During the 1950s, York County would have seemed as big, fertile, and splendid to city dwellers as the ad above suggests. While suburbia was slowly making inroads, the area north of Steeles Avenue was still primarily rural, a gateway in the summer for those seeking recreation on Lake Simcoe. Little wonder that a program like [...]

As he awaits his fate at today’s special meeting of the TTC’s commissioners, Gary Webster might ponder the fact that he isn’t the first General Manager to run afoul of political intrigue. Criticism of W.E.P. Duncan’s performance in 1959 came amid a power struggle between two larger-than-life personalities. The battle between TTC Commissioner Allan “Lampy” [...]

How would you open a profile of Toronto for one of the U.S.’ most popular general interest magazines? Well, if you were the Saturday Evening Post 60 years ago, you would start with a joke that originated in a rival city, Montreal: a Toronto magnate was summoned to appear in court. On the appointed day [...]

Where pucks once flew 15 feet or more on the ice, shoppers will stare at a 15-foot wall of cheese. Today’s grand opening of the new flagship Loblaws store at Maple Leaf Gardens is a long-awaited step in the repurposing of a Toronto landmark. Along with Ryerson University’s Peter Gilgan Athletic Centre at the Gardens, [...]

There are many things we could write about today’s ad beyond the cheery optimism about aluminum that permeated the era’s industrial advertising. Why is the man opening the refrigerator grabbing a milk bottle instead of an alcoholic beverage? What is the man in front contemplating besides the eggs in his aluminum electric frying pan? Are [...]

You’ve heard all the jokes and Simpsons references related to Doug Ford’s vision of a Toronto monorail, his grandiose derailment of Waterfront Toronto’s development plans. But Ford is not the first Etobicoke-based politician to be mesmerized by the possibilities of single-rail travel. From the 1950s onwards, civic officials from the former township have participated in [...]

When the Lord Simcoe Hotel permanently closed its doors in October 1979, a carpenter on the crew hired to dismantle the building reflected on why it had failed after operating for just 22 years: “No one thought ahead for the future when it was built.” While its original owners prided themselves on going from sod-turning to ribbon-cutting within 17 months, they might have thought more carefully about how the business would survive in the long term. Mistakes like overpricing its luxurious eateries and not including amenities expected of modern hotels like central air, combined with increasing competition and land worth more than the building atop it, shortened the life of a hotel that promised to provide its first guests modern accommodations with old-world charm.

Yes, it was great news for Toronto coffee drinkers that week in 1957 when New Nescafé arrived in town. Few were more excited than Mrs. Dorothy Smith of Don Mills, who was quickly hooked by the instant java’s “flavour bonus.” She quickly canvassed her neighbours to see who would turn over their unwanted coupons and samples to feed her rapidly growing addiction. Her children watched bemusedly as she grew more wide-eyed and jittery and babbled each morning about needing more “rich, mellow flavour.” As the week wore on, it was clear that the 18 jars she carefully lined across her kitchen shelf and posed in front of for Mr. Smith’s camera weren’t going to last long.

Margaret Atwood’s high school yearbook; Clan Call, 1956–1957 edition. As people continue to joke about Margaret Atwood running for mayor, we feel it is our duty as a responsible media outlet to scope out the potential candidate’s early influences. And so we bring you the above, from her high school yearbook. (We’d love to hear [...]

Communist conspiracy. Poison worse than arsenic. Crime against God. Gross violation of civil liberties. Evil plot hatched by aluminum companies to dump waste. These were among the charges civic politicians heard when water fluoridation was debated in Metropolitan Toronto’s municipalities in 1955.

“A museum is a home of muses and in Canada, far enough from the slopes of Mount Helicon in space and time, those traditional patrons of the arts and sciences have their worthiest habitat in the Royal Ontario Museum.” Whoever wrote the 1956 edition of The Royal Ontario Museum: A Handbook felt these were appropriate words to introduce visitors to the wonders within.

Perhaps there was something magnetic in the lighting used at the new Dominion supermarket at Bayview and Eglinton. As if possessed by an alien force, residents of Leaside and North Toronto suddenly put on their finest shopping clothes and walked toward the store, in a procession that resembled a zombie walk, minus the fake blood. Drivers who felt the call calmly turned into the freshly paved parking lot.