[UserNameToronto]

Yes, when my computer's in the basement.
Toronto Star - Pages of the Past
Free on the TPL website with your library card.
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/fin_art_az.jsp#t-v-w

I found the original article, written by Pierre Berton, referred to in 2008 - May 9, 1962 - 47 years ago to the day Mustapha posted the pictures - "Maytime in a village that refuses to die" - page 35.
It includes the history of the some of the buildings in the area. The block west of Bay was to be demolished for a hospital parking lot. I think the block east of Bay survived until the early 70's.

Pages of the Past is really cool. I learned someone fell off our house [third storey!] in the mid-80s and broke an arm.

 

[Blovertis]

Thanks, Anna. I think I'll go out and get a library card tonight.

 

[Conrad Black]

Wow those shots of Gerrard look like they're from some small town. I would never imagine them to be downtown Toronto.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I vaguely remember Gerrard Village in the early '70s when I was at art school, but by then it was well in decline and the galleries we used to visit were mostly in Yorkville. Perhaps the opening of A Space in '71 - several streets to the north - was a last attempt at maintaining the area as an art and gallery district. The AGO's Signy Eaton Gallery ( a surviving Parkin gallery ) has a pretty good exhibition of Toronto art and art agit-prop from the 1960s/1970s, including an annotated photograph of the city showing where the various galleries, pubs, and art haunts were located.

 

[Mustapha]

Replying to my own post.

That's like talking to yourself right? It could be a slippery slope.

Thanks adma and Anna. This is good corraboration. I took two 'Now' pictures this Sunday afternoon: the corner of Hayter and Laplante (Jack & Jill) and Hayter (or rather, the the old alignment of Hayter - it's been built over W of Laplante) looking E at Laplante in the distance past The Village Art Gallery. Oddly enough, if you Mapquest '67 Hayter Street Toronto', the arrow points at the long gone Jack and Jill location where the McMurtry-Scott building is now.

And here they are:

 

[Urban Shocker]

This is such a wonderful thread ... and the possibilites for it are endless.

It might be fun to have a separate 'Then and Now' thread showing how the interiors of buildings have changed over the years - the atrium of Royal Bank Plaza, opened in the mid-1970s and progressively altered, for instance.

 

[chriskayTO]

Wonderful idea, Urban Shocker. Specifically on Royal Bank Plaza, I used to work in that building (actually in the main banking hall) and have tried many times to find old photos of what the space used to be like, to no avail.

 

[Mustapha]

This is such a wonderful thread ... and the possibilites for it are endless.

It might be fun to have a separate 'Then and Now' thread showing how the interiors of buildings have changed over the years - the atrium of Royal Bank Plaza, opened in the mid-1970s and progressively altered, for instance.

Wonderful idea, Urban Shocker. Specifically on Royal Bank Plaza, I used to work in that building (actually in the main banking hall) and have tried many times to find old photos of what the space used to be like, to no avail.

Thanks Urban Shocker. Guys, I used the search term 'interior' and 'office' at the online Toronto archive. The results that might have 'wow' factor are few, if even that. Lots of results of TTC rolling stock interiors; apparently transit buffs with cameras goes back in history farther than I thought. Lots of slum interior pics too.

I'm open to photographing interior locations if you guys or any UTers come across online images of 'significant' Toronto interiors...





Leaving the office now, so here is:

May 12 addition.

University Ave. Looking S from #400

 

[Mustapha]

May 13 addition.


Queen and Simcoe NE corner.

 

[junctionist]

That then/now is a unique one for the house which replaced the Victorian era buildings in the "then" photo is actually older than those buildings.

 

[Mustapha]

That then/now is a unique one for the house which replaced the Victorian era buildings in the "then" photo is actually older than those buildings.

And, it looks like it was there from the beginning; only people of a certain age remembering the old girl's 'moving day'.





May 14 addition.



Yorkdale Mall.

There is some sort of electricity saving thing going on.. those lights dangling from the ceiling are harsh.

The Fairweather store is not on the second floor... the glorified room divider that The Bay installed to wall off its cosmetics department from the mall and the glass balcony on the right of the pic combine to give that effect. In the old pic, the fountain was 'public space', if you can even call it that. At some point in time The Bay negotiated extra selling space and expanded.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Oooh! A Then and Now interior - thanks!

The ( divergent? ) fortunes of AGO's Walker Court and Tanenbaum Sculpture Atrium might be another good comparison.

 

[Jayomatic]

I'd love to see Sherway Mall interior before and afters.....

That Fairweather store design would look amazing today.

 

[adma]

I believe the "some point in time" for the Bay's expansion into the Simpsons court was only in the past decade or so--a bit of a final straw for a great interior that's been denatured over and over again. Though at least the stalactites are still there (but in combination with faux classical cornices?!?)

 

[Mustapha]

Oooh! A Then and Now interior - thanks!

The ( divergent? ) fortunes of AGO's Walker Court and Tanenbaum Sculpture Atrium might be another good comparison.

Sounds like a request, let me see what I can do.

I'd love to see Sherway Mall interior before and afters.....

That Fairweather store design would look amazing today.

Jayomatic, if you enter 'sherway' into the Toronto online archives search engine, the result is about 7 grainy colour pics taken on opening day in 1972.

I have a fondness for 60s graphic style too.

I believe the "some point in time" for the Bay's expansion into the Simpsons court was only in the past decade or so--a bit of a final straw for a great interior that's been denatured over and over again. Though at least the stalactites are still there (but in combination with faux classical cornices?!?)

'Faux cornices'? You can buy them at Home Depot. They glue on the walls. You can faux granite paint them and have your faux friends over to oogle.



May 15 addition.

Looking N up Simcoe towards King.