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Mustapha, thanks for your St. George posts from the past couple of days. I've been studying those old photos for years, trying to get my bearings and trying to place things.
I never appreciated how residential St. George south of Bloor was back in the day! Apparently, former U ot T President Claude Bissell tried to move St. George 'underground' between Hoskin and College to unify the campus, liberate pedestrians and assure the free flow of traffic.

More can be read in University of Toronto a History.

St. George appears to have retained its residential character well until the late 40s from what the archives show.
Does anyone have any images of St. George prior to the U of T's wave of construction? I guess this would have occured sometime in the 1960s, non?



Mustapha said:
October 29 addition.


Then. Harbord, Hoskins and St. George street. November 13, 1913.


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Now. June 2010.


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Click to expand...
 
I think the corner of Hoskin, Harbord and St George looked much like the "Before" picture even in the mid to late fifties. It sure looks a lot more familiar to me that way than in the "now" picture. That's what comes of leaving town in 1965!
 
Mustapha said:
October 30 2010 addition.

Any other business names that you miss? Honey Dew? Radio Shack? ShopRite? Consumers Distributing? Uuuhhhh... Eatons? Feel free to chime in [cue check wristwatch, tap feet]. :)
Click to expand...

Simpson's ?
Women's Bakery
Hunts (butter tarts on the brain)

I don't know what I appreciate more, your photos or your advice.:)

dautkomm said:
St. George appears to have retained its residential character well until the late 40s from what the archives show.
Does anyone have any images of St. George prior to the U of T's wave of construction? I guess this would have occured sometime in the 1960s, non?
Click to expand...

The widening of St. George in 1948-1949 was probably the beginning of the end of the 'residential character' of St. George.

s0372_ss0058_it1783.jpg


s0372_ss0058_it2018.jpg


s0372_ss0058_it1784.jpg

s0372_ss0058_it2017.jpg

The driver in the last photo has taken advantage of the extra lane by driving down the middle of both.

There are quite a few photos on the Archives site taken around 1967-1971 by Harold & Robert Stacey of old houses in the area. Some were on the east side of St. George, but others may have been in the block that was demolished to build Robarts library that lasted a bit longer than those south of Harbord. (note the number of VW beetles in this photo)
s0008_ss0004_fl0007_id0021.jpg
 
Thanks Anna! I've seen a few of the Stacey photos before, but not the one you've posted with the VW beetles.
I wonder where that one was taken? The low rise building in the background looks a lot like the current UofT Campus Police building at the SW corner of Sussex and Huron.

Anna said:
There are quite a few photos on the Archives site taken around 1967-1971 by Harold & Robert Stacey of old houses in the area. Some were on the east side of St. George, but others may have been in the block that was demolished to build Robarts library that lasted a bit longer than those south of Harbord. (note the number of VW beetles in this photo)
s0008_ss0004_fl0007_id0021.jpg
Click to expand...
 
dautkomm said:
I wonder where that one was taken? The low rise building in the background looks a lot like the current UofT Campus Police building at the SW corner of Sussex and Huron.
Click to expand...

Yup: that's it. Robarts construction site on the left; the parking lot on the far right is where Innis College later popped up...
 
adma said:
Yup: that's it. Robarts construction site on the left; the parking lot on the far right is where Innis College later popped up...
Click to expand...

It's interesting too, that in building Innis College, they preserved and incorporated that house next to the parking lot in the photo above. It seems like an unnecessary gesture, yet one that made Innis College more sophisticated and seemingly rooted in history. I guess it shows the growing passion among some architects had for preservation, and fitting in the new with the old. Yet it was clearly a nascent passion, given the large block of houses cleared on the other side of the street for the construction of Robarts.

I recall reading somewhere that either Jack Diamond or Barton Myers (both worked on Innis College) once proposed building new housing in the backyards of Victorian houses in Toronto. It was argued that it would allow for substantial increases in density while preserving all the heritage housing and not changing the character of the street. It never got off the ground, but it's always interesting to see those moments in the 1970s when people started to realize that so much more was possible in terms of preservation and development.
 
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dautcomm, thank you for that history of St. George street. Great link. I had no idea that the lady benefactor to revitalize the street was EJ Lennox's great-granddaughter - a fascinating family back-story.



October 31 addition.



Then. August 30 1917. SW corner of Dufferin and Queen.



s0372_ss0058_it0696.jpg





Now. June 2010.


DSC_0486.jpg
 
junctionist said:
It's interesting too, that in building Innis College, they preserved and incorporated that house next to the parking lot in the photo above. It seems like an unnecessary gesture, yet one that made Innis College more sophisticated and seemingly rooted in history. I guess it shows the growing passion among some architects had for preservation, and fitting in the new with the old. Yet it was clearly a nascent passion, given the large block of houses cleared on the other side of the street for the construction of Robarts.

I recall reading somewhere that either Jack Diamond or Barton Myers (both worked on Innis College) once proposed building new housing in the backyards of Victorian houses in Toronto. It was argued that it would allow for substantial increases in density while preserving all the heritage housing and not changing the character of the street. It never got off the ground, but it's always interesting to see those moments in the 1970s when people started to realize that so much more was possible in terms of preservation and development.
Click to expand...

Which is exactly what happened at Dundas/Sherbourne....

article3.jpg
 
interesting this development should come up. i've been fascinated with it for a while. if you've been by it recently, you know its certainly the most frightening and desolate Jack Diamond project in the city!


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this project was probably destined to be a slum either way, but it didn't help that the city approved another far more hulking building for the Dundas Sherbourne corner--completely boxing the Diamond development in, and dooming it to permanent isolation from the rest of the city. A park on the NE corner of Dundas and Sherbourne would probably have been a far better bet...


e64c7d58.png
 
However, I think we can cut the architects some slack as I think that the problems with Dundas/Sherbourne are more social ones than architectural. One remembers the excitement at the time when "direct action" led by John Sewell (and I think Jane Jacobs) actually tore down some of the demolition hoarding surrounding the site, thereby stopping the demolition of a block of quite significant buildings, some dating back to the 1850's.

Having said that, back-to-back housing can be problematic and a more successful (and conventional) development is the Henry Street project, which adheres closer to traditional Toronto block-planning.
 
Thanks for posting those articles, guys. In many ways, Diamond and Myers are admirable for their visionary principles, if not for their aesthetic prowess. Too bad the idea of building new lowrise structures in backyards didn't continue to be developed with housing aimed at people of different classes. Maybe narrow new streets could been created between the backs of the Victorian houses and the new buildings. So many Victorian neighbourhoods could become so much denser without much heritage disappearing.
 
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