I do somewhat wonder how the Yonge/College Kresge escaped radar as heritage-inventory or preservation-crusade fodder--perhaps it was originally deemed too-new/too-"secondary" (being post-WWII and technically "lesser" to Odeon Carlton, which itself was only inventoried as a symbolic eleventh-hour gesture), and by the Eggleton 1980s a certain proactive-heritage-crusade complacency set in. Maybe, too, the "proletarian" (and US-chain) nature of Kresge itself, as opposed to the high-end glamour of Eaton's College, didn't have the same cultural resonance to the crusading heritage elite that once might have held hands on behalf of Old City Hall. To some degree, for lack of a better example a present-day point of comparison might be those who lamented (in vain) the replacement of the original Eaton Centre railings--and you'd find certain heritage old-schoolers who'd respond with "the Eaton Centre is the kind of stuff we crusaded against in the first place". And the Eaton Centre's about as old now as Kresge was around the time it met its fate...

Incidentally, the Yonge/College Kresge was one place which, aesthetically and all, made an absolutely organically splendid Yonge subway entrance--and, no coincidence that both store and subway were at a common aesthetic "awkward moment" 30 odd years ago (and the french fry grease above ground being matched by the Gloucester-car pong underground)
 
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Is there something about the 40 year gap that makes buildings vulnerable? I think of Sutton Place (soon to be entombed as "The Britt") and 480 University (soon to be entombed as "The Icon"). Both good examples of their period, but, shall we say "unloved"? I think that there is a psychological element at play here, related to fashions and trends in architecture and design and when "old-fashioned" becomes "retro" ("Mad Men"?). Of course, in the 1970's, everything was up for grabs, including buildings from the 1850's to 1940's (The Lunatic Asylum, Temple Building, Toronto Star Building, Globe and Mail Building, etc...)
 
Great find, deepend, which can be dated by the incomplete state of Canada Life (which was completed in 1931).

One can see in the distance the Erskine Church on Elm and Murray, (which I had never heard of until wwwebster's Dec. 17th post), which was replaced by the Mount Sinai Hospital's 50's incarnation.
 
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I'm intrigued by the sheer warehouselike Deco verticality of Bell's backside (now concealed by the 60s addition on Adelaide)
 
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