Not long ago I posted a blog with pictures of the CN Tower under construction. While searching for the pictures I stumbled across numerous other photos of the city at various points in history that are truly fantastic. Like this one of the Royal York, complete with a blimp in the sky!
Or this one showing the downtown core when you could focus in on Maple Leaf Gardens, Eaton’s at College Street and Queen’s Park all at the same time!
And there is this one taken from the air above what is now Pearson:
There are tonnes of great pictures (around 1.2 million according to the City of Toronto Archives) out there and the City of Toronto makes it fairly easy to access them. They now even have a Flickr account with excellent sets of historic photos of Toronto including:
- “At Your Convenience“: Photo’s of early 20th Century indoor plumbing
- “Queen Street West“: Photo’s of the area
- “How to drive in Toronto“: Images of driving in Toronto; and a request for insight into the models of the cars in the photos
- “Pets“: Complete with a picture of a bear in a tree closely followed by a Private at the CNE camp. Check out this link to see it: http://flic.kr/p/7TXrD7
- “Lighting Up The Night“: Pictures from around Toronto taken at nighttime
There are other great sets as well, so if you’re interested in seeing a bit more of what Toronto once looked like, check it out by clicking here, and enjoy!