Toronto Time Machine

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy Today marks a point of a genesis for the City of Toronto we currently recognize. Built at a cost of $27,035,000 in the 1960s (other sources report 31 million), Toronto’s municipal government’s nerve centre was officially opened on September 13 th , 1965. A ceremony presided with the then-Mayor Philip Givens, the city celebrated the official opening of the building we know today as New City Hall. Shaped through 91,000 cubic yards of concrete and roughly 8,733 square meters of glass, Toronto’s New City Hall is identified for two multistory towers (a 27-floor east tower and a 20-floor west tower) as well as a 155-foot diameter Council Chamber. Now a 50-year-old structure, New City Hall continues to amaze the world as a stunning icon to what Toronto is and what it could be. New City Hall was one of many builds in Toronto that took a long time to come to fruition. During the early part of the 20 th century, the local government outgrew so-called Old C

Despite using Union Station often in recent years, Frankly, the city of Toronto scared me even as I became an adult. It seemed like such an easy city to get lost in and I am a person who is most comfortable with knowing my surroundings in detail. From years ago, I remembered being in the downtown area and seeing the Sam the Record Man sign lit but I never gathered the time nor courage of seeing the flagship Yonge Street store. That opportunity of seeing the past of Toronto escaped me. Thanks to openness of digital photography and my deepened desire to explore the Canadian city, I was drawn to the Harbourfront area almost by chance last month (April 2015), another disappearing landmark did not escape my sight. On the ship known as the MS Jadran, the former dining hotspot that was Captain John's Harbour Boat Restaurant sat awaiting its eventual, inevitable fate. In April, I had undertaken a short photographic excursion around Toronto. At the Harbourfront area and Queen Quay, o

  Photo Credit: Robert McMann In the past several years in Toronto, one of the most contentious issues has revolved around a new transit extension into the Scarborough region of the city. With debates turning surprisingly passionate over transit planning, both teams plan to replace the Scarborough Rapid Transit system (Scarborough RT) or most recently called Line 3 by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). This weekend marks 30 years of moving commuters between the Kennedy TTC station to McCowan. For March 22nd, 2015, the Scarborough RT's 30th anniversary of public operations will not celebrated with the same appreciation as Toronto's subway. Last year's 60th anniversary of the Yonge subway line recognized the liberating sense of movement it brought to a vital piece of the city. Admiration for the challenging of the subway in Toronto has ultimately led to favouritism of the Scarborough RT's over 3-billion dollar replacement extension of the Bloor-Danforth Line