Evocative Images of Lost Toronto

[urbantext]

Came across this rarity. The Three Candidates, I mean Stooges, at Toronto Airport:

[video=youtube;mjJfn3tq16o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjJfn3tq16o[/video]

I have just joined recently but have been enjoying this thread for months.
Thank you for what all of you have put together, its absolutely wonderful. So many memories conjured and also many surprises appreciated.

 

[ganjavih]

Man, people's perceptions of Toronto would be so different if we would have kept some of those grand streetscapes.

 

[junctionist]

And this is a view of Wellington West, showing the Ontario Club on the right (which could have been retained within the Commerce Court ensemble) and the Commercial Bank of the Midland District on the left, whose facade is now within the Galleria of BCE Place:

It's also interesting that the road surface appears to be fully paved with either brick or cobblestones in this photo.

 

[LowPolygon]

I have just joined recently but have been enjoying this thread for months.
Thank you for what all of you have put together, its absolutely wonderful. So many memories conjured and also many surprises appreciated.

thank you! and welcome to the forum...

 

[W. K. Lis]

Toronto's First Subway 1954, old CBC footage.

[video=youtube;KxRRfHLq7Us]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRRfHLq7Us[/video]

 

[adma]

And this is a view of Wellington West, showing the Ontario Club on the right (which could have been retained within the Commerce Court ensemble)

...except that it never got the chance to be properly acknowledged/appreciated by the time it came down--or even afterward. Mid/late Victorian streetscapes were starting to come back into fashion in the late 1960s, but gingerly and incompletely-digested--thus the Ontario Club and its loss never made it onto radar until, well...these Urban Toronto threads came along.

 

[thecharioteer]

...except that it never got the chance to be properly acknowledged/appreciated by the time it came down--or even afterward. Mid/late Victorian streetscapes were starting to come back into fashion in the late 1960s, but gingerly and incompletely-digested--thus the Ontario Club and its loss never made it onto radar until, well...these Urban Toronto threads came along.

However, a sea-change had occured in the 70's as a result of the election of the new reform Council (i.e.Crombie et al) and the new Central Area Plan which gave new bonuses for historic preservation. The most significant manifestation of this new attitude and legislation was in the design and approvals for the Scotia Plaza block in the early 1980's. Not only was the original Bank of Nova Scotia building preserved (mainly because it was "free" density under the new Official Plan), but two historic facades were preserved on Yonge and the Wood-Gundy facade on King was relocated to Adelaide. This preservation would have been unthinkable a decade earlier.

By the time the designs for BCE Place evolved in the late 1980's, the preservation of the Yonge/Wellington frontage was integral to the concept (as was the relocation of the Midland facade).

 

[LowPolygon]

Not sure where this was....

Jordan and Melinda?

.

 

[LowPolygon]

.

 

[LowPolygon]

Toronto streets, 1898.

1. Bloor Street
2. St. George Street
3. Jarvis Street at Cawthra Square
4. Sherbourne Street at Isabella Street
5. Queen's Park
6. St. George Street.
7. Sherbourne Street
8. Jarvis Street at Carlton Street

.

 

[thecharioteer]

What a difference a few decades makes:

1936:

 

[junctionist]

St. George's evolution from a street of Victorian houses to the heart of Canada's largest university has been fascinating. Though many attractive houses were lost, many remain among all the modern campus buildings, and they provide a lot of insight into the way the street changed.

 

[Goldie]

Generations apart

St. George's evolution from a street of Victorian houses to the heart of Canada's largest university has been fascinating. Though many attractive houses were lost, many remain among all the modern campus buildings, and they provide a lot of insight into the way the street changed.

I wonder if this house remains beside the Robarts Library (attached).

 

[yonderbean]

I wonder if this house remains beside the Robarts Library (attached).

Indeed it does:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&sll=43.658931,-79.381714&sspn=0.371578,0.53627&ie=UTF8&ll=43.664201,-79.398004&spn=0.00075,0.001558&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=43.664226,-79.397883&panoid=p8EXUN3Aj-xeIBbC3aBK6Q&cbp=12,292.04,,0,-9.1

 

[LowPolygon]

i didn't know that the Simpson's store initially only went halfway down the block to Richmond...