Friday, January 21, 2011

A Video Homage to Toronto's Lost Buildings

A friend of mine who is currently residing in London, England made this video homage to Toronto's lost buildings. It's difficult to watch the video without wondering about the evolving face of Toronto, and how the decisions to demolish buildings can so change the landscape of a city.

One of the biggest changes to me is Trinity College in what is now Trinity-Bellwoods Park. You can still see the gates to the college at the south end of the park along Queen Street, but all traces of the building are gone.

It's interesting to note too some of the buildings we still have that were once threatened with demolition, or partial demolition, like Old City Hall. I think one proposal had the whole building gone with its replacement being an Eaton's Centre tower, while a revised proposal kept just the old clock tower. Thankfully neither of those were realized and the building was left standing.

But with the neglect, partial collapse, then fire and planned demolition of a heritage building on Yonge street recently, it's clear that we still have some ways to go in protecting our heritage buildings.

2 comments:

  1. Wow. Toronto looked like a beautiful European city.

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  2. I'm the City Archivist for the City of Toronto and enjoyed seeing this clip which includes a large number of images from our collection. For those of you wanting to see more please visit our website at www.toronto.ca/archives.
    Nice work!
    Karen Teeple

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