Scarborough Photographs: Then and Now

[adma]

It's like nobody cared about Scarborough.

Or rather: north of Bloor, few cared about being "connected" to Scarborough--or at least the interior thereof; it was mainly farm country, after all. And momentarily for a critical mass, accessing Danforth or O'Connor via the Bloor or Leaside Viaducts sufficed. (But the fact that Kingston Road was divided in the 1930s en route to the nascent 401 tells you that *somebody* cared.)

 

[Goldie]

Or rather: north of Bloor, few cared about being "connected" to Scarborough--or at least the interior thereof; it was mainly farm country, after all. And momentarily for a critical mass, accessing Danforth or O'Connor via the Bloor or Leaside Viaducts sufficed. (But the fact that Kingston Road was divided in the 1930s en route to the nascent 401 tells you that *somebody* cared.)

It seems that not much attention was paid to Scarborough (except by farmers) until the Second World War when a large tract was expropriated for a munitions plant.
In 1942, the area south of Eglinton, between Warden & Birchmount was developed by the General Engineering Co. (GECO) into a vast munitions complex.
The workers (mostly women) were bussed from the nearest residential areas of Danforth & East York to the plant each day.
Hollinger Bus Lines, a small east end company, was the main contractor for this endeavour.
When war ended, Scarborough grew rapidly from a farming community into a major suburb.

 

[brewster]

2950 Eglinton East

2950 Eglinton East b by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr
2950 Eglinton East b1 by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr

 

[brewster]

2950 Eglinton East

2950 Eglinton East a by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr
2950 Eglinton East a1 by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr

North side Eglinton east of McCowan

North side Eglinton east of McCowan by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr
North side of Eglinton east of McCowan 1 by TORONTO TONTO, on Flickr

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

There's something underrated about that curved-corner-swooper building at Markham + Eg.

Definitely, I always liked it too. I haven't seen that building since probably the mid-80's, I remembered it being a little taller than it is, funny how memory plays tricks like that.

Excellent building adma but it is in bad shape in a bad area.

My aunt & uncle lived in there until the mid-late 70's with their two daughters until they bought their first home and it was a really good building back then. I know that whole area has changed in the last 20 or so years, shame to hear about the building.

 

[zanthope]

Hello all, and thank you VERY much for the Scarborough photos. I spent much of my childhood in the Eglinton, Midland, Brimley area and attended Walter Perry school in the 1950's, and have little left of those years but the good memories until I discovered this site today.

I live in southern Ohio now, and visit Toronto periodically. It has changed immensely from when i was a child.

I have a couple of anecdotes of some small, local historical value from when I lived there. If anyone's still subscribing to this thread, I'll be glad to share them! Thank you again.

 

[dazednconfuzed68]

Hello all, and thank you VERY much for the Scarborough photos. I spent much of my childhood in the Eglinton, Midland, Brimley area and attended Walter Perry school in the 1950's, and have little left of those years but the good memories until I discovered this site today.

I live in southern Ohio now, and visit Toronto periodically. It has changed immensely from when i was a child.

I have a couple of anecdotes of some small, local historical value from when I lived there. If anyone's still subscribing to this thread, I'll be glad to share them! Thank you again.

I would be more than happy to read what you have to say....

 

[Goldie]

I have a couple of anecdotes of some small, local historical value from when I lived there. If anyone's still subscribing to this thread, I'll be glad to share them! Thank you again.

Yes, please! This site has plenty of viewers whenever there's new info.

 

[Lone Primate]

I have a couple of anecdotes of some small, local historical value from when I lived there. If anyone's still subscribing to this thread, I'll be glad to share them! Thank you again.

We're all still checking this out!

 

[zanthope]

View attachment 11457


Hello again, everyone. I'll stick a couple of stories in here from when I lived in Scarborough. Hard to believe anyone's interested in a boring old man's ancient BS, but here goes!

In the attached "before" photo from page 1 of this thread, there's a black or dark colored house in the left center of the frame. There were actually three houses in that group - the one pictured is the westernmost - and I lived in the center one - 2547 - from about 1955 through 1959 or so, ages 7 through 10. I would dearly love a picture of that house if anyone has one. The apartment building next to it was not there until about 1958, it was just an open field, as was the area to the east of the three houses i.e. an open area that extended to the next street east (Commonwealth?) In simpler terms, there was nothing in that intersection at all except the three houses and the Supertest station directly across the street from our house. There wasn't even a stop light at that intersection when we moved there!

Around springtime in either 57 or 58 a man got into a brawl with his wife or girlfriend after drinking at the Scarborough Hotel and, by means unknown to me, killed her. He dumped her body behind that Supertest station where it laid for some time until discovered. After investigation the killer was arrested, tried, and found guilty. I believe, wrongly or rightly, that he was hung at the Don Jail, and, again, rightly or wrongly, was possibly the last or one of the last people executed in Canada. Please keep in mind that this is from a 8 or 9 year-olds memory, so it may be fuzzy in some aspects. At any rate, I have believed for all these years that I stepped out of my house to go to school at Walter Perry with a murdered body not 100 yards away from me!

More later.

ETA: the pic didn't attach. It's from page 1 of this thread, a view south on Midland, across Eglinton East.

 

[zanthope]

View attachment 11460

The pic I referenced. My internet pic-fu is weak.

 

[Anna]

This one?

These photos were taken in connection with the installation of curbs in 1960. I don't know if you can see your house in any of these?

 

[zanthope]

Thank you for the pics, anna, they certainly are tantalizingly close to showing my old house, but I think they just miss. I don't remember the trees out front, and I think that's the eastermost house of the three that's showing. There was an elderly retired pastor and his wife who lived there, names unfortunately long forgotten.

The house has a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons. My grandmother came over from Newcastle GB and lived there with us for just a few months, then passed away suddenly, in the house. I really never got to know her very well. I had a cool dog who was killed in traffic out front, and he was buried in the back yard. On top of the sadness and gruesomeness, it was a really good place to live and be a kid with some other great kids nearby . There was a kid my age and his family - full Navajo - lived about 200 or 300 yards off Eglinton on the west side of Commonwealth (I looked it up!) in a ramshackle sort of place that still had an outhouse in use out back. He was desperately ashamed of that outhouse, but us other neighborhood kids treated it like a tourist attraction - going over there to pee in such a place was rare and special somehow.

Scarborough was still very rural in its nature then - certainly all grown up now! More later.

 

[zanthope]

Hello again ... more stuff from the fifties. The apartment building in that Midland/Eglinton photo was built when I was 9 years old, in 1958 during the spring and summer. When I felt ambitious during the no-school summer months of construction, I could go over there and hang around with the workers who would usually send me for cold sodas. I would gather up as many empty returnable bottles as I could carry in a bag or box, take the drink orders and change and hump the load to the Highway Grocery, or possibly Groceteria, which was located further east on Eglinton about exactly halfway to the Knob Hill Plaza, on the south side of Eglinton. I'd hump the sodas back, and the workers gave me the left-over change or the valuable empty bottles as a reward! That was my first ever "job."

The Grocery/Groceteria sat there in maybe a one acre lot pretty much all by itself, as I recall, with a small gravel parking lot in front. It seemed totally ancient to me, very old-timey, small in comparison to modern stores, maybe 2000 square feet or so. It stocked some refrigerated food, canned goods, candy, ice cream, some hardware items like nails and screws and such, and I think I remember a small display of work clothing. It smelt fabulous! My mother and grandmother would walk down there a couple of times a week for odds & ends for dinner. The bulk of our shopping was done at the Dominion by the Golden Mile.

More later

 

[ShonTron]

Great pics.

I love the Studebaker Sales and Service sign.