UrbanToronto is Celebrating 20 Years

[Edward Skira]

Hey everyone, UrbanToronto is celebrating our 20th Anniversary. We don’t know the exact date it started as the oldest posts have been lost to the defragging of Internet 1.0, but we’ve decided to throw an online party in October to celebrate.

UrbanToronto is nothing without you all, so we would love to hear your stories about finding and joining UrbanToronto, and what it has meant to you over the years. We’d love to see old favourite photos of yours from Toronto from way-back-when (they don’t have to be exactly 20 years old) that show what things used to look like early in this current boom in construction…

…so this thread is for posting all of those memories. Please tell us a story from early UrbanToronto about you or buildings or parts of the city, and some of our favourite bits will end up in a front page story!

 

[afransen]

Congrats! I will say, that when the forum was migrated to the new platform I copied my original join date to my signature so it would seem UT is well over 20 years old, as I joined it 21.5 years ago, and was far from the first member.

I think I joined by way of the SSC forum way back in the day, around the time of the ill-fated Toronto bid for the 2008 Olympics.

 

[Geekaroo]

Congrats! I will say, that when the forum was nigrated to the new platform I copied my original join date to my signature so it would seem UT is well over 20 years old, as I joined it 21.5 years ago, and was far from the first member.

I think I joined by way of the SSC forum way back in the day, around the time of the ill-fated Toronto bid for the 2008 Olympics.

Congrats UT! I remember that I first joined to learn more about architecture post 911, so it's definitely been more than 20 years. But ya know what, 20 sounds like a good number to celebrate. Cheers!

 

[Red_Bulmer]

Congrats! I have religiously checked the site every day for the last 14 years

 

[khris]

There's gotta be a way to figure out when the site first was registered or something. I know it's definitely been around a while now! I think I came here from SkyScraperCity. The site has changed a lot over the years, but all for the better! Looking forward to the next 20 years.

 

[Northern Light]

Congrats! I will say, that when the forum was migrated to the new platform I copied my original join date to my signature so it would seem UT is well over 20 years old, as I joined it 21.5 years ago, and was far from the first member.

I think I joined by way of the SSC forum way back in the day, around the time of the ill-fated Toronto bid for the 2008 Olympics.

The Wikipedia entry for Urban Toronto suggests it was founded in 2002.

UrbanToronto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Which would make this year 21.

 

[Northern Light]

This thread seems an apt space to excavate this old UT poll I found.

We need a 'Where are they now?' for some of these names.

 

[Northern Light]

A bit more futzing and so far this is the oldest post I can find:

A familiar name there... @3Dementia

 

[3Dementia]

^ For further edification... the 'BC' and 'GB" mentioned are Billy Corgan (the forum founder) and Geeky Boy... the alter ego of @AlvinofDiaspar.

I remember March 2002: had hair instead of a comb-over, a very well-paid job at a national foundation, my first BMW 3 series and a beautiful wife.

Today: don't ask...

 

[Allandale25]

A bit more futzing and so far this is the oldest post I can find:

View attachment 501377

A familiar name there... @3Dementia

My only question is what took you five years to find UT?

 

[Northern Light]

My only question is what took you five years to find UT?

Was it five or four? I know I joined before the great platform shift; not a long time before, but I remember it.

I may well have been reading it before that, but I honestly can't remember.

Of course, back then, we didn't get all that many good quality renders, UT was just a lot smaller too.

And I didn't have nearly as much to contribute.

 

[Allandale25]

^ Certainly helps as well that UT is pretty easy to use on mobiles which didn't exist to the scale they do now back in 2002.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

It was called Toronto Skyscraper Forum in the beginning - until the name change to Urban Toronto (we also had an old logo designed back in 2002 or so - if I remember correctly by @Jayomatic (I will let him testify to the veracity of that piece of memory). It all happened fairly early on in the ezboard era. For those who doesn't know - the current forum record does not contain a lot of the early posts from Ezboard - it was a limitation of that particular forum software.

Looking back, I don't think any of us could have imagined how much of an impact the forum had - we turned finding (and reading) city development reports into a favourite pastime (and I remember teaching new folks how to search for them)

Truly proud of all of you guys.

GB/AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

This thread seems an apt space to excavate this old UT poll I found.

View attachment 501371

We need a 'Where are they now?' for some of these names.

A good number of us are still around and on here (obviously). Others might have left the forum but are still fondly remembered (the sentimental guy that I am); still others left this world (though none on that list that I am aware of) - RIP.

I must apologize to those that I had been harsh to on the forum as well - sometimes I do regret what I have said.

GB/AoD

 

[Blovertis]

I lurked around the Toronto Skyscraper Forum as early as 1999...? Hard to remember. I do recall a limit on the number of posts you could view per day. Frustrating. I also remember everyone getting very excited about renderings of a 20-storey building at the corner of of Simcoe and Nelson in the middle of what was then a gigantic parking lot. Today that (very non-descript) building is lost in a thicket of towers.