Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - July 30th has been a prolific day in the history of Toronto.  As Bruce West writes in his book Toronto: "the real turning point in the transition of Toronto from a rough French outpost to a budding British community took place on July 30, 1793" (p. 18). On that July 30th over two centuries ago, Elizabeth Simcoe and her three children Sophia, Francis (who Castle Frank was named after) and Katherine arrived aboard the Mississauga to establish the residence of Upper Canada's Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe in the frontier town of York. Shortly after the family's arrival that day, a large tent called the "Canvass House" was assembled for the Simcoes by the Queen's Rangers while Elizabeth took the first of her famous strolls through the wilderness. An avid diarist, Elizabeth carefully recorder her many explorations around the settlement of York in what is now called The Diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe.  Her diary has become a foundational text in the history of Toronto, providing a window into the birth of the city, its early residents and the natural landscape upon which Toronto was built. Many decades later, July 30th also became the date of one of the young city's early tragedies.  Soon after William Lyon Mackenzie was elected Toronto's first mayor in 1834, Mackenzie along with his council proposed to raise taxes in order to pay for pressing civic improvements, one of which was to build a new board sidewalk on King Street.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On this day in 1889, the newly established Belt Line Railway held its inaugural meeting.  The doomed railway would only run from 1892-1894, falling victim to both the 1893 depression and the faster, more direct Toronto Street Railway. With two loops, the Belt Line Railway was to provide public transit service to Toronto's suburban communities.  The east loop started at Union station, ran east until turning north along the Don River, passing the Don Valley Brickworks, up through Moore Park Ravine and along the northern edge of Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  Crossing over Yonge Street and what is now the Davisville Subway yards, the loop continued northwest until Spadina, where it intersected with Eglinton Ave. W and turned west, eventually meeting up with the Grand Trunk railway tracks just west of Caledonia Road.  From their the route circled south back to Union Station.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - So far this summer's weather has been nothing to brag about.  Not like in 1936 when on this day, Toronto was in the midst of its greatest heat ...

To escape the long shadow cast by Canada Day, this edition of Throwback Thursday jumps to July 3rd (tomorrow), when in 1965 the first subway train crossed the Don Valley on the lower deck of the Bloor Street Viaduct. Completed in 1918, the Don Valley Phase of the Prince Edward Viaduct has garnered a lot of popular attention in the past couple decades.  Beginning with its role in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion in 1987, the growing awareness in 1997 of the many suicides occurring ...

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It was thirty-one years ago today that The Riverboat, Canada's most famous coffee house of the time, closed its doors.  Although it shut down in 1978, The Riverboat was in its prime a decade earlier, when Yorkville was the "music mecca of Canada" and the launching point for many international careers in the arts. Although the Riverboat is the best remembered Yorkville music venue -- providing one of the first stages for a long list of young Canadian musicians like Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Murray McLauchlan and the site of a heritage plaque unveiling last week -- there were over 40 clubs, coffee houses, and galleries in Yorkville featuring live music in the late 1960s. At 88 Yorkville Avenue there was the Chez Monique where the Sparrows (later known as Steppenwolf) regularly played.  Ian & Sylvia were known to perform at the nearby Village Corner and the little known band that went by the name of The Mynah Birds and featured both Neil Young and Rick James together actually took their name from the Mynah Bird coffee house at 114 Yorkville Avenue.  Not to mention the Penny Farthing, known for its swimming pool and bikini-wearing waitresses, the New Gate of Cleve, the Café El Patio and the Flick, Yorkville was a regular musical hotbed filled to the brim with budding artists.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Almost one hundred years ago today, the City's Trillium Ferry began carrying hoards of Island-bound Torontonians across Toronto Bay, much like it still does today.  Launched into the harbour in 1910, the Trillium was initially built for those hot summer days when the crowds would overwhelm the three other "flower ferries" - the Primrose, the Mayflower and the Bluebell. Built by Polson Iron Works Limited, the $75,000 Trillium was an exact replica of her sister ship, the Bluebell, built four years earlier.  The largest of the four "flower ferries," the Trillium was named the flower of Ontario and had an original passenger capacity of 1450.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Toronto's skyline was never the same 80 years ago today.  On June 11th, 1929 the chateau-style hotel formerly known as the Royal York Hotel opened its doors at 100 Front Street West as the tallest building not only in Toronto but in the entire British Empire. The third hotel to occupy the site, the Canadian Pacific Railway demolished the former Queen's Hotel to make way for the 28-story Royal York Hotel, whose final building cost was $16 million.  At the time the hotel was considered to be state-of-the-art, complete with a radio, phone and a shower or bath in every one of its 1,048 rooms.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that day in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On June 4th, 1920, the Toronto Transportation Commission (an earlier manifestation of the current Toronto Transit Commission) was established by an act of the Province of Ontario in preparation for its takeover of the Toronto Railway Company (TRC) the following year.  The Ontario Legislature's act followed a vote by the citizens on Toronto on January 1st of that year which approved the City's purchase of the privately owned Toronto Railway Company.  The purchase was the first step towards the unification of Toronto's many municipal transportation services under one publicly owned commission. Public ownership of municipal transportation was first attempted in May 1891, when the City refused to renew the franchise of the Toronto Street Railway Company and instead took it over for $1.5 million and a $600,000 mortgage.  At the time, however, the public were uncomfortable with the large pricetag and quickly forced the city to sell the company in September 1891, when it became the privately owned Toronto Railway Company (TRC). Like many of the privately owned transportation companies at the time, the TRC was not always willing to extend its services to new areas of the city beyond the original city limits specified in their contracts.  This was a problem for the City, whose population doubled from around 170,000 to 350,000 between 1891 to 1921, annexing many towns formerly outside City limits in the process. The Toronto Railway Company, whose contract specified City limits set in 1891, refused to extend its one-fare lines to the new areas annexed by the growing city in the early twentieth century.  After several failed court battles where the city aimed to enforce by-laws that would compel the TRC to expand their services, the City Council decided to form the Toronto Civic Railways (TCR), a public street railway system constructed and maintained by the City of Toronto's Department of Works, Railway and Bridge division.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that week in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 72 years ago today, 13 farms were bought on land immediately south of the village of Malton by the Toronto Harbour Commission (now the Toronto Port Authority) for the establishment what would later become Pearson International Airport. First settled in 1823, the northeast Toronto township of Malton was a quiet distribution hub for local farmers with about 150 residents prior to the 1,400 acre land purchase in 1937.  Over the years, Malton would shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy and become renowned as a leader in aviation around the world. While the first terminal was nothing more than a converted farm house, Malton Airport became a training facility for the British Air Force during the Second World War.  In 1954, Malton became the home of the National Steel Car Company, later bought by the government and renamed the Victory Aircraft Company (VAC), whose workforce of 10,000 would later produce the Avro Arrow. Although the establishment of an airport provided wartime prosperity for the town of Malton, its rise as a world leader in aeronautical design and manufacturing that climaxed in the 1950s with the Avro Arrow starkly contrasted the disappearance of a little known town called Elmbank.

Every Thursday, Spacing will bring you a snapshot of Toronto's past, looking into what took place that week in the city's history. Throwback Thursday will address how the city has evolved, with an emphasis on issues that remain relevant for development in Toronto today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - On this day in 1897, the Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team played their first game at Hanlan's Point Stadium. For 50 cents, you'd get a ferry trip to and from the island, along with ...