History
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The infamous, bloody 1817 duel at the corner of Yonge & College
In 1781, William Jarvis got shot. They say it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to him. Before that he was just an ordinary soldier...
By Adam Bunch -
NO MEAN CITY: A killing, “the projects,” and the new Regent Park
Cross-posted from No Mean City, Alex’s personal blog on architecture Terrible news in Regent Park last weekend: the killing of a teenager...
By Alex Bozikovic -
Elizabeth Taylor’s 1960s “love nest” at the King Edward Hotel
Cleopatra was a BIG movie. It had lavish sets. Elaborate costumes. Thousands of extras. It ran more than four hours long. At the time, it was the most...
By Adam Bunch -
Is a grid the most efficient street layout?
Is a grid system the most economically efficient way to lay out a downtown? Last week, I attended a talk by Prof. Robert Ellickson of Yale Law in which he...
By Dylan Reid -
Toronto’s streetcar network in 1926
Sample of Roman Fomin’s 1926 map of streetcar and interurban map available on Transit Toronto Transit Toronto is a great website dedicated to, well...
By Sean Marshall -
William Gibson and the Summer of Love — the author’s drug-fuelled days in Yorkville
It’s the summer of 1967. The Summer of Love. Hippie culture is at its height and Yorkville has become one of the biggest hubs for sex, drugs and...
By Adam Bunch -
New Fife & Drum out, the jam-packed newsletter issued by the Friends of Fort York — subscribe for free today
The Friends of Fort York, the volunteer advocacy organization that has helped look after the interests of City of Toronto’s premier museum site...
By Shawn Micallef -
The story of Toronto’s first housecat
We don’t know much about Toronto’s first cat, but what we do know seems to suggest that he arrived on a July morning in 1793. Toronto was just...
By Adam Bunch -
Lost Villages: Huttonville
Nestled in the Credit Valley is the hamlet of Huttonville, at the corner of Mississauga Road and Queen Street/Embleton Road in the City of Brampton. Until...
By Sean Marshall -
The 11,000 year-old footprints at the bottom of Lake Ontario
During the last ice age, a really, really, really, really big glacier covered pretty much all of Canada and the northern United States, including the...
By Adam Bunch -
STRUCTURES: Archives of Ontario
Editor’s note: Spacing has teamed up with Rogers TV to spread the word about their show Structures, their weekly program that takes a look at the...
By Mike Bulko -
Toppy Topham crosses the Rhine — the story of Toronto’s life-saving WWII medic
The Second World War was nearly over. It had already been nine months since the Allies landed in Normandy. The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion had been...
By Adam Bunch