Sunday 12 April 2009

My Town Monday - Toronto in 1939

Travis Erwin from Amarillo, Texas is the founder of My Town Monday. For other locations to visit please go to Travis' site here.


The following are photos taken from a 1939 postcard pack of Toronto purchased at a local fleamarket.



[1-Introduction to the postcard pack - click to enlarge]





[2-Front postcard to addressee with original stamp - click to enlarge]




[3-Back of the postcard pack - click to enlarge]




[4-Front Street Post Office, Union Depot, Royal York Hotel - click to enlarge]




[5-Fountain at the CNE - click to enlarge]




[6-Union Station - click to enlarge]





[7-Toronto at night - click to enlarge]





[8-Sunnyside Beach - click to enlarge]





[9-Ontario Parliament Buildings at Queen's Park - click to enlarge]





[10- Aerial view of the CNE looking west - click to enlarge]





[11-Prince's Gate at the CNE - click to enlarge]





[12-Government Building at the CNE - click to enlarge]






[13-Enginerring and Electrical Buildings at the CNE - click to enlarge]





[14-Aerial Queen's Park - click to enlarge]





[15-Aerial of University of Toronto - click to enlarge]





[16-Royal York Hotel - click to enlarge]





[17-Night view of Ontario Parliament Buildings - click to enlarge]





[18-Toronto City Hall - click to enlarge]





[19 -Casa Loma - click to enlarge]

For the history of Casa Loma in a previous post go here.





[20- View of Toronto from Centre Island - click to enlarge]

For other posts about the Toronto Islands go here and here.





[21-Canadian National Exhibition - click to enlarge]



Photo Credits: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]-CanuckNurse CC=sa-flickr.

32 comments:

David Cranmer said...

I like the introduction that reads 8 buildings of 20 stories and more. I can only imagine the number now.

Barbara Martin said...

David, the two tallest buildings in Toronto and Canada are the Scotia Plaza at 68 floors and First Canadian Place at 72 floors. I get dizzy looking out those windows.

Clair D. said...

That's pretty cool! It's always interesting the colored prints they used to do.

Need some comparison pix of those places today to see how it's changed.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I love those old postcards, especially if there's a message on it.

Barrie said...

I love these postcards!

Steve Malley said...

There's something about the 1930's that I just love...

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Old postcards are fun.Toronto has such an interesting history...and have just finished reading your previous post on The Starseed Dialogues-fascinating!

Shelley Munro said...

I like the old-fashioned postcards too. I'm glad they had them so we have a glimpse into the past.

Happy Easter.

debra said...

It's really interesting to see how places we know looked in years past. What a find!

Gary's third pottery blog said...

Oh, that's a lovely collection alright.

Charles Gramlich said...

Cool old images.

Travis Erwin said...

I have a friend who collects postcards of Amarillo. Matter of fact he has a book being published that comes out in September which I will feature for a later MTM blog.

Reb said...

What a wonderful find, all those postcards together. Lovely prints.

Naturegirl said...

As a girl vacationing in Arizona for the winter and still here it was nice to see photos of back home!I am west of you but as you know everything happens in Toronto!
Theater,dining, bluejays, the Leafs!!

Lana Gramlich said...

Those old postcards are great!

Clare2e said...

I love those vintage images, too! Thanks for sharing, Barbara.

Lyzzydee said...

What a brilliant find!! I am always on the look out for vintage post cards and the likes.

Linda McLaughlin said...

What a marvelous find, Barbara! I love the old postcards. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Barbara Martin said...

An interesting thing about these postcards is that they were still made up until the early 1970s: a selection of postcards, each attached to the other which could be torn off from the one next to post to someone. My mother had kept numerous collections of various places we had visited over the years. The early sets like these from 1939 were of black and white photographs that had been colourized.

Cloudia said...

Such a cool find, Barbara!
I enjoyed the visit to a great city's past. aloha-

Mihai A. said...

Lovely postcards. And they make a lovely image of Toronto of that period.

Sekhar said...

Great collections Barbara. Nice if you posted the latest pics of those locations too :)

Barbara Martin said...

Sekhar, the following are buildings in the photos that are still located in their places: the Royal York Hotel, the Post Office, Union Depot, Union Station, Ontario Parliament Buildings, the Prince's Gate, the Government Building, most of the University of Toronto buildings, the old Toronto City Hall are now the Provincial Courts, Casa Loma has a link to a previous post, at the CNE grounds the bandstand is no longer there.

Rune Eide said...

Nostalgia... :-)

Now you have task in front of you: Take your camera and get as many new pictures from the same sites as possible for a comparison!

Sepiru Chris said...

Hi Barbara,

What a great find.

I collect the old colourized postcards and find them irresistable--especially when there are snippets of people's lives captured on the back sides.

Great find, and thank you for going to the effort to share it all with us.

Tschuess,
Chris

Barbara Martin said...

RuneE, I will look to see what photos are available and your idea would make a nice parallel post.

Anonymous said...

Dear Barbara;
Thank you for the Posts of old T.O. I fly MSFS 2004 Regressed to 1930's USA. I'm working on regressing the GTA and hope to find inspiration in your post. I heard that the original skyline for the Metropolis of the Superman Comics was Toronto's as in Pic 20. Also the steps of Pic 18 show up in the end of Short Circuit 2. Have a save and happy Summer.
Tom Cadman - East GTA

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Trabajar Desde Tu Casa said...

Toronto looked really interesting back then and still many of those building are around today.

Barbara Martin said...

Trafalgar, welcome. The older buildings provide a sense of character to the older days.

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