Since our current issue is all about intersections we thought it’d be fun to play a game.
We want you to identify this intersection. Leave your guess in the comments section: we’ll hold on to your picks until 3pm when we’ll unveil the answer. If you want to see a larger version of the photo check it out on Spacing Photos.
UPDATE AT 3pm: Again, our readers surprise me with their abilities. The intersection is Spadina and Bloor, looking south (I believe the photo is from 1960). I thought the Spadina Circle building being hidden by the pole, and the traffic island, would throw people off.
34 comments
Half a second:looking south on Spadina Ave. at Bloor.
Spadina & Bloor
Wild guess here – Spadina looking south from Bloor? The curve at the present intersection, along with the small park area on the SE corner, kind of suggests an intersection like this could have been there.
Bloor and Spadina, looking south
Bloor and Spadina looking south.
There is a bank behind and just to the right of the photographer (in keeping with Matt’s banking theme).
easiest one yet! Looking south on Spadina from bloor street, the YMHA (now JCC) to the right.
Is the intersection Dundas and Coxwell? Taken from near the Police Station looking West along Dundas.
Bloor at Spadina, looking south. That’s the old JCC on the right I think.
I recognize that cop shop, I think. Dundas west and Annette.
Spadina looking south at Bloor.
keele and annette sts.
Bloor & Spadina…circa 1963-65. JCC is on the right.
hmmm… Bloor West looking south down Spadina
Aha! I’m pretty sure that’s the Jewish Community Centre on the right – might still have been called the YMHA – Young Men’s Hebrew Association. I knew I recognised it but it took me a while to place it. That would make this, then, Bloor and Spadina looking south. I guess they hadn’t torn up the Bloor Streetcar line yet.
Bloor and Spadina, looking south on Spadina.
Wilson & Avenue Rd.?
You just had to blur out the street name didn’t you? 😉
That’s Spadina Ave, looking south from Bloor St. You can just barely make out the building in Spadina Circle in the distance.
Looking south down Spadina from Bloor. Matt Cohen Park was built where the eastern branch of Spadina Avenue ends.
The photo was carefully taken so that we can’t see the spire of Knox College, which is hidden behind the light pole on the traffic island. That’s the Jewish Community Centre on the right.
At first I was thinking Weston Rd and Eglinton Ave W, but that doesn’t seem to match up. I still think it’s in the west end, somewhere along the old Weston Rd streetcar line.
I have been racking my brain… all I can muster is Annette and Keele? Looking west?
Looking south on Spadina from Bloor.
Spadina & Bloor
Is it looking South from Bloor down Spadina?
Geez, this is a lot tougher than yesterday’s photo! I’ll take a stab at it and say Dundas and Lansdowne, because of the cobblestones between the streetcar tracks, and the angle of the cross street. But I really have no clue.
Spadina and Bloor, looking south? The intersection looks much better today with a little public square, and all.
Lemme go out on a limb here: Dundas and Coxwell?
This is Bloor and Spadina.
Spadina & Bloor looking south.
This is Spadina and Bloor looking south on Spadina Ave.
This dates from after 1953 because the YM-YWHA stands othe corner. Now, it’s called the Jewish Community Centre.
North of Bloor I think – given width of boulevard and age of the houses – appears to be early 1960s.
Bathurst & St. Clair (with Vaughan Rd running to the right)
“Mr. Cohen ! Mr Cohen ! A word, please?”
“Yes young man ?”
“It’s certainly an honour to meet you, I’ve read your poetry and it felt as if you were telling me my own story, of growing up, right here in the Hungarian Village…”
“Thank you, and just where are you off to ?”
“I’m off to work, I play dominoes with the veterans at the legion hall every last Friday of the month, and tonight, I hope to make it back to this intersection in time with my bicycle for the big bike ride, y’know, like the one they started in San Francisco?”
“Yes, I read about a word or two about it in The Telegram.”
“Mr. Cohen, if you could leave the city a better place, how would you?”
“Oh, I don’t know…hmmm…perhaps we could start by burying these Spadina Streetcar tracks, make it an underground right of way leading to the new Spadina subway station just behind us. Maybe, just maybe, if this newfangled Ontario Municipal Board is worth its salt, we could convert these extra few lanes of Spadina here just south of Bloor into a small park with shade and benches and a nice walking path, who knows, perhaps even placing a public sculpture of giant dominoes?”
“That certainly would be a sight, wouldn’t you say?”
“That certainly would indeed be a sight Mr. Cohen!”
“Call me Matt.”
seems so familiar but really threw me for a loop – I originally though it could be Keele and Annette looking west (the postal station at that corner is quite similar to the right hand building) – but now I’m thinking this could well be Spadina and Bloor looking south, back when things were a hell of a lot different – could that be the JCC on the right hand side?
WHAT!!?? How do people know this? This is ridiculous.
I stared at this for a REALLY long time, considered “somewhere along Spadina” for a while (because the street is so wide), but couldn’t think of ANY location that even remotely looked like this. I thought it couldn’t possibly be Spadina then, and it would surely be somewhere I had never been before.
But, no, it’s my own neighbourhood! I walk here every day!
I could be embarrassed, but instead I’ll just consider it a nice example of how fast Toronto changes.
If the intersection’s recognizable, it’s testament to the landmark quality (“deadpan” as it may be) of the YM/YWHA/JCC skew. (Though it may be mildly lost to those who never knew the JCC before its recent expansion/transformation. Or, for that matter, the recently-gone projecting Sutherland/Chan frontage.)