Toronto : Then and Now

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Chaos said:
I stand corrected. But compared to other cities of relative age, I'd say Toronto has done a poor job maintaining its older properties IMO.
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It hasn't done a *great* job, and many older buildings were demolished in the 50s-60s in the name of urban renewal. But there are plenty of gems out there if you know where to look. It's hard to look for "monuments" that define the city, in that Toronto really didn't do anything truly "fantastic" until the mid-century, starting with City Hall, and continuing with TD Centre and finally reaching its zenith with the CN Tower. Toronto truly is a modern city, which much newer development than other big city counterparts such as NYC, Chicago, etc.
 
Although there are still some great old buildings in Toronto there are very few areas where they kept a block of them. In other words, great buildings here and there but in between them is some lifeless glass and concrete mess. Other large cities have entire streets of classic buildings one after another.

As for new Toronto buildings, for whatever reason we just love to build boring buildings and when we don't we end up with some ugly Brutalist eyesore (like that UofT building on Spadina). Look at the Opera House, they went on for years how to be a world class city we HAVE to have one, showing pictures of Sydney and Paris. Then they build something that looks like a suburban high school! Does not matter how well it functions inside, it looks like a high school--world class fail.

While Toronto produced some interesting buildings in the 50s to 70s (in most cases they were not as nice as what the took down). From the 80s on there have been very few worth even looking at.
 
Chaos said:
I stand corrected. But compared to other cities of relative age, I'd say Toronto has done a poor job maintaining its older properties IMO.
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I agree with that. I did not think there were that many myself. After watching a program about the hangman's yard at the Don Jail I checked it out on wikipedia, and got off on a link tangent and came across that page.
 
matthew said:
Images lifted from http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/17742-Goldie-s-Oldies


TN_Albert_St_Eaton_wagons_1913-2009.jpg
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Some advancements suck... Half that road now is no parking. Unfortunately, I see someone parking their motorcycle in the wrong spot all the time.


Very cool pics!
 
Niagara Falls - From which side is that?

Once again, very cool posts!
 
00ninja said:
Niagara Falls - From which side is that?

Once again, very cool posts!
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I didn't post the pic but I know a few things about this... The pic is of the US falls. They built a temp dam diverting all the water over the horseshoe falls. They then concreted and reinforced the falls to slow down erosion, to keep the water looking good when the flow is low (when they divert more water for hydro, like at night) and to prevent it from collapsing all together! (you can see the pile of rocks at the bottom from it falling apart/down)

They did the same thing to the horseshoe falls at another time. For the horseshoe they were less concerned about collapse. They reinforced it to slow erosion and they raised the middle so when the water level drops (water diversion for hydro) the water still flows across the entire brink (otherwise at night the falls would become narrower).
 
backmarkerducati said:
I didn't post the pic but I know a few things about this... The pic is of the US falls. They built a temp dam diverting all the water over the horseshoe falls. They then concreted and reinforced the falls to slow down erosion, to keep the water looking good when the flow is low (when they divert more water for hydro, like at night) and to prevent it from collapsing all together! (you can see the pile of rocks at the bottom from it falling apart/down)

They did the same thing to the horseshoe falls at another time. For the horseshoe they were less concerned about collapse. They reinforced it to slow erosion and they raised the middle so when the water level drops (water diversion for hydro) the water still flows across the entire brink (otherwise at night the falls would become narrower).
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Ah, okay. I see that.

matthew said:
http://www.niagarafrontier.com/dewater.html
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Thanks for the link. I'll check it out

matthew said:
That's the American Side
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Really? Man, the angle really threw me off.
 
These are great. Matthew, have you got anymore photos to share?

Cheers!
 
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