So according to WHOIS, this domain was registered 2002-03-27, for what it's worth. So happy 21st birthday! lol
Growing up in Stouffville my life was not particularly urban, but I joined Urban Toronto around the time I moved downtown since I wanted to learn more about development, history and the city in general. I had briefly wanted to get into architecture when I was younger, which is why I became very invested in new development, although I never ended up pursuing anything close; I'm in food manufacturing now.
I was really into photography back in the day as well. I started an ambitious project to photograph every major street downtown to keep a record of the city's evolution, although that didn't quite pan out lol. Sadly I've lost a lot of my photos to failed hard drives and computers over the years, but a few live on from when I moved downtown in 2007, some likely on this website as I believe I posted a lot of my shots back in the day.
The source of my first and only profile picture on UT, the CN Tower shortly after being lit up again:
Along with the SkyDome around the same time:
One of the earliest "exciting" new glass towers, Spire, competing with the namesake spire of St. James Cathedral:
Also rising around the same time, Residences of College Park; much derided at the time if I recall:
The Keg on Lower Church Street before the condo on the SW corner (forget its name):
A not yet restored Pretzel Bell Tavern, pre Shangri-La:
And the old commercial building on King St. E. near Little Trinity Church, also pre-restoration:
FCP looking pretty dumpy in those days too, this was shortly before the marble slabs began to fall off; look at that, Toronto had a crisis of shedding buildings before all the balcony glass incidents:
A couple of significantly less dense skyline views:
And then one of my favourite shots from when HDR was all the rage, but also back before it was a standard feature on every phone. *shakes fist* I had to exposure bracket and then composite the images manually in Photoshop! I intend to recreate this one day with 160 Front in the picture.
Looking forward to many more years of UT!