By Peter MacCallum
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Old Gables and Pizza Slices: 648-656 Spadina Avenue
As an architectural photographer, I am always keen to record surviving fragments of older streetscapes in areas of downtown Toronto that have been subject...
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The Lives of 233–235 Spadina
In the spring of 1984, the social historian and curator Rosemary Donegan commissioned me to take contemporary architectural photos and panoramic views of...
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Documenting the collapsed Dundas Street buildings
For the most part, the buildings on the north side of Dundas Street West between Spadina and Bathurst are an architectural hodgepodge. The one exception...
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The urban photography of Arthur Goss, part 4: Toronto Water Works, 1910-1939
Unlike his Parks Series, which highlights the inclusiveness of the City’s recreational facilities, Goss’s Toronto Water Works Series documents what was at...
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The urban photography of Arthur Goss, Part 3: Parks and Recreation, 1913-1940
Following the appointment of Charles E. Chambers as Parks Commissioner in 1912, Toronto’s park system entered a period of continuous expansion, creating...
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The urban photography of Arthur Goss, Part 2: The housing series, 1936-1940
The Housing Series is the product of the last new project Arthur Goss undertook as the City’s Official Photographer. Between March, 1936 and January...
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The Urban Photography of Arthur Goss, Part 1: Career and technique
Anyone who delves into the visual records related to Toronto’s twentieth-century social history is likely to come across photographs taken between 1910...
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A Perfect Fit: KOPS Records at its original Queen West location
Between 1995 and 2020, Canada’s oldest independent record retailer, KOPS Records, occupied an aged storefront at 229 Queen Street West, between Simcoe and...
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Lost heritage on Queen West
According to a recent CBC News report, the gable-roofed wooden commercial storefront at 520 Queen Street West was about 170 years old when its new owner...
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Farewell to Malabar, Toronto’s former costume emporium
Malabar Limited, the famed costume emporium, closed in March 2022. Although it had been a fixture of downtown Toronto’s cultural landscape for 99 years...
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Photographing Toronto’s suburban strip malls
With an essay by Orly Linovski. A documentary project focused exclusively on the architecture of suburban strip malls: this idea occurred to me while I...
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From Sunlight Park to East Harbour, Part 2 of 2
This second part of my feature on Lever Brothers soap and detergent manufacturing in the lower Don Valley will examine the eight-decade history of Plant...