Old and New Toronto - Old Don Railway Station

This was a slightly more difficult photo to find an equivalent for, since it looks like the Don Valley has been significantly 'terra-formed' in this area. I had first found this picture (below) when looking at some old 'lost' railway stations in Toronto:

It was originally located just south of Queen St on the west side of the Don River. At that time, the Queen Street bridge was lower and just went over the river. This changed a lot when the new high level Queen Street bridge was built (starting in 1911). See also the Toronto Railway Historical Association's site.

I took the following from between a couple of new buildings just south of where Queen and King come together just west of the Don.

Although the central part of the bridge has a similar look to the first photo, it's not the same structure (and is probably about 20' above where the original was). There are still train tracks running along the road (Bayview extension) which is visible around the middle of this picture. So the original station was probably on the road between the front end loader and the back hoe. Update: Actually - assuming the river and the tracks haven't moved, then the true position would likely be on the other side of the tracks, where the stairs down to the walking trail are. Here's my best guess:

Turns out that Don Station had been saved and moved to Todmorden Mills in the Don Valley in 1969. Interestingly, we had gone there about 10 years ago (Oct, 2005) and I had taken pictures of it (see below).

Time to go take another look - but not at the same location it seems, since it was moved again in 2009 to a new location downtown. See it here at Roundhouse Park, or see this wikipedia article which has some more information including a picture very similar to mine.

Old and New Toronto - Bay by Old City Hall

On the same (bitterly cold) day as my previous post, I walked a block north on Bay and took a photo to try and capture the same scene as the postcard below. The description on the back read:

"Torontonians take to the streets following the news of 'Victory in Europe', May 8, 1945.

A Victory Bond Drive promotion decorates the City Hall's clock tower."

And here it is today:

The buildings to the left have changed a lot, and the near buildings on the right. But the lower part of the 'Hudson's Bay' building is (a somewhat modernized version of) the original, and of course old city hall is much the same. I notice that my photo shows the gargoyles near the top of the clock tower better than the original . (The clock itself is cut off in both photos)

20150202 Update: The original picture shows a symbol (the number '8' in a wreath) both on the bottom of the donation thermometer and also along the side of the Simpson's store. Thanks to Mark Brader for finding out that it was a temporary symbol -- the 8 refers to the 8th victory-bond drive of the war, a 20-day campaign that had started on April 23. See also further information at this page on 'National Flags of Occasion'.

20150204 Update: I was sure that I should have been able to see at least a couple of gargoyles on the original clock tower picture - then found this:

"Four gargoyles were placed on the corners of the Clock Tower in 1899, but they were removed to the effects of the weather on the sandstone carvings in 1938. In 2002, bronze casts of the gargoyles were reinstalled. The replicas are not duplicates as the original designs were lost."

That was from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_City_Hall_(Toronto)

According to http://tayloronhistory.com/2012/04/22/enjoying-torontos-architectural-gems-old-city-hall/ one of the gargoyles actually fell off and went through a roof. This link also contains some interesting background including how the architect Lennox had the letters of his name carved under the eaves...I'll have to drop by and take a look.

Old and New Toronto - Bay and Adelaide

I had always wanted to take some current photos at the same location as some old historical photos, and show the differences. And since I have a couple of books of postcards showing old photos of Toronto (pictures are from the City of Toronto Archives) - what could be easier? Click on any photo to enlarge it.

I started with a photo from the 'Flashbacks 1' set. The description on the back read:

 "A city traffic officer attends to his semaphore at the Bay-Adelaide intersection, 1922.

Hotel Widmer is on southwest corner."

Since I work nearby - and since it was bloody cold today - the stars were obviously aligning for me to try and get a similar shot. I think it's tough to know what relative focal length the original photographer used, and I found that my shots tended to show the vertical lines as 'leaning in' more. I think this is due to the camera not being totally level - as I angled it very slightly up in order to get more building in the frame.

Anyway, it looks to me as though there is still one building around. In the original photo if you follow the Hotel Widmer to the left (down Bay St) there is a three story building, then a gap and then another building. That last building looks like it still exists in the more recent photo - and there's a low building where the gap was. The last building also has a half dozen extra floors from the original photo.

More to come!

(2015-02-02 Update: The Widmer Hotel doesn't seem to be mentioned too much, but I found this interesting story about a Captain Jackman who had died and one of his sons lived at the Widmer Hotel. This son was Harry Jackman - but not the same Jackman family as Henry Rutherford (Harry) Jackman and his well-known son Hal Jackman.)

(2015-06-02 Update: Another Widmer Hotel picture from the past (just click on the picture, or the 'Click here to view/add tags' link on that page). Looks like someone else still doing the 'stop/go' traffic control - and once again it's nasty looking weather - this time in 1928)

(2015-07-23 Update: The building on the left (that now has a half dozen extra floors) has 'Bank of Montreal' carved on its front. And the corner building has 'Canada Permanent Building' carved into its stone.)