Curiosities
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Dead rail lines, lost streets, and more Toronto oddities
There’s a couple of new lofts at the southeast corner of Carlaw and Dundas. The courtyard between the two buildings curves elegantly south...
By Chris Bateman -
The Toronto link to America’s bloodiest serial killer
The bodies of the children were buried under the cellar floor. In a gloomy crawlspace beneath the home at 16 St. Vincent St. near Yonge and College...
By Chris Bateman -
The fall of Sir Henry Pellatt, king of Casa Loma
A carved marble fountain of child figures supporting a dolphin, a solid bronze buffalo head, and hundreds of champagne flutes, wine glasses, and ceramic...
By Chris Bateman -
A dizzy history of revolving restaurants in Toronto
Nothing epitomizes space age urbanism quite like the revolving restaurant. Imagine sitting at the top of a modern skyscraper, the lights of the city...
By Chris Bateman -
A proud history of sidewalk superintendents in Toronto
Between 1931 and 1939, the construction at Rockefeller Center in New York City was a magnet for curious onlookers. America was mired in the depths of the...
By Chris Bateman -
First Canadian Place: 40 years on top in Toronto
First Canadian Place has been the tallest skyscraper in Canada for four decades now. At 298.1 metres from sidewalk to rooftop, the brilliant white tower...
By Chris Bateman -
How Toronto learned to love the patio
For all the time Torontonians will spend sipping lager and pinot on patios this summer, it would be easy to conclude that the people of this city have...
By Chris Bateman -
How Toronto invented the PC, then forgot about it
The Royal York Hotel, September 25, 1973. Computer experts Mers Kutt, Gordon Ramer, Ted Edwards, and Reg Rea are standing around a small machine about the...
By Chris Bateman -
Stairs to nowhere, trap streets, and other Toronto oddities
There’s a set of stairs on Greenwood Avenue that lead nowhere. At the top, a wooden fence at the end of someone’s back yard blocks any further...
By Chris Bateman -
“Fun and frolic” at a Toronto double hanging
“The morning broke dark and gloomy, and with the first faint streaks of early dawn the workmen were industriously employed in making ready the...
By Chris Bateman -
The transformer next door
The lights are on but there’s no-one home at 640 Millwood Rd. The two-storey suburban home near Bayview and Eglinton doesn’t exactly stand out among its...
By Chris Bateman -
Welcome to your private nuclear fallout shelter
In 1959, the builders of Regency Acres, a 700-home subdivision in Aurora, Ontario, offered something no other homebuilder in the country could: a private...
By Chris Bateman