History
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Excerpt: Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Conflict in Blackface
Excerpted with permission from Canada and the Blackface Atlantic, published in April 2025 by Wilfrid Laurier Press. Thompson, a Toronto Metropolitan...
By Cheryl Thompson -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 082, Toronto’s political gridlock
This month, we respond to Doug Ford’s stated plan of banning new bike lanes in Ontario municipalities and building an underground highway from...
By Spacing Radio -
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...
By Peter MacCallum -
LORINC: Booze in the corner store
Until the mid 1970s, you couldn’t buy lottery tickets in Ontario. Ontarians could go to the horse races and place bets; the ponies, after all, have...
By John Lorinc -
Exploring Toronto through its Indigenous heritage
We discovered new avenues of the city we would have never found unless we had a reason to be there. Many places were sitting right under my nose, not far...
By Trent Weston -
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...
By Peter MacCallum -
Remembering the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre On St. Clair West
From November 1, 1972 to September 30, 1975, a Black cultural hub known as the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre operated in a building located at 15 Robina...
By Cheryl Thompson -
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...
By Peter MacCallum -
Take the Yonge subway to the future! (expect some delays)
EDITOR: It’s 1954. Fictitious Bert Xanadu is the Mayor of Toronto and owner of the Imperial Six cinemas on Yonge Street. Mayor Xanadu has been governing...
By Mayor Bert Xanadu -
Opposing the Bloor-Danforth Subway
Toronto’s subway system turns 70 this month. Following the completion of the original Yonge line, there was plenty of debate over what rapid transit...
By Jamie Bradburn -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 076, Time’s running out for accessible Ontario
In 2005, Ontario passed the Accessibility of Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which made accessibility for all public establishments a legal...
By Spacing Radio -
How can we make Black history matter?
This piece is co-authored by Dr. Cheryl Thompson and Daysha Loppie Many statues have commemorated white historical figures in Toronto’s public spaces...
By Cheryl Thompson