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TAKE A GUESS: name this intersection, March 15th

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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: Ha!  This one was tough and we received the least amount of correct answers in our two-week intersection challenge. This is probably due to one thing: this intersection doesn’t exist anymore. It’s Queen West and Lake Shore Blvd in 1929.

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34 comments

  2. Guessing West Waterfront/Lakeshore in Parkdale either Jamieson or Roncesvalles.

  3. Mimico Avenue and Lakeshore Boulevard W.

  4. Hmm, the angle and where the tracks seem to end throw this one off…must be on the lake somewhere…Lakeshore and South Kingsway? Or did Lakeshore and Queen St/Queensway link up anywhere between the Humber and Roncesvalles?

  5. Lake Shore Boulevard and Parkside Drive, near the old Sunnyside amusement park. Though I’m not at all sure they were named such back in the 20s.

  6. I don’t think there is a bank in this picture!

    We have a single track streetcar line very close to a large body of water. This limits the possible locations to two lines:

    The West Hill radial car on Kingston Road or the original Port Credit line on Lake Shore Blvd. W.

    Kingston Road is too far from the lake for the geography to work in this shot. This puts us on Lake Shore, probably somewhere between the Humber River and Mimico where the street is close to the water. This area has changed a lot with the construction of the Gardiner/QEW, and I’m not sure I can guess more specifically than that.

  7. Lakeshore road south of high park, is not still there as either a breyers or a dreaded pizza pizza?

  9. Another possibility is Lake Shore and Parkside Drive, again before the double-track city streetcar system was extended beyond Sunnyside.

  12. I’m probably way off but it looks like it might be Bathurst & Davenport, looking south.

  14. This is tough – I can place the gereral area – Lakeshore West. The radial tracks are a giveaway as is what appears to be the lake in the background. Mimico area, most likely, my wild guess is Lakeshore and Mimico Avenue (judging by the angle the streets meet at), about 1920.

  17. I get a Lakeshore Blvd (hwy 2) vibe off this – Sunnyside somewhere? Or could it be in the Beaches around where Lakeshore gets close around to the water around Ashbridges Bay? The angle of the road in the foreground is weird – not fitting…. I initially thought the building might be the old Legion hall on Lakeshore near Dowling but the architecture just doesn’t match up (nor do the grades). I must be missing something – is the railway/streetcar line terminating here? And what are the big signs (extreme left and poking out behind the little shack in the middle)? Feels like it might be associated with one of the old lakefront amusement parks somehow…

  18. Lakeshore and Dunn (I forget the name of the street?) Where that little abandoned hut is.

  20. Is there not a way to cheat on these things?

    The file name is s0071_it6845.jpg, that corresponds to a file on the Toronto Archives web site… perhaps some URL tweaking will get you the un-cropped photograph with the intersection written underneath.

  21. At first glance, I thought one building was the Royal Canadian Legion Branch on Lakeshore Blvd.
    But now I’m not so sure.

  22. Well I have no clue. I noticed the sign on the building for Tucketts Cigars, but I couldn’t find any info on the net about cigar shop locations from back in the day (and in fact, that may even just be an ad, not necessarily a cigar shop).

    So I’ll take a few guesses based on the angle of the intersection and the presence of railroad tracks:

    Jameson & Lakeshore?
    Parkside & Lakeshore?
    Sunnyside & Lakeshore?

  23. I’m going out on limb… Parkside & Lakeshore?

  25. I thought perhaps it was the RC Legion by Jameson, but Lakeshore is on a high hill at that point, and it’s hard to tell in this picture. The Parkdale streets all met (now singular…meet) Lakeshore on that angle, so it must be around there.

    What’s the guy doing on the right hand side, in what looks like a big public urinal?

  26. Lakeshore & Parkside (given the intersection angle) with the lake in the background?

  28. Oops. Upon closer inspection, those don’t look like railway tracks. It could almost be a guardrail or something similar. I’ll stick with my guesses, but only because I can’t think of anything else!

  29. …..beware the ides of march…..

    Jerry Seinfeld: Hey superman, can you go back in time, fly around Mimico and tell me if this photoblog photo looks familiar

    Superman:….it’s a bus stop…it’s a street car stop…it’s it’s …near the humber street car loop on lake shore blvd

    Jerry: you’re the best superman!

  30. So those were tracks! I guess the fact that they just ended there threw me off. This was a good one. I’d love to see a present day picture…

  31. um… what’s Alfred Hitchcock doing in the centre of the photo?

  32. If this intersection no longer exists… how could anyone have even guessed this correctly??

  33. Well, Luis, a whole bunch of people did. Doesn’t mean that you can’t identify it if it no longer exists.

  34. I was only wondering on what basis people could have… if it doesn’t exist any longer, we’ve never seen it in our daily lives, so how would it be recognizable?

    I always forget some people are older than I am.