Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

[Mustapha]

The floor looks different on that Hawker Siddeley train, the last time on I rode on them before they retired.

The blonde lady with the sunglasses - that bench seat she's sitting on - it seems very wide. There seems to be less room for walking up and down through the car.

 

[Mustapha]

"Then again, the photographer back then might have made an effort to find a scene on a subway car of "proper Torontonians" to immortalize on film. "

Based on photos I've seen from that era, it wouldn't have been hard to find "proper" Torontonians, as that's how most people dressed back then, in all contexts. This doesn't look like a staged shot by any means. Remember that c. 1965-1966 most men still wore ties and hats (as seen in the pic) when they left the house, even to events such as Maple Leafs games. And you can bet that train didn't have newspapers, coffee cups, and other garbage under the seats at the end of its run.

Quite true, this. While it may have been a possibility that our 1965 photographer walked up and down the subway cars until he found one filled with his idea of "correct subjects", I remember that in the 1960s; running shoes - as an example - were strictly gym use. No one thought it odd that black oxford laceups were worn by young boys playing tag and riding bike.

 

[Mustapha]

What about the woman holding the dog?

I believe that she is staring into space - somewhere in front of where I am standing.

When I looked at this picture I thought that the lady with the red scarf and the lady with the white shopping bag were looking at me. I believe now that they are looking at the camera as it rested on the front of my coat. I had pretended to review pictures on the back LCD when I was in fact setting up a 10 second delay automatic shutter release. The shutter clicked as the camera dangled from my neck and I was looking away out the window sipping coffee. I did this to be unobtrusive and to get a scene of subway riders in their natural repose.

The young man on the right seems to be looking at the young lady standing in the aisle...

 

[ambleDexterous]

I want to go to a supermarket that has a 'sundries' section. There's a word falling out of use. Sigh.

Not just Sundries but Notions. Simpsons and Eaton both had Notion Depts.

 

[Mustapha]

March 1 addition.




Then. The oft written about - here at UT and elsewhere - 1845 Commercial Bank of the Midland District. Seen here from the Observation Deck of the Rossin House Hotel at the corner of King and York. View is to the SE.

Picture from the famous 1856 panorama series: http://www.toronto.ca/archives/earliest_3_ab&h.htm

I've circled our subject in blue.

Later. A street level view. This is Wellington, just W of Yonge, looking W.

Now. February 2011. BCE Place. Yes, it's just the facade, and yes, it's been moved about 60 feet from it's original location. For a parking garage entrance.

 

[Goldie]

I had pretended to review pictures on the back LCD when I was in fact setting up a 10 second delay automatic shutter release. The shutter clicked as the camera dangled from my neck and I was looking away out the window sipping coffee. I did this to be unobtrusive and to get a scene of subway riders in their natural repose.

Brilliant idea, Mustapha! Something that had never ocurred to me.
However, on reflection, I wonder if those people saw a flashing light on your camera as it did the countdown of 10 seconds.
My camera has such a light and it would be visible if I don't cover it over.

P.S. Those three pix of the 1845 Commercial Bank building make a wonderful series. Is that building near the top of a list of the oldest structures in Toronto?

 

[ambleDexterous]

A google for "power supermarkets" returns no results. Sad - remembered and visualized here again today, but otherwise utterly and completely undocumented.

Tadlecreek Magazine ran a great piece on Dupont's history, it includes a photo of a Power Store on Dupont at Huron, now a LCBO as well as some info of the owner Leon Weinstein.

snip

The future is always visible, but hard to decipher. Who’d have thought when grocer Leon Weinstein bought a coal yard at Dupont and Huron streets, somewhere around 1956, and erected a supermarket there a year or so later, that it was actually watershed. But it was a preview of Dupont’s post-industrial future, visible to the eye if not the conscious mind, even as the street’s industrial might yet grew.

Weinstein was the Dave Nichol of his era—an outgoing, cigar-smoking marketer who parlayed a small grocery store at Coxwell and Danforth avenues into a chain of thirty-eight supermarkets. “Power†was the name they went under. It was lifted, the story goes, from a gasoline ad. The banner was a bit obscure but decisive and forward-looking; the moniker looked good on the new Dupont store (the Loblaws at Huron Street in 1998), showy and modernistic in a 1958-era photograph with the store against a background of Casa Loma’s medeival-looking towers on the Davenport hill. In front, the supermarket’s transparent glass wall overlooks Dupont’s archaic streetcar tracks.


http://www.taddlecreekmag.com/dupont_1

 

[ambleDexterous]

February 28 addition.



Then. "Hawker Siddeley train interior view with passengers and exterior view in open cut 1965."

The woman in the foreground has a Simpsons dress box by her. At the top of the box, attached to the string is a wooden handle. As a kid, I thought those handles were a remarkable invention so I stashed one away and have it still. Bringing purchases home in boxes added a certain glamour to shopping. Even an inexpensive but nevertheless stylish
Papermate pen was put in an Eaton pen box when I told the saleslady it was a gift.

 

[Anna]

The blonde lady with the sunglasses - that bench seat she's sitting on - it seems very wide. There seems to be less room for walking up and down through the car.

Yes, there was a 3-seater on one side of the aisle and a 2-seater on the other and they alternated from side to side. The 3-seater was replaced by a 2-seater because
a) nobody wanted to sit in the middle
b) even if they did want to they couldn't fit because of pickaxe width shoulders due to too much pablum
c) they wanted more standing room

This would be the interior of your original Red Rocket on display at the CNE

And it looks like they tested carpet at one point. Woman stare = dog stare?

February 28 addition.


Then. "Hawker Siddeley train interior view with passengers and exterior view in open cut 1965."

The woman in the foreground has a Simpsons dress box by her. At the top of the box, attached to the string is a wooden handle. As a kid, I thought those handles were a remarkable invention so I stashed one away and have it still. Bringing purchases home in boxes added a certain glamour to shopping. Even an inexpensive but nevertheless stylish
Papermate pen was put in an Eaton pen box when I told the saleslady it was a gift.

Or Eatons & Simpsons would ship your packages home for free.

 

[DTowner]

I remember the 3-seaters and when they got rid of them. Lol. I was fortunate enough to be able to ride in and remember riding in the red rocket subway trains. They were gorgeous. x

 

[Edward Skira]

Would love to get my hands on that subway map. Eglinton to Union running horizontally north to south.

 

[Mustapha]

Not just Sundries but Notions. Simpsons and Eaton both had Notion Depts.

English must be hard to learn as a second language. You can buy a notion or have one.

 

[Mustapha]

The 49/50? BUICK has a burned-out headlight.

($150.00 fine nowadays.)

Regards,
J T

No consequence as it was no danger. Didn't cars move glacially back in those days?

 

[Mustapha]

The woman in the foreground has a Simpsons dress box by her. At the top of the box, attached to the string is a wooden handle. As a kid, I thought those handles were a remarkable invention so I stashed one away and have it still. Bringing purchases home in boxes added a certain glamour to shopping.

The former Simpsons - now The Bay - is moving upscale again. Back in the day it seemed more of a high end British department store like Selfridges. Lots of British goods for sale. By the by, I miss Marks and Spencer.

 

[Mustapha]

Brilliant idea, Mustapha! Something that had never ocurred to me.
However, on reflection, I wonder if those people saw a flashing light on your camera as it did the countdown of 10 seconds.
My camera has such a light and it would be visible if I don't cover it over.

P.S. Those three pix of the 1845 Commercial Bank building make a wonderful series. Is that building near the top of a list of the oldest structures in Toronto?

Thanks Goldie, and yes, you must tape over the little light.