W. K. Lis
Superstar
There are traffic signals. They don't have the shields on them to help the lights stand out from the background lights, nor are they on arms to project them out into the roadway.
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Evocative Images of Lost Toronto
- Thread starter LowPolygon
- Start date
There are traffic signals. They don't have the shields on them to help the lights stand out from the background lights, nor are they on arms to project them out into the roadway.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Yup, you're right. Thanks. I finally saw one peeking out behind an awning.
adma
Superstar
There's something oddly fatuous about Heintzman's "Ye Olde Firme" label.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I would if anyone had the insight to store some of those old streetlamps whenever they went out of service. They would fetch a good dollar today.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Over the years or decades, the city replaces the "expensive" lampposts with newer "less expensive" lamps. In turn, they get replaced with "cheaper versions". And so on, and so on, and so on.
DSC
Superstar
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This is even more evident since the City sold-off their lamp poles to Toronto Hydro who have ZERO sense of 'style'.
Goldie
Senior Member
Goldie
Senior Member
thecharioteer
Senior Member
I’m guessing that it’s the building mid-block on the north side of King, just east of Ontario Street as can be seen on the two Goad maps from 1889 and 1924. I suspect it’s a Georgian Building (judging by the doorway) that received a Second Empire topper at some point:
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J T CUNNINGHAM
Senior Member
Later to become MUIR'S Cartage.
(My father, being friends with Gord Muir and his father, during the 1950's.)
Regards,
J T
(My father, being friends with Gord Muir and his father, during the 1950's.)
Regards,
J T
donoreo
Active Member
I am going to post this here. The Thomas Fisher Rare book library has digitized a lot of photos including a whole book by Octavius Thompson of photos taken from 1864 to 1868: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasfisherlibrary/albums/72157672729106183
steveintoronto
Superstar
There's some invaluable records of history there, thanks for the 'heads-up'....but I find it frustrating that the pics are in effect, 'bleached'. Are the actual prints of that nature, or is it just the site that displays them that way?
Some of the subjects are delicious viewing, if only full, sharp contrast was available to see all the nuance and detail...
junctionist
Senior Member
I don't understand how we had such grand buildings and dirt roads and wood plank sidewalks. It must have been a mess 4-6 months a year. Couldn't they quarry some stone pavers in Northern Ontario and send them down to the city by railway? We still have lousy roads to this day, even though they're all paved.
steveintoronto
Superstar
It's an enigma! Very interested in reading what other posters say about this, and impressions can be misleading, a bit like asking why we see more pictures of when it's not raining than is...(the answer is obvious, but of course, an 'impression' doesn't factor that in).
But many of the historical pics show roads in amazingly good shape. I've often wondered why? If they were just dirt...*surely* they'd be in terrible shape in most pics? One of the clues is seeing cyclists on those roads. Anyone who cycles knows that on loose dirt, unless you have massive balloon tires, cycling is difficult. And yet there's no shortage of archaic pics showing cyclists, the most prominent form of commuting between the eras of horses and automobiles a century ago.
I'm intrigued to read what insight others can add on this...
Addendum: Not really knowing where to start Googling on this, I started with "Asphalt", and I don't know if presuming all paving done in, say, century old pics is in indeed asphalt (it could have been a limestone concretion), none-the-less, the following is interesting, and goes back well over a century:
http://www.asphaltpavement.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21[...]
Laying the Foundation for Asphalt Roads
Despite these early uses of asphalt, several hundred years passed before European or American builders tried it as a paving material. What they needed first was a good method of road building.
Englishman John Metcalf, born in 1717, built 180 miles of Yorkshire roads. He insisted on good drainage, requiring a foundation of large stones covered with excavated road material to raise the roadbed, followed by a layer of gravel. Thomas Telford built more than 900 miles of roads in Scotland during the years 1803–1821. “He perfected the method of building roads with broken stones, laid to a depth according to the weight and volume of traffic it would have to carry,” Gillespie writes.
Telford’s contemporary, John Loudon McAdam, taught himself engineering after being appointed a trustee of a Scottish turnpike. McAdam observed that it was the “native soil” that supports the weight of traffic, and that “while it is preserved in a dry state, it will carry any weight without sinking.” To construct his roads, McAdam used broken stone “which shall unite by its own angles so as to form a hard surface.” Later, to reduce dust and maintenance, builders used hot tar to bond the broken stones together, producing “tarmacadam” pavements.
Asphalt Roads Come to America
The first bituminous mixtures produced in the United States were used for sidewalks, crosswalks, and even roads starting in the late 1860s. In 1870, a Belgian chemist named Edmund J. DeSmedt laid the first true asphalt pavement in this country, a sand mix in front of the City Hall in Newark, New Jersey. DeSmedt’s design was patterned after a natural asphalt pavement placed on a French highway in 1852.
DeSmedt went on to pave Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, a project that included 54,000 sq. yds. paved with sheet asphalt from Trinidad Lake Asphalt. The durability of this pavement proved that the quality of the asphalt found in the Americas was as good as that imported from Europe.
Patented Roadways
Builders, quick to see the advantages of asphalt, tried to stake out claims to the material. “Looking back from today’s marketplace, where Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is compared and classified only by its technical qualifications, it is difficult to comprehend that until 70 years ago, competing proprietary brands of HMA were peddled, touted, and huckstered with all the enthusiasm that now is used to advertise soft drinks,” writes Gillespie.
The first such patent was filed in 1871 by Nathan B. Abbott of Brooklyn, New York. In 1900, Frederick J. Warren filed a patent for “Bitulithic” pavement, a mixture of bitumen and aggregate; despite vigorous efforts by the Warren Brothers Company to defend its patent (and the name of the material), “bitulithic” was often used to describe any asphalt pavement. Other trade names for asphalt mixes included Wilite, Romanite, National Pavement, Imperial, Indurite, and Macasphalt. Many of these patented mixes were successful and technically innovative.
The fierce competition among asphalt producers, however, allowed cities to require more stringent requirements for their asphalt roadways. In 1896, for example, New York City adopted asphalt paving in place of brick, granite, and wood block. But it also required 15-year warranties on workmanship and materials. The long-term warranties, which did not recognize pavement failures caused by factors beyond the asphalt contractor’s control, bankrupted many builders. The result was fewer and higher bids for asphalt pavements.
The patents for “Bitulithic” pavement expired in 1920, and subsequent improvements in pavements by Federal and state engineers forced most of the remaining patented pavements from the market.
[...]
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