History
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Toronto’s history in two buildings
Back in May and June of 2015, the Guardian newspaper ran an intriguing series on its Cities page entitled “A history of cities in 50 buildings.” The list...
By Sean Marshall -
Emma Goldman in Toronto — one last victory for The Most Dangerous Woman in the World
The Most Dangerous Woman in the World was playing a quiet game of cards. It was a snowy Toronto evening in the winter of 1940, that first terrible winter...
By Adam Bunch -
The great Stanley Cup thefts of 1970
The last person to lift the Stanley Cup in Toronto was an unknown thief who swiped the trophy from the Sports Hall of Fame in December, 1970. Though...
By Chris Bateman -
The Beaver Wars & Toronto in the 1600s
1687. A year of war and famine on the shores of Lake Ontario. That summer, on a night in early July, an army camped near the mouth of the Rouge River, at...
By Adam Bunch -
Remembering the ill-fated CN Turbo train
On December 10, 1968, a sleek new locomotive glided out from the sooty train shed at Toronto’s Union Station. Streamlined and silver with a bright...
By Chris Bateman -
How the TTC lost and found its subway style
Not many people could have known that behind the advertising billboards on the platform of College station was something no-one had seen for more than...
By Chris Bateman -
Special Edition of Fife & Drum: all the new urban things at Fort York
A special edition of Fife and Drum, the newsletter produced by the Friends of Fort York, was just released to capture the incredible amount of urban...
By Shawn Micallef -
When terror strikes urban geographies of hope
Guest post by Paul Cohen, a professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto and an occasional contributor to Spacing. I first learned...
By Paul Cohen -
The cold war siren system Toronto never used
At Dundas West and Shaw, near Trinity-Bellwoods Park, there’s a conspicuous piece of Canada’s Cold War history. On top of a 15-metre pole sits...
By Chris Bateman -
The killing of Aune Newell
She was found beneath a coat hidden under dogwood and sweet clover. Toronto parks department employee Harry Lemon saw her shoe first, carelessly discarded...
By Chris Bateman -
Bautista’s bat flip and the making of history in Toronto
The very first legendary home run ever hit in Toronto was hit in 1887. More than a century before Joe Carter’s famous World Series walk-off at the...
By Adam Bunch -
5 subtle signs of lost rivers in Toronto
Like many North American cities, the street grid in downtown Toronto is (for the most part) rigidly geometric. Where there’s an unexpected deviation...
By Chris Bateman