Old Toronto Series
Toronto in 1988. What has changed?
Comments Cathy Austin What's changed? Everything! Tall blocks out small and you'd never know there was a lake taking the Gardiner. Price of progress done badly. Visit Boston, enjoy the harbour, see the water, be inspired. Wish we had that look and not the sea of towers that mark our shoreline. Could have been done so much better. Reply1w Debby King Cathy, Chicago is laid out almost exactly the same as Toronto but they protected the water side of Lakeshore for park space and greenery, and access to the water. Reply1w Steve Karagiannakis Debby King We have the islands and everything east and west of the downtown core for parkland. Reply1w Debby King Steve, Toronto is my hometown but certainly not the place I knew and loved. It's a concrete jungle, sold to the highest bidder. You may enjoy that but I don't. Reply1w Steve Karagiannakis Debby King I’ve lived here since 1973. It was great then but I know I’m looking at it with rose coloured glasses because it was the time of my youth. We have so much more to do now then back then. It’s a way more exciting and interesting city. Used to be dead on Sundays. And it’s a lot less polluted by cars with no pollution controls. Do you hear of any smog alerts lately? Is everything better? No. But overall it’s better and that’s why it regularly makes it into the top 10 cities of the world to live in lists. Reply1wEdited Debby King Steve, I took off my rose-coloured glasses a very long time ago. I am a Torontonian, born and bred. The thing that Toronto has in common with other top-10 cities of the world is that the average person cannot afford to live there and certainly can't afford to raise a family there without being up to their eyeballs in debt. Average person. Average couple. That changes the demographic of the city dramatically. Let's see what happens to those who have extended themselves beyond their ability to survive when interest rates and the cost of living continue to rise. Reply1w Steve Karagiannakis Debby King Unfortunately success and desirability means more people want to live here and housing prices go sky high. Only need to look at places like London, Paris, New York City. Something needs to be done. Reply1w Dave Gallos Cathy Austin the lake was the commercial/industrial hub in early years. There is lots of access to the waterfront. Across the city. More to come with with the vast rezoning south of Commissioners Road between Carlaw and Cherry. Who cares if it isn't visible when driving on the Gardiner downtown?? Get off the highway and drive south. Reply1wEdited Steven Moroz Cathy I meant in the scope of my brothers get down Reply1w Greg Gillies Cathy Austin lol. Glass half full? It's a massive work still in progress. It isn't Paris either. But why would you want it to be... Reply1w Most Relevant is selected, so some replies may have been filtered out. Debby King They sold out the waterfront to developers. You can no longer see the lake when you drive along the Gardner Expressway or Lakeshore Blvd. It's just a series of big condo buildings with hardly any light between them let alone a view of the waterfront. It's a disgrace. Reply1wEdited Debbie Thibault Debby King I used to live in the Palace pier and we watched as those condos were being built and we sold just at the right time. There were only a few condos built. That was in 2007. In 2018 I was in that area and I didn’t recognize it at all! In fact I got lost. I didn’t recognize anything at Parklawn and lakeshore Reply1w Top fan Mike Hannah Debbie Thibault Cry Crying GIF Reply1w Top fan Mike Hannah Debby King Concrete Canyons! Nothing grows in the shade , except Developers & Politicians. What say you my friend? Reply1w Debby King Mike Hannah, I'm right there with you. The beauty of Toronto's south shore didn't have to be sacrificed for political gain. There were other ways but greed came easiest 🙁 Reply1w Most Relevant is selected, so some replies may have been filtered out. Lorraine Deana Theed Ontario place was awesome for families in the city. The planetarium was awesome for families and schools. Both gone so sad hopefully they can be reconstructed revived and brought back to life for the next generation to enjoy. Reply1w Christine MacLean Nothing for the better the city lost it’s connection to the water selling off land so a few could have a view missing the opportunity to build a great promenade for everyone. Just think of the bike trails we could have had! Reply1w Christine MacLean If you actually read the official city plan the waterfront was destined to become a long promenade like Harbourfront but all along the waterfront. NO condos, public use spaces. What we have now is bad design and bad development Reply1w Evan VanDyk Other than the Redpath factory, you can promenade along the water everywhere from Yonge to Parliament right now, and that is being extended with every new building that is being built. Reply1w Christine MacLean Not from the east end, the original plan had a much bigger concept with parks and event spaces not a sliver of a walkway. Think Chicago waterfront or Seattle Pike place. Reply1w David MacLeod Christine MacLean have you seen the design and plans for the currently under construction Port Lands in the east. Have a look at the Toronto Waterfront website. You may want to educate yourself on the amount of investment and plans in the waterfront that have taken place in the past and will into the immediate future. I am always amazed at the "it was better back then" crowd. Dig into the archives and have a real look at what the waterfront looked like "back in the day". As for the apparent endless condos blocking your view...the Gardiner is 18kms long and only 10kms allow for a view of the lake while driving. Of that 10kms only about 3kms have buildings on the south side. Seems to be a lot of people upset about 3 minutes of their driving being "totally blocked'. And by way most of those buildings "totally blocking" your view on the southside are in Harbourfront - a plan developed in 1972 by city planners "back in the day'. Reply1w Fabio Enriquez Christine MacLean the city was cut off from the water by the Gardener, train tracks and endless parking lots. Definitely more connected to the water now. Reply1w Evan VanDyk I live near there and love the area in that photo. And it’s getting better every year. We were just there this morning, at sugar beach. Reply1w Evan VanDyk And the new area they’re building in the portlands looks like it will be amazing. Reply1w Craig Hanley Dave Gallos i guess the grassy areas and the Martin Goodman Trail DON’T actually go from one end of Toronto to the other. Sorry I guess that was a dream I had. Reply1w Dave Gallos Craig Hanleythat wasn’t directed at you. It was directed at the individual that has no real clue as to what the waterfront is actually like. Reply1w Craig Hanley Christine MacLean WE HAVE bike trails and beautiful public promenades ALL ALONG the WATERFRONT. What are you talking about?? In the eighties it was a polluted mess. Reply1w Dave Gallos Craig Hanley gotta be right even when completely wrong it seems. Reply1w Debbie Thibault Craig Hanley they’re building a trail all the way to the Niagara escarpment or they did. I lived in the palace pier as they were building all of those condos and the first thing they built was habitats for butterflies and other wildlife, trails and bike lanes. That was the only good thing that came out of all those condos. A lot of small restaurants and shops also came up Reply1w Most Relevant is selected, so some replies may have been filtered out. Jan Harvey We used to have a distinctive skyline. Now it’s just a mess of cold glass and steel. Travelling along the Gardner is like driving through a tunnel. Reply1wEdited Laurie Levitt Jan Harvey that is my favourite drive in the city! I love the skyline. Reply1w Elaine Harley Jan Harvey Try the Gardiner. Reply1w Top fan Marianne McPolin Elaine Harley he spelt it the way we pronounce it. The slang way. Reply1w Sandy Arrowsmith Elaine Harley -Fred would not be amused! Reply1w Most Relevant is selected, so some replies may have been filtered out. Gus Mavritsakis The start of condo sprawl and accelerated immigration to create the congested jungle TO has become today. Here is my best memory of this once beautiful city! May be an image of sky and skyscraper Reply1w Warren Parkinson Nearly everything for the better. I live in the Beaches. the water is clean, and warm for swimming, lovely long sandy beaches, with artistic comfortable colored chairs to enjoy it. Property values prove my point. It's more expensive to buy, but a great windfall if you own. The whole city has improved measurable. Let's enjoy it! Reply1w Graham Steele 🤣 queue the “way better back then” choir. Take a look at this photo. An Industrial wasteland. Zoom in to where Sugar Beach is today and you will find a squat little factory. Have you looked at the plans for the Portlands? The Cherry street transform… See more Reply1w Sandra Stewart Young What hasn’t changed!?!?! Reply1w Barbara Power Everything’s changed, definitely not for the better. Now a mess of hi-rise condos and offices, chaotic mazes of construction, too much congestion whether driving or pedestrian.😞 Reply1w Josh Laing You can actually see the water without all the condos Reply1w Jim Hester Josh Laing I remember that no one ever went south of the Gardiner. Nothing g down there except parking lots. Rail lines and a few rag tag buildings. Everyone complained about the Gardiner cutting the city off from the lake. Now the waterfront is a vibrant area full of people living working working etc. Much improved. Reply1w Elm Scharfe Jim Hester I always went south of the Gardiner in those times, I rode the bike trail all the time, if you wanted to go to Centre Island you had to go south of the Gardiner, I honestly liked it better down there in the 80’s, I remember this really cool restaurant called Town and Country, it was made out of railroad cars, they had a buffet, it was so good..I remember watching the Skydome being built.. Toronto was just so much better of a city back then. Reply1w Jim Hester Carlos Monteiro everyone in bed by 9pm makes for a great city. Reply1w Bonnie Morrison Elm Scharfe Town and Country buffet was awesome. Organ Grinder and don't get me started about how The Beach (Beaches to those who never lived there) had wonderful stores and restaurants. Summer's, Bimini in the Beach, Christmas on the Beach ( I miss you Mary!). Is Scratch Daniel's still there. I was a fouth generation Beacher with my great grandmother living at 182 Lee and my grandparents, then my mom and I residing at 117 Pine Glen rd. I went to Williamson rd school, then Glen Ames then Malvern. Oh and Adam Beck North of Kingston rd. Now it looks like Detroit on Queen near the library. Businesses can't afford the rents. Even Honey Bee is gone. The Goof is still there but that's way down across from the Fox theatre. Lastly, you had "investors" flipping houses but the original home would be beautiful stonework, using rocks from the Niagara Escarpment and somebody thought it would be a good idea to put a third floor up of stucco exterior 😂. Even Ray Charles could see that looked like 💩. I have seen a house using shipping containers and I thought it looked really smart. Flat black and the lot well manicured. Nothing wrong with progess but when an entire community has built itself up since the early 1900's only to be negatively impacted by greed of store landlords, Jazz Festival gone which was a huge draw (although a little hectic for locals) and the older folks passing on and having the homes be altered and sold to newbies who just wanted to say they live in the Beach with their nannies who ignored the children they minded, gathering with the children sitting in tandem strollers, not being stimulated and their carers chatting together in a language that the children don't understand. No. I sold the house and consider myself lucky to have the memories of when the Beach WAS the place to be. Reply1w Bonnie Morrison Elm Scharfe my grade school classmate's mother was the only woman who worked construction and built the Skydome. Mrs. Dowling. Remember when they had an open "name the Dome" contest? What a great way to include Torontonians in such a marvel of engineering and construction. Good times. Reply1w Josh Laing Jim Hester I wish they has limited the co do heights down there. Now it's a concrete jungle. They should never have avowed condos so close to the water. Should have been park land Reply1w David MacLeod Carlos Monteiro do you like anybody? Reply1w Carlos Monteiro David MacLeod I'm moving overseas for retirement. Dont worry. Our paths will never cross. Best for both of us. Reply1w David MacLeod Carlos Monteiro and that’s the beauty - we can all make choices in our lives. My issue is with the incessant complaining using misinformation. Sadly social media has simply enabled people to spew misguided and uniformed opinions about anything and everything. Reply1w Top fan Lu Petto Josh Laing people who can afford to live there...my friends 2 room (a great room, bathroom...kitchen is in a closet),,,$3,000 per month. Reply1w Most Relevant is selected, so some replies may have been filtered out. Patricia Carson I don't like how toronto has grown you use to know your neighbour's and you always watched for each other now you don't feel safe in toronto you think twice before going anywhere Reply1w Mario Jorge Benevides Too much gentrification has ruined our once great city, like all the goodness has been sucked out of it ! I miss my Toronto, this version is just painful to live in 😔 Reply1w Dave Jameson Why is everyone complaining about condos, condos, condos. Before the condos arrived, this area used to be all railway land. I’d rather see people occupy this land ( although we may have overdone it) rather than the railways. With the condos came access to the harbour. By no means is this perfect, but it’s better than what we had. Reply1w Raphael Vasconcellos Yonge and Dundas. Supposed to be the nicest place in the city. And reality is one of the most scared place. Really sad for the city! Reply1w James Phieffer Some things for the better, some worse. The skyline is different, a lot more interesting. The hit to brick and mortar retailers has hurt places like Yonge Street, though. I have terrific memories of wandering along Yonge on visits to the city when I was in university in the early 90s. Reply1w Mark Holtze Less parking lots? Reply1w Dave Wynd No attitudes back then, everyone was friendly a shooting was rare. How did this happen? Reply1w Ron Williams Where's the sea of concrete and glass condos !? Once read a quote in a Toronto Star op-ed that I totally agree with . He wrote , "no city in North America had a better chance at a spectacular waterfront and done less with it . What could have been miles of parks and people friendly spaces , instead it became a sea of steel and concrete". Reply1wEdited John Aquino I think it’s earlier than 88. The Scotiatower was mostly done by 88 and Skydome was well underway Reply1w Christopher Mese Everything changed.. I loved walking young street on a Saturday night back in the 80s.. cross cut the Eaton centre onto queen and had an awesome amount of unique little shops..Sam's is gone..the big slice is gone..that dirty Mr sub across from Eaton's center gone..the head shops, the cheap electronics stores,,gone. Is it better now? ..it's certainly less "adventuris" that's for sure. Reply1w Leslie Leung So much has change, the price of progress is an overload of condos, who gave the green light? Reply1wEdited Penny Lea Lewis Was nice back then. Not so crowded Reply1w Carol Veldman My Toronto is gone. Lived there until 1980. Kept moving west. I have fond memories of my neighbourhood friends going to school. Today yes it has changed. Some good, some bad. But that is progress as it is now. Reply1w Paul Sprigg Last time I visited Toronto, it seemed to me that its decades-long wish to become as close to an American city as possible was finally fulfilled. Unfortunately, this was never a goal any Canadian city should have been aiming for, so hopefully other Canadian cities will learn from this mistake. Reply1w Mark Golding Today, Toronto is faced with the usual challenges of rapid urban development, but also compounded by its expected population growth – an extra 1 million people every 5 years to come. Years ago, Toronto was said to have the slowest commute times of any major city in North America. The City geniuses were leapt into action by reducing speed limits and downtown parking space, densification of residential areas…and traffic-jamming bike lanes and sidewalk cafes. City management is unable to reliably fix road potholes, let alone build subways on time and on budget. What will Toronto city life be like when the population reaches 10 million? Reply1w Top fan Molly Favret It’s too congested. Mississauga is becoming the same. Reply1w Kenneth Deonarine Still SkyDome to me…I could never call it “Rogers Centre” Reply1wEdited Caroline Nisbet Everything. Too much. Too quickly. Sadly Reply1w Diana Woodruff Everything has changed and it sucks now. Too many condos and shootings. Way to hard to travel around