History
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The oddities of the Dundas Street Extension
In December 1954, the railway tracks near Logan Avenue presented the final obstacle in one of Toronto’s first major post-war road building...
By Chris Bateman -
READ: Spring 2017 edition of Fife and Drum
The latest edition of Fife and Drum, the quarterly journal produced by the Friends of Fort York, was just released. Here’s some of what you’ll find...
By Shawn Micallef -
Yonge Street Mall: The fun and failure of pedestrianizing Toronto’s iconic strip during the 1970s
On June 3, 1971, there was a party on downtown Yonge Street. Around 8pm, following the news that Ontario Premier Bill Davis had cancelled the Spadina...
By Daniel Ross -
Sex on Yonge: Examining the decade when Yonge Street was the city’s sin strip
“I take a walk down Yonge Street, where good times are bought and sold.” When folk music great Ian Tyson penned those lines in 1970, he knew his audience...
By Daniel Ross -
The lost streets of South Parkdale
No Toronto neighbourhood paid for the Gardiner Expressway quite like Parkdale. Before construction of the lakefront highway in 1958, the land south of...
By Chris Bateman -
Campaign to name new school after Jean Earle Geeson: teacher, artist, journalist and early champion of Fort York
Last year Spacing published an audit report that found 292 Toronto parks were named after men, with just 82 after women. Coupled with streets, monuments...
By Shawn Micallef -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 008, Booming!
In this episode, we talk about the changing face of the city, about what we preserve, and what gets left behind. We talk to Kaitlin Wainwright, director...
By Spacing Radio -
The demise of the first “air rights” project in Toronto
When Toronto’s first subway line opened in 1954, much of track north of Bloor Street was located in a shallow, open trench. The money-saving open cut...
By Chris Bateman -
The Shell Oil Tower is a lost 1950s masterpiece
A little over 30 years ago this winter, one of Toronto’s earliest Modern buildings was pulled to the ground. When the Shell Oil Tower at Exhibition...
By Chris Bateman -
LORINC: The new Toronto Courthouse emerges from The Ward
As archeologists begin to reveal two centuries of commerce on the North Market site, Toronto’s other major active dig site – the Centre Avenue parking lot...
By John Lorinc -
The rise and fall and rise of St. Lawrence Hall
In 1966, Toronto’s St. Lawrence Hall was in terrible shape. The venerable old neoclassical building at the southwest corner of King and Jarvis...
By Chris Bateman -
Bringing the Chinese Canadian Archive into view
On Dominion Day, 1923, Canadians were in a celebratory mood. But those good feelings didn’t extend into any Chinatown. July 1 came to be regarded by the...
By Arlene Chan