Street photos 194o's to 1980's

[FAC33]

circa 1964

Yonge

All those vertical signs! Pretty much unknown these days...

 

[Long Island Mike]

Everyone: These pictures posted here showing the 40s thru the 80s in the Toronto area are excellent-I am enjoying this...LI MIKE

 

[Goldie]

There are three pages of wonderful "street scenes" (2011) at this site:

http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/09/scenes_from_toronto_streets_august_edition/

 

[adma]

NOT SURE SOMEWHERE DOWNTOWN TORONTO

[/IMG]

Would those shots be across from each other on present-day Lakeshore? I'm wondering if the building in the background of the first shot was that Art Deco office building that stood at York + LS until c1990 or so...

 

[Goldie]

A few more - undated:

Bay/Queen

Time to retire

Where?

Where?

Where?

 

[thecharioteer]

The last shot is of Queen West looking towards Spadina. The building at the end was "Bargain Benny's", the former Pickford Theatre (built in the 1910's as the Auditorium Theatre, one of Toronto's earliest movie-houses), demolished in 1972 for the current building housing McDonalds.

From Spadina Avenue by Rosemary Donegan:

 

[Mustapha]

A few more - undated:


Where?

Where?

1. Looking at the SE corner of Yonge and Soudan. The Art Shoppe is there now. The apartment in the left distance is still there on Holly Street.



2. Same apartment building on Holly street - not sure if looking east or west towards it.


Great street shots Goldie, we're privileged to see them.

 

[adma]

What was Harry Edwards' stock in trade: furniture, or electronics, or both? Seems to have been a longtime uptown institution (not unlike the recently demised Reid & Campbell)

 

[Goldie]

Thanks for the IDs folks - I shot those so long ago that I've forgotten where I was!
Interesting history of Pickford's & Benny's.
Re: the Variety Theatre's history of showing a banned film - I recently read about "Salt of the Earth" in a reprint of the 1979 book,
The Inquisition in Hollywood.

 

[Jonny5]

I had no idea street lights like that existed anywhere other than on the Gardiner, though I'm not sure they are even exactly the same. Where else were these used for and for how long?

 

[brewster]

Bloor Viaduct --Broadview Danforth in the background.

 

[Urban Shocker]

As admirable as the preservation of the Bank of Upper Canada and the First Post Office are, one wishes the clumsy Victorian third floor additions on both were removed to bring back the Georgian proportions. You with me on this, U. S.?

Oh yes, I'm always with anyone who'll stand up for Georgian Toronto. In fact, I think we need a separate photo thread for it!

I think Little Trinity and Holy Trinity churches, for instance, are more Georgian 'Gothick' than Victorian Gothic Revival due to their proportions, which seem more Classically-inspired, and as much Tudor as Gothic, too.

 

[brewster]

WARDEN AND KINGSTON ROAD

MAMMOTH DOMINION --DANFORTH RD AND DANFORTH AVENUE

CLIFFSIDE DRIVE AND KINGSTON ROAD

1953 KODACHROMES--KINGSTON ROAD AND WARDEN AREA

 

[adma]

Ah, that Bank of Toronto--I always like to refer to it as "Erich Mendelsohn Comes To Birch Cliff". (The swooping stainless-steel-lettering motif was maintained in the Toronto-Dominion merger; it was only around the 80s/90s that it was replaced by banal plastic signage. *Definitely* a case where the signage was integral to the architectural effect.)

That adjacent retail strip's interesting, too; like a *really* primitive strip-mall prototype, even if it's street-fronted rather than set back...

 

[thecharioteer]

A concave/convex complement to the Birchcliff branch, a never-built drive-in bank on University Avenue (the architectural firm of Blackwell & Craig was Eb Zeidler's first partnership; evolved into Craig, Zeidler & Strong) :