[adma]

Did the old Yonge/Heath picture have anything to do with subway construction? (This is where it would have diagonally crossed Yonge.)

 

[Traynor]

Was that pop bottle showing in any of those photos of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Spadina & Bloor) a few weeks ago? I wonder if the whole collection was taken about 1961-62 when the Bloor subway was still at the blueprint stage?
(I was working at an office on that corner way back then.)

I think I can explain the guy with the clipboard, and I have a guess about the pop bottle.

The guy with the clipboard worked with the Toronto Archive photographer. He would write down the information for each photo taken. That is: picture number on the roll of film, subject, date, time of day, direction, street etc... So that they may be cataloged later and the information matched with a negative.

As far as the pop bottle... A coke bottle would be a consistent height, so using simple trigonometry, one could extrapolate scale of buildings and distances... Well they do it on CSI Miami all the time! LOL

 

[Mustapha]

Did the old Yonge/Heath picture have anything to do with subway construction? (This is where it would have diagonally crossed Yonge.)

This pic wasn't one of the ones that were filed at the Archives under subway construction but that is a pile driver so I'm guessing something heavy duty is going on underground...





January 8 addition:


Then: Richmond street a few feet to the east of York street looking north.

A couple of pairs today... both from nearly the same perspective.

That's Osgoode hall on the left of this Then picture.

"Now" pictures taken October 2009.

.

 

[Anna]

This pic wasn't one of the ones that were filed at the Archives under subway construction but that is a pile driver so I'm guessing something heavy duty is going on underground...

Series 381 is titled "Yonge Street Subway Series 1949-1955", so think Adma is right.

January 8 addition:
Then: Queen street a few feet to the east of York street looking north.

.

I wondered where Bernard Cairns Limited was after stumbling upon yet another picture of the building - but don't you mean Richmond Street?

 

[thecharioteer]

I wondered where Bernard Cairns Limited was after stumbling upon yet another picture of the building - but don't you mean Richmond Street?

I also wondered about the company when I first saw this coloured picture. The company still exists in Scarborough and makes rubber stamps, seals, etc.

 

[Mustapha]

Series 381 is titled "Yonge Street Subway Series 1949-1955", so think Adma is right.

I wondered where Bernard Cairns Limited was after stumbling upon yet another picture of the building - but don't you mean Richmond Street?

Thanks Anna (and adma). Right on both counts.

 

[thecharioteer]

Two other views of the NE corner of Richmond and York, showing the side of the Cairns Building. The York Street buildings probably date back to the original structures shown slightly in the famous Rossin House panorama from 1856 (view north up York).

 

[Goldie]

Another view of York/Richmond

Will Osgoode Hall be with us forever?

click on thumbnail:

 

[thecharioteer]

January 7 addition.


Then: Yonge street looking S from Yorkminster Park church. Heath street in the distance. Marquees for the Hollywood and Hyland theatres dimly in the distance.

Now: October 2009. I should have stood in the middle of the street for this but for the traffic.

From the air, January 20th, 1950, (Globe and Mail Archives), looking north on Yonge at Heath. Illustrates why one always felt and heard the subway in the old Hollywood Theatre:

 

[Mustapha]

January 9 addition:



Then: Looking S down York street from the grounds of Osgoode Hall. "1927?"

Now: December 2009. Sorry, I'm not quite as tall as the original photographer...

 

[thecharioteer]

Interesting seeing those 1850's buildings on the east side of York between Queen and Richmond from the north now (where we saw them from the south a few posts back). Also the Prince George Hotel (i.e. Rossin House) in the distance on King. It was still relatively "tall" even in the 1920's.

 

[Anna]

January 9 addition:
Now: December 2009. Sorry, I'm not quite as tall as the original photographer...

 

[Blovertis]

York looks so lifeless now compared to its former bustling commercialism.

I don't why, but I find it moving to see that huge tree near the Osgoode fence as a sapling.

 

[junctionist]

It was a good decision to keep that beautiful fence intact. There must have been pressure to tear it down in the 1960s.

 

[Aaron]

I think that's my favourite one yet, Mustapha. Thank you!

I wish we lived as long as trees.