Thursday 9 April 2015

Archives Awareness Week 2015: Summerhill Then & Now

We are in the midst of Archives Awareness Week in Ontario.  To engage the staff who work at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, we decided to use this opportunity to permanently install a series of photographs in the foyer outside our office:

Outside ARCAT's office: a new permanent installation of historical photos purchased from the City of Toronto Archives.  The photos show the site of our office building and neighbourhood.


The five photographs show the current site of the Catholic Pastoral Centre at 1155 Yonge Street as it was between 1910 and 1945.  The northeast corner of Yonge Street and Shaftesbury Avenue was formerly occupied by the Rosedale Hotel. The photos also capture the surrounding streetscape, including the CPR crossing (now beside the flagship LCBO) and streetcar track extension (eventually replaced by the Yonge Street subway line).

Click the titles below to see the historical images:
Northeast corner of Yonge Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, Rosedale Hotel, 1914 (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 1114). 
What it looks like now: 
  

Rosedale Hotel, ca.1945 (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 535). 
 What it looks like now: 

Yonge Street at Canadian Pacific Railway level crossing, looking north, 1910 (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 502). 
What it looks like now:  


Yonge Street track extension looking north to Shaftesbury Avenue, 1916 (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 489).  
What it looks like now:    


Yonge Street track construction at Shaftesbury Avenue, ca. 1920 (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 423). 
What it looks like now:  


Copies of the photographs were purchased from the City of Toronto Archives, which is home to a wealth of photographs featuring streetscapes, many of them digitized. Check out the amazing historical images of Toronto on the City's Flickr page.

So why not use your new found awareness of archives to search for photos of your street or neighbourhood through the City of Toronto Archives?



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