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  #3101  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2020, 2:51 PM
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Here's the same view as above now, though the wide-angle streetview cameras don't do it justice. Looking west where Queen and King meet - a number of the buildings are still visible but there's obviously a lot more now. Would have been a bit of an industrial wasteland at the time: https://goo.gl/maps/zf8DWgJ1kA3GxPpx8


Also glad to hear that my memories of paddle boats at the CN tower weren't made up!
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  #3102  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2020, 2:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post

blogto
Just noticed a cool little detail. Look at the tracks farther behind on the street compared to under the PCC, they were in the process of paving over all the cobblestone tracks with the concrete we still have today
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  #3103  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2020, 2:55 PM
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Bumping this as I’m sure convo will continue!

Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13 View Post
Link was posted on the Skylines thread, but I think it belongs here in all its glory.

Toronto 1879


1886


1893


1929


1935



1940s


1967


1974


mid-80s


early-90s


2000s


2014


2020


Check out the original link for the history behind each image.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/09/...Lr456uT_1GiSsY
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  #3104  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2020, 3:56 PM
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Originally Posted by wave46 View Post
I love this picture. It's nearly the perfect crossover between old and new Toronto.

The old-school streetcar, the new CN Tower taking shape. The old Bank of Nova Scotia sign juxtaposed against the new skyscrapers in the background.

This, along with the fascinating set of pictures of Toronto's evolution posted previously give one a sense of how new the city is. A city that didn't even resemble itself from 25 years prior.
Agreed. This is why I find pictures from that era of roughly the mid 60s to the early 80s so fascinating... the amount of change seen in Canadian cities (not always for the better) in those years was transformational and may never be duplicated, at least within our lifetimes. You look at a skyline photo of just about any Canadian city from 1964 (before skyscraper development really started to explode) and compare it to one from 20 years later and it's often hard to believe you're looking at the same place.

Even the skyscraper boom of the last 10-15 years pales in comparison to that era. I love pictures from that transitional era.
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  #3105  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2020, 9:06 PM
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. The TO skyline of the late 60's -late 70's
is my personal favourite TO skyline. Those big boxy bank towers, the still observable pre-war stock of beaux-art and art deco skyscrapers and the eventual CN tower. Maybe it wasn't ideal at street-level, but from a purely aesthetic seen-from-afar POV its perfect.

The TO skyline today is one of the biggest in the world, but it just doesn't do it for me.
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  #3106  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 2:11 PM
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Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim View Post
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The TO skyline of the late 60's -late 70's
is my personal favourite TO skyline. Those big boxy bank towers, the still observable pre-war stock of beaux-art and art deco skyscrapers and the eventual CN tower. Maybe it wasn't ideal at street-level, but from a purely aesthetic seen-from-afar POV its perfect.

The TO skyline today is one of the biggest in the world, but it just doesn't do it for me.
That's one thing that's great with Montreal. Many of its pre-war towers are at the foreground of the skyline near the St-Laurent, in Le Vieux, with the mid-century and modern towers in the background. Winnipeg (with the Exchange) and Ottawa (Parliamentary Precinct) are similar.

Edmonton (Legislator and Hotel Mcdonald) and Vancouver (Gastown) have a few pre-war buildings still visible, but not quite as prominently as the aforementioned.

In Toronto, every single one of its classical towers are hidden behind countless glass condo towers, even the Royal York at this point. Calgary is the same.

Quebec City is in a class of its own, with the vast majority of the city dating back to the the 1600s-early 1900s. Only a handful of mid-century and modern towers are visible, but still enough to make a good impact.
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  #3107  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 3:49 PM
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While Toronto does have a surprising number of pre-war towers downtown, they are largely hidden from view except at street level. And we could have had a lot more. Unlike Montreal (and many other cities), the heart of Toronto's CBD never really shifted from the existing focal point of King/Bayish and many of the existing bank towers replaced former bank or other buildings. Some of which were quite opulent in their own right - just look at the remains in Guild Park.

I always wonder what Toronto would look like if the modern CBD would have been built adjacent to the old. That being said, the intense concentration of bank towers is quite unique.
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  #3108  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 4:24 PM
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Quite a bit of that opulence was lost in the 1904 fire. I wonder how much of that would be standing today. These were very impressive chunky Victorian commercial buildings:


source
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  #3109  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 4:54 PM
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A rare vintage Montreal, as seen from Chinatown. Probably 1960 or 1961. Th Bank of Montreal HQ is brand new. The modernist National Bank tower on place d'armes isn't there yet.


https://archivesdemontreal.ica-atom....-3_34-P001.jpg
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  #3110  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 4:58 PM
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Hard to believe the Bank of Montreal HQ was that prominent on the skyline when it was built!
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  #3111  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 5:09 PM
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I'm not 100% sure, but at 85m height when measured from St-Antoine street, the Bank of Montreal must have reached number 6 in height in 1960, after the Sun Life, Royal Bank, Bell telephone, Aldred, Bell Telephone and The General Hospital. It's more or less tied with the University of Montreal 1943 art deco pavillion, which is the same height, but is of course 5km across town.
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  #3112  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 8:10 PM
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Circa 1900 vs 2020.



https://twitter.com/NCC_CCN/status/1334605851387179010https://twitter.com/NCC_CCN/status/1334605851387179010

View from Victoria Island. Pre-1916 vs 2020.



https://twitter.com/NCC_CCN/status/1331316672590966785

Wellington looking west from the West Block. 1872-1874. St-Andrew's Presbyterian Church (on Wellington, u/c in the pic, looks like red brick, but it's really stone) and Christ Church Cathedral (tall spire in background) are the only two buildings still standing as far as I know.

There's another stone building, background, left of Christ Church that could be the present day Dominican College University, but I can't be sure.


https://twitter.com/CapHistOttawa/st...30959575355397
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  #3113  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2020, 8:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13 View Post
Wellington looking west from the West Block. 1872-1874. St-Andrew's Presbyterian Church (on Wellington, u/c in the pic, looks like red brick, but it's really stone) and Christ Church Cathedral (tall spire in background) are the only two buildings still standing as far as I know.

There's another stone building, background, left of Christ Church that could be the present day Dominican College University, but I can't be sure.


https://twitter.com/CapHistOttawa/st...30959575355397
Great photo. That looks like something off the set of “Gangs of New York”. You literally had to take one step past the stone gates of the Parliament buildings of the Dominion of Canada to be confronted with frontier provincialism.
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  #3114  
Old Posted Dec 7, 2020, 2:50 PM
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ByWard Market and University of Ottawa in the back, left sometime in the 70s.


http://urbsite.blogspot.com/2014/03/...6-transit.html

Somewhat similar view today. The Germain Hotel in this picture (black tower) in on the site of the beige mid-rise with square windows and a strip of larger windows in the middle of the first image (former Ottawa Police Station).


https://www.ledroit.com/affaires/les...9ddd5dd2578fbe
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  #3115  
Old Posted Dec 8, 2020, 8:36 PM
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With Rideau Street re-opening soon after a complete rebuild, here are a few images form the past. The rest, gone.

1870-71. Corner of Rideau and William. Everything on the left is gone today. On the right, the first building was demolished and replicated as part of a condo tower podium. The next is now the site of a Scotiabank and O-Train subway entrance. Across William, the first building is still around, while the next two are now facades hanging on an 80s HBC expansion.



Rideau 1974. The HBC to the left is still around. That first image was taken across the street from Caplans. On the right, Ogilvy's has been demolished, with the first 3 floors (original 1908 façade) hanging on the Rideau Centre expansion.



Rideau Centre and Westin u/c in 1981. Only the Daly Building (between the two office towers on each side of Rideau) is gone today, replaced with a luxury condo with retail/restaurants at the base.

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  #3116  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2020, 3:07 PM
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Confederation Square.

1920s with the old Post Office.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Square

Prep work for the National War Memorial. 1938


https://twitter.com/NCC_CCN/status/1337064933603864577

Recent image.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Square
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  #3117  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2020, 4:16 PM
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I’ve seen lots of pictures of the parades of Portuguese sailors from the White Fleet marching through St. John’s, generally religious processions gifting some statue or whatever to a Catholic Church. And I’ve seen pictures of them playing soccer on the harbour front. And I’ve heard the stories of all the lurid gay fun happening in certain bars at the time But I’ve not seen many pictures of the Portuguese road signs in St. John’s.



It really is sad that the collapse of the cod fishery has completely removed that historic friendship from our daily lives. We still have lots of official relationships - sister cities, dignitaries visiting, parks named after each other, etc. But you don’t have hundreds of Portuguese sailors in the city at any given time anymore.
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  #3118  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2020, 4:46 PM
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Sainte-Marie neighborhood, Montreal, with the De Lorimier stadium (1928-1965).

before (1950's) and today.



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  #3119  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2020, 5:19 PM
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I love how little has changed.
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  #3120  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2020, 5:29 PM
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Great stuff. Thanks for posting that.


Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13 View Post
Confederation Square.

1920s with the old Post Office.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Square

Prep work for the National War Memorial. 1938


https://twitter.com/NCC_CCN/status/1337064933603864577

Recent image.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Square
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