History
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A guide to recognizing Toronto’s five saints
Old Toronto was a city of saints. Their names were stitched into the fabric of the community by the first settlers from the British Isles, starting in the...
By Chris Bateman -
Billy Bishop and the rich and famous
One spring day in 1916, Billy Bishop woke up in the hospital. He was in London, England. Today, the building overlooking Bryanston Square is a prep...
By Adam Bunch -
Get Fortified: Grand opening of the Fort York Visitor Centre + fall 2014 issue of Fife and Drum
Lots of Fort York news this week. First, the long-awaited visitors centre opens this Friday Sept 19 at 1:30PM. This is followed by a weekend of free...
By Shawn Micallef -
Mary Pickford’s nightmare honeymoon
It was 1920. Mary Pickford was the most famous woman in the world. She’d been born in Toronto in the late 1800s: on University Avenue — where Sick...
By Adam Bunch -
The Don Mills Curling Rink is a lost modernist gem
In aerial photos from the 1960s and 70s, the Don Mills Curling Rink looks like an bright white spaceship at the corner of Don Mills and The Donway, a...
By Chris Bateman -
The very first ride at the CNE
It all started back in the mid-1800s, as a relatively small provincial fair. The earliest version of the CNE was held in a field behind Upper Canada...
By Adam Bunch -
Meet Bertie the Brain, the world’s first arcade game, built in Toronto
Almost two decades before the first video game found its way into an arcade, the Canadian National Exhibition hosted a strange electronic device with an...
By Chris Bateman -
How the Simcoes fell in love — and the magical hills where it happened
These are the Blackdown Hills. They’re one of England’s official “Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty,” all rolling green...
By Adam Bunch -
Urban Aperture: Public Space
Editor’s note: This is the eighth post in a series by students at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Each piece features...
By Sonia Ramundi -
NXT City Prize: The archeology of Andrew Stewart
The NXT CITY PRIZE is all about vision to reimagine Toronto’s public spaces and inject a sense of energy, dynamism and reflexivity. With a focus on ideas...
By Nxt City Prize -
Toronto’s secret Viking heritage
The Vikings probably aren’t the first people who leap to mind when you think of Toronto’s heritage. After all, we’re a city founded by...
By Adam Bunch -
Remembering the Rogers Road streetcar
Intersection of Rogers and Old Weston Roads, looking west, August 4, 1972 From Toronto Archives – Fonds 1526, File 72, Item 61 At the end of rush...
By Sean Marshall