Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Mustapha]

March 8 addition.



Then. 1952 Yonge subway construction photo. Yonge and Dundas. Looking W along Dundas to Yonge. That's the Ford Hotel in the right in the distance. A smaller scale version of it, built by the same hotel company, still exists in Erie PA. There is a twin in Montreal as well, that still exists.

Now. February 2011. The brown brick building in the distance - positioned under the no turns sign, is one of two survivors from the Then into the Now - the second being the former Bank of Nova Scotia branch on the right.

 

[Mustapha]

March 9 addition. March 12, 1950. 361, 359, 357 Yonge.





Then.

Now. February 2011. Ouch, my eyes.

 

[Mustapha]

March 10 addition.


Let's have a bit of fun and call today's addition: Sewer Grates:Then and Now.

 

[reetdoontoon]

March 9 addition. March 12, 1950. 361, 359, 357 Yonge.





Then.

Now. February 2011. Ouch, my eyes.

George Richards "where you get a fit for a king"

 

[adma]

Yeah, interesting that that's where the "big & tall" empire started (and just a few doors down from where Lou Myles ruled for years). Also interesting to note the continuum from the drugstore to Play De Record (literally, as the latter slowly took over the entrails of Ford Drug). Plus the original Zanzibar facade having a bit of quasi-Moorish scalloping to do with the horseshoe arches at the Lou Myles building...

 

[dautkomm]

Very clever contrast Mustapha! Especially if one assumes that the gentleman in your Now photo is reading the news on his smart device. One can only imagine how Torontonians will be reading their news at King/Bay in another 80 years!

March 10 addition.


Let's have a bit of fun and call today's addition: Sewer Grates:Then and Now.

 

[Mustapha]

reetdoontoon, adma,


Note also the ghost outline of the roof of the camera store (to the left of George Richards) in the Now picture.

 

[Mustapha]

Very clever contrast Mustapha! Especially if one assumes that the gentleman in your Now photo is reading the news on his smart device. One can only imagine how Torontonians will be reading their news at King/Bay in another 80 years!

Thank you dautcomm!

We can only hope that Torontonians will read their electronically delivered news in 80 years hence on perhaps on ever smaller devices with ever faster browsers; as yet undiscovered longer life battery technologies and cheaper data plans .

 

[Mustapha]

March 11 addition.




Then. March 12, 1950. 369 Yonge St.

Now.

 

[Mustapha]

March 12 addition.




Then. 328 Yonge. March 12, 1950.

Now.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Hurry the day when we treat the defacement of streetscapes by screaming matches of commercial signage ( and the Then & Now thread shows, time and time again, how out of control this process has become ... ) treated with as much contempt as we treat graffiti.

 

[adma]

Then again, relative to today's Le Chateaus/American Apparels/H&Ms, there's something elementally grandaddy-of-them-all about United Clothing in the "then" shot...

 

[Mustapha]

March 13 addition.





Then. March 12 1950. 332 and 334 Yonge street.

There was an Aladdin rugs at 2641 Yonge in the 1960s. It's now a Gap store.

Now.

 

[Gregory Graham]

Two comments about the King and Bay photo:
1. the older photo is dated 1931. It is interesting that the older gentleman with his right hand in his pocket and smoking is wearing a bowler, probably reflecting the fashions of his youth (1890s) when bowlers would have been the latest thing. Meanwhile the younger fellas wear flat top caps and the men of ages in between wear homburgs or trilbys.
2. note that the sewer grate (vertical surface, not the part lying flat with the road) appears to be the exact same grate and possibly the only constant physical thing in the two photos.

The older Bay/King photo is fascinating as well because of what it says about time. The younger people are in a hurry and moving while the old man smoking is still, seemingly happy to watch whats going on.

 

[thecharioteer]

Two comments about the King and Bay photo:
1. the older photo is dated 1931. It is interesting that the older gentleman with his right hand in his pocket and smoking is wearing a bowler, probably reflecting the fashions of his youth (1890s) when bowlers would have been the latest thing. Meanwhile the younger fellas wear flat top caps and the men of ages in between wear homburgs or trilbys.
2. note that the sewer grate (vertical surface, not the part lying flat with the road) appears to be the exact same grate and possibly the only constant physical thing in the two photos.

The older Bay/King photo is fascinating as well because of what it says about time. The younger people are in a hurry and moving while the old man smoking is still, seemingly happy to watch whats going on.

I agree that the old photo says a lot about time (great observations about the hats). Architecturally, we see buildings from earlier generations: the old Cawthra Mansion behind, (converted to the Molson's Bank), on the south side of King, the inset Edwardian Bank of Nova Scotia, the Imperial Bank.......all to vanish in the decades following this photo.