Historic Toronto Then and Now. Part 1

[@johnricci3428]

Born in 56 and raised in Toronto, I recall so many of the changes going way back. I recall a Saturday morning in 64 heading downtown with my dad on the DVP and I only recall seeing perhaps a half dozen other cars on that road. That was before we called it the Don Valley Parking lot. I left Toronto 25 years ago for a small town near Owen Sound.

[@PopShoppekid]

I am in Palm Desert, CA. I left Canada in 2007. Born and raised in Toronto. Great memories of those places. Nicely done on your video!

[@PopShoppekid]

@David Merlot The desert heat is kinda getting to me as I get older. Day after day of excessive temps, 6 month long heat wave, so I am considering going to cooler places. Super expensive here but so is Toronto, also. Crime way up under Newsom’s tenure as Governor. He is terrible yet keeps getting elected.

[@PopShoppekid]

@David Merlot might do but I cannot afford the prices for real estate there now🤔😃

[@asmrnatural2640]

@@PopShoppekid GTA Real-estate is now 30% off, may get even cheaper next year

[@MOJO-xi3wf]

1:02 Front & Cherry St. The Canary Restaurant was there. Great breakfast. I used to go there before work. 🇨🇦🍺🍺🥅🏒

[@ethicalphytophage]

Nice! I never realized I am surrounded by so many historical buildings (makes mental note to explore city more). Thank you for the meticulous attention in arranging the photos.

[@imdjc4]

0:40 WooHoo! Jilly's!!!! I mean...(ahem)...oh look kids...a hotel.

[@bobbbxxx]

LOL! 😆

[@suedu9609]

Thank you. I had a black and white childhood too. I miss my Mom and Dad.

[@morgankobayashi4180]

even in the 1950's yonge and eglinton was under construction.

[@greyarea3804]

Toronto has always been inadequate or under construction. My dad used to say it'll be a nice place when they get it finished

[@derick3482]

@@greyarea3804 winter and construction

[@damdog74]

4:43 look at this beautiful Art Deco gothic building getting replaced by a slab of concrete. That’s the stuff that breaks my heart

[@Brettsforehead]

I love the East End and East Side of Trawna. Great video!!

[@OldTorontoSeries]

Good work with the proper layering of the photos over one another. Well done.

[@ZeroMass]

haha! The first pic of the firehall is 10 houses from the house I grew up in. Ive stood on that corner to watch the Canada Day parade since 1975. Stood there with my own kids in 2009. My how this city and the people in it have changed....

[@MichaelRS44]

Thanks for the run down memory lane .. good job on the pics .. Toronto was a good city up until the 80's. Now I don't like it anymore and it was my home city.

[@nancyking1981]

Thank you for sharing this. It brought back a lot of memories. When I moved to Toronto as a child in 1963, to the Mount Pleasant/Eglinton area, living next door to us we had Eastern European professionals who had escaped to Canada and a young Italian family living across the street. We, and really all of our neighbours were white, but it was our immigrant neighbours who enriched our lives the most by sharing their culture and their food. All of us still around remember our first bacon buns and our very first pizza. The other neighbours were nice, but I don't remember any of the others inviting us into their homes.

[@franki3Ru550]

10 years from now is going to change dramatically again from 2017-2027

[@pamelawantsmusic]

Watched this with my 6 year old inside the Starbucks that is shown - blew her mind! Thank you

[@MichaelRS44]

Front & Cherry St. was the old CNR Freight Office .. I worked there late 60's early 70's .. great job, great guys and great memories.

[@NeilB.Arnold]

loved this video, I have been doing the same thing with my Throwback video's

[@Ratboy2004]

Brilliant work. The Toronto my parents knew as young adults and the Toronto I knew as a young adult.

[@ragsduds2012]

Born in T.O. Love your work. Thanks.

[@karendadd483]

I wish I lived back in the past pics

[@vassa1972]

Very cool thanks for the memories

[@joycestevenson6781]

James Victor Salmon was my dad. He took thousands of photos of Toronto back in the 1950’s until he passed from cancer in 1958. My mother eventually sold his photo and book collection to the Toronto library at Bay and Bloor. It used to be all on display in a public room for viewing but now it’s tucked away somewhere in the buildin 😢.

[@sessionfiddler]

Great job maintaining the aspect ratio and matching the locations up!

[@hardyboy1959]

Really enjoyed that, it was very well done. I'm inspired to do one of my own with my old video clips!

[@paultoronto42]

Nice job aligning the images.

[@bettyclarke5150]

I lived in the Beaches and worked in the Queen and Bay area in the late 70's to early 80's before moving out of the city. I barely recognize it now.

[@jjarratt]

Well, at least some of the old buildings are still there. The new structures take away the distinct look that the city had. It has become like any other large, modern city: boring to look at.

[@Skyfoogle]

toronto lost its distinct looks in the 50s and 60s when a lot of art deco and neogothic buildings were demolished and replaced with the giant bland concrete and glass rectangles we see in the financial district. a lot of toronto's 21st century era highrises actually give it a more distinct look. the only other city in north america that really resembles toronto's level of modern development is vancouver.

[@acanadianeh8344]

Keeping those older buildings is how you get the run down Gothic look hamilton has

[@neilmaccanbell9813]

It's a shame so many got hit by the wrec king ball and not preserved today's buildings are only built for function and not very detailed inside or out

[@jbc22112]

@@Skyfoogle What? Have you been to Vancouver? Downtown is mixture of old and new high rise condos. The old ones look like communist era buildings in Eastern European country I grew up. And the new ones look like generic high rises that are built in China. Everything has same color, there are just few buildings that look interesting and have some architectural value but most of it is generic and boring. And Toronto starts to look very similar. All these ugly condos. That’s not modern, that’s just lazy development that doesn’t take beauty into consideration. And I’m actually one who likes the financial core because it has serious skyscrapers that create wow effect. CN Tower is great too. But those condos are degrading downtown big time. Just look at photos of Sydney and then compare with Toronto and Vancouver, look carefully at individual buildings, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

[@jbc22112]

@@Skyfoogle Toronto still has some important landmarks that make it still somewhat comparable to Sydney, but Vancouver is like fast food for your eyes, it looks beautiful first time you see it, but if you live in it and start paying attention to every building, then it becomes so dissapointing to look at. The nature is what makes this city stand out. But whenever I hear that Vancouver is beautiful city, I cringe. I know that it’s fringe opinion but I don’t care, I lived in beautiful cities and Vancouver without the nature and beaches would be forgotten. And I only criticize it because I want it to be beautiful. Canada deserves real beautiful west coast city like San Francisco (without the drugs and homeless scene). I guess Victoria is nice but that’s not really a major city.

[@peterprincipe493]

That was great! We may have all the high tech. gadgets now, but I think life was simpler then. I grew up in the 60's. I remember the " before pictures". One small note. You show the Hockey Hall of Fame pics. Who remembers when it used to be located in the CNE?

[@alexfernandohuenten1374]

Awesome

[@Vamanaswastika]

Sadly many historical buildings were torn down. And Toronto has become pretty shit in modern day. Traffic was more in control back then than it is now.

[@Sgt_Glory]

I also noticed a great deal of streetcar lines have been removed since then, you can see many of them disappear in the pictures in this video.

[@nuffsenuff2890]

I share your sadness. Some of the older buildings look as if they were built by quite another civilization, one with imagination and a sense of beauty. Toronto now looks like a big warehouse of cardboard boxes stuck together with glass.

[@rpm1796]

100%.....When you go down even Charles by U of T...all the old Victorians and the rugby field ripped down...Old Varsity Stadium... Compared to Montreal which has three separate era's built side by side...from the 1600's to now...amazing.

[@simmerszalai9196]

some were and some destroy two fires as well.

[@padmaisonaroll8613]

4:47 I miss the old king st W

[@nuffsenuff2890]

Thanks! Well done.

[@TheAnkhorus]

Toronto is beautiful and I agree that there was so much classic architecture destroyed in the name of greed. Seeing something like this is an incredible testament as to how things have changed and a glimpse at a past that many people are oblivious to.

[@imisstoronto3121]

There were SO many historic buildings that have been destroyed in Toronto, thanks to Mayor Dennison. He isn't well remembered but his raze 'em policy destroyed dozens if not hundreds of beautiful buildings in Toronto. Thankfully David Crombie, the "tiny perfect mayor" stopped most of the destruction THEN, but we have developers in Toronto now who seem to think they are elected officials and can do WTH they want. The condo building in Toronto is beyond ridiculous and is only done for investors. The placement of condo buildings in quieter residential streets and the overwhelming density of people and cars is really destroying Toronto.

[@Humulator]

We need to get muti-family zoning in single family residential areas. More mixed-use developments too.

[@orlandoFernandez-u8m]

I call this place home forever.

[@ChillerKane]

Very well done. Great job. !!!

[@greyarea3804]

I used to repair and maintain the elevator in the building on the cover picture

[@A_Canadian_In_Poland]

One think that shows remarkably in this video is the age of Ontario's electrical infrastructure.

[@ukiedrums]

This is really well done!

[@datturaokulkarni6604]

Enjoyed Thanks.

[@myles1147]

70 years later and yonge and eglinton is still under construction lmaooo

[@tommywong3147]

Cant believe they torn down the building beside hockey hall of fame

[@grizzlyhughes]

It looks like most of the buildings in the video are still there 50 years later. The buildings that we went to when I was a kid are still standing for the most part. I'm kind of surprised. Here in Orlando there are only a select few old buildings still standing downtown.

[@kevin6588]

That building to the right of the hockey hall of fame was gorgeous, it should not have been torn down, now it’s just some boring glass mess

[@jimbeanbragger9209]

This is so cool. Great work :D

[@wendypeacock-frail]

Had some great times at the Broadview Hotel back in the late 70s

[@shelleyharris2850]

Good footage

[@monicapushkin3274]

Toronto has been gleefully tearing down magnificent architecture for the last 100 years or more. Incredible brick and stone buildings would stand sometimes for only 40 or 50 years only to be knocked down for "progress".

[@reasonrestored9116]

It seems not that much has changed!

[@janejames9173]

Beautiful video.❤️❤️

[@blingbling574]

My sister went there after she divorced. The intense alternative lifestyle was her heaven on earth. After two bad car accidents and a very abusive relationship, she moved to Kitchener.

[@rpm1796]

Terrific.

[@harleykaruliscreativity7467]

Very cool!

[@cleander97]

What? They remove the Esso station at 1:26

[@KepperKleen]

Well, I started out... Down a dirty road...

[@geriestabrooks1706]

Nice to see some of the old historic buildings survived. I am sure it won't be for much longer.

[@bobbbxxx]

There are literally thousands of Victorian and Edwardian brick buildings still standing in Toronto. Entire neighbourhoods of them.

[@purvisvandongen4258]

why is it always nicer in the old pictures?

[@bobbbxxx]

Most of those buildings still stand, except many of them are a lot cleaner today. Not sure I agree they all look better in old photos.

[@mtlicq]

so many are the same before and after, then and now

[@yvonnemariane2265]

6:06 look at that big gorgeous bldg with the ledge, replaced by stupid glass bldg

[@seokjinspinkflipphone65]

Not me having to watch this for school😭

[@shelleyharris2850]

The names

[@bindardundat454]

Damn interesting !

[@schnuurtchke]

Then now Yonge Dundas Square

[@sabell1276]

and Now Kristyn Wong-Tam condo everywhere

[@Alexandra-zp3gr]

Modern Architecture offends the soul! All this started post World War Two. The two world wars left such a scare on humanity that we abandoned all aspects of the prior era, even the aesthetic aspects. Then the ensuing cold war propagated the brutalist/utilitarian philosophies and solidified this permanent detachment from the beautiful and uplifting, the archaic and divine.

[@anthonyryanmauro]

Gerrard is spelt wrong.

[@balancedaustralia]

Certainly the old days were better. Less people, more space.

[@josephforest7605]

So true, homeless people were few , as was were shootings and stabbings . Toronto and Canada , except for Montreal was a real dull place . No Sunday drinking or entertainment , people stayed home and that was that .

[@WilhelmFreidrich]

Weird to see my neighbourhood back then.

[@aiqin-miyalin9751]

Hi I am Miki .

[@bobsouza788]

The streetlights haven't changed much.

[@sparker.24]

roads looked larger than now

[@eyecomeinpeace2707]

Everybody gangsta till you live there and find out how expensive T.O. is.

[@mosantw2024]

It'll be cool if they're side by side! great work tho!

[@neilmaccanbell9813]

Why show cemetery pics kinda dumb they are not going to change lol

[@shelleyharris2850]

Parliament

[@purpl3grape]

someone call the magic school bus, cuz I'm going through a feels trip.

[@amnakhan6124]

why on earth did they replace old buildings with ugly glass ones. so disheartning

[@yvonnemariane2265]

5;59 you really see a crass rendering + cheap vs a solid beauty

[@yvonnemariane2265]

6:13 sorry but that glass dump is pure INSULT behind our gorgeous heritage. Only thieves pull that

[@jamielacourse7578]

I was living out west when beloved T.O turned into the G.T.A. Now I call Oshawa home because Toronto is too big and thus unrecognizable to me.

[@harley4957]

The canary is gone

[@MrTopsoil911]

Toronto looks like a concrete condo jungle now. Distgusting.

[@geoffreycanie4609]

get a good look - soon to be a luxury condo complex

[@Insomniac_tv]

Modern architecture ruin this city