Toronto, Now and Then

Today, Puff, Younger and Frodo and I headed downtown to St Lawrence Market to get Younger and I some peameal bacon sandwiches from the Carousel bakery.  For those of you who have never tasted this delicacy, you are leading a blighted life, and I pity you.

However, I brought the camera and took a few pictures on our little walk to the market, as we were walking through the older part of the city.  Here's some before, and afters.

Before, around the 1820's or 30's

Now.

 
Good Lord, it has hardly changed.

Then.

Now.

Everyone  who comes to Toronto takes their own version of a shot of the flatiron building, so I thought I would take my own.

Should have moved a little father back.

Typically among the older buildings, they would buy expensive bricks for the facade, and build the sides and the back with whatever they had, from whatever source.  If you look at this photograph of the aftermath of the 1904 fire, you can see people are going through the rubble of the destroyed buildings and collecting bricks. 

 You think "reduce, reuse, recycle" is a modern idea?  Take a number, punks, and get waaaaaay behind these guys.  They were doing it long before your grandparents were born.

The bricks would be reused in buildings later where they wouldn't be seen.  However, as happens, buildings get demolished, revealing the sides of the buildings next to them, and you can see the sides of these buildings, made with the whatever bricks happened to be around.

Just for fun, here's a face from the St Lawrence Hall, once the city hall of Toronto, as well as a concert hall.  Jenny Lind sang here, way back when.

Lastly, because one can never get in too much trouble with the missus, here's a photo of Puff Younger and Frodo, making their way along King.