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.)