History
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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 -
A warning to the Electors of Toronto (or Trump voters)
There has been a lot of critical (and not so critical) thinking and writing in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as the US president (I’m...
By Matthew Blackett -
The story behind the first computer in Canada
In 1949, a team of professors and graduate students at the University of Toronto began building a machine no-one in Canada, and few in the world, had ever...
By Chris Bateman -
When will Toronto love its Modern architecture?
What do you picture when you read the words “heritage building.”? It probably isn’t the Carlton Tower at Yonge and Carlton streets. The...
By Chris Bateman -
2016 Heritage Toronto Awards
The Heritage Toronto Awards celebrate outstanding contributions in the promotion and conservation of Toronto’s history and heritage by professionals and...
By Spacing