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| Waiting for Subway, Eglinton |
From the old slide boxes, here are several views of a typical Canadian family visiting Toronto on a summer vacation to see family and friends. Having driven to Toronto from Montreal, we are riding the Toronto Transit Commission system in August, 1965 to reach various parts of Toronto. These slides were taken by my Dad, L.C. Gagnon, and scanned by my brother, D.J. Gagnon. These are only lightly-edited and are purposely presented in their original slide format, each one captioned with my Dad's original caption information, in order.
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| Group heading south, Yonge Street |
You'll see that being the youngest in the group, my role at 18 months on this trip was largely sitting, sleeping and eating. What did I know of Hogtown, the Queen City, the Centre of the Universe that I was experiencing? Not much. But looking back at these slides now, I marvel at my Dad's fine Instamatic (and flash-cube) photography and the transit technology and street life that was passing me by. The real Red Rockets, the real Woolworth's and fins on cars.
Enjoy the ride, and Mind the Gap of over
50 intervening years!
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| Queen Street, PCC car |
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| Humber Loop |
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| PCC cars at Shops |
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| Meeting another street car |
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| Marjorie, Eric, Allison |
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| New Toronto City Hall |
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| Queen Street East, Old City Hall, Eaton's |
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| Lunch at Woolworth's, Eric |
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| Subway cars north on Yonge Street |
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| Subway cars north on Yonge Street |
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| Subway train and platform |
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| Trolley Bus |
Running extra...
Don't you hate it when you have a nice fall foliage shot set up and a shiny, beautiful, blue, brand-new Kingston Express Novabus 1922 gets into the frame? Well, I don't:
What would a cab ride between Field and Calgary look like?
In 1972!
Wrapping my boring brown
HO scale Hanley Spur layout fascia with limestone-grey faux-wood wall stickers from Dollarama dollar store this week. Before (above) and after (below). Tastes like chicken? No, but looks like limestone!
Tastes Like Chicken is a great band-name, and they played at Raxx, hard by Mi 178 of CN's Kingston Sub along Gardiners Road last weekend. My all-time favourite band-name, posted on a utility pole near Aberdeen Street, where also last weekend 12.000 of Queen's University's closest friends clogged the street, was...The Cancer Bats!
Your dad took some very fine photos. I like the collection of PCC cars out the window, and the blur shut from inside the car. Very well done.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite band name is "Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet"; you may recall them as the ones who did the theme song for "Kids In The Hall". I saw them in concert at a bar in Fredericton "back in the day" and they had a very tight sound, very enjoyable.
In later years, I would tell him to..."Wait for it!". But my age during the TTC riding precluded any advice other than..."When is lunch??"
ReplyDeleteTight-sounding band precludes choice of group name any day!
Thanks for your comment, Steve.
Eric
A few things I remember reading about and seeing pictures of, though never having seen, my first experience of the TTC being in 1977:
ReplyDelete- G and M series subway cars. The M cars, the first 75-footers, had oval-shaped door windows vs. rectangular ones on the subsequent H classes and the T1s.
- PCC air cars.
- Nothing of the Bloor-Yonge Transferway.
- No one had yet heard of Stompin Tom. I remember about 10 years ago being on restored PCC 4500 on Harbourfront. I was sitting behind the operator, who the day before had driven a charter. When we hit a delay, a little girl behind me started crying. I started singing "TTC Skidaddler" to her and she calmed down - much to the amazement of both her parents and the operator. Oddly I was wearing rubber Nike sandals, so I couldn't do too much stompin'!
Great to hear your transit memories, Mark! The Transit Whisperer!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these!
Eric
Well now; The Toronto of 1965 is as and maybe more familiar to me than today's TDot.
ReplyDeleteThe picture of the "Queen Street" PCC car has a piece of an Eaton's bus. I recall these being small Mercesdez buses that Eaton's ran between their stores and a parking lot that entered off Bay street. I think that is the Queen and Bay intersection.
The Humber Loop picture shows the Oshawa Foods warehouse in the background and a trailer from Hostess Potato Chips is visible.
The photo marked PCC cars at shop looks to be the Roncesvalles Car Barns at Sunnyside where Queen Street met King Street and Roncesvalles Avenue. The footbridge over the CN tracks and the Gardiner Expressway would have been in place by that time.
Great photography by your Dad. Thanks for posting these.
Neat photos. And I like that limestone wrap, looks great!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite band double header was Dumpster Juice and Skinny Puppy.
Robert, thanks for the additional information on the TTC photos!
ReplyDeleteTim, I like those band names and thanks for your thoughts on the limestone wrapping.
Thanks you to both of you for your comments.
Eric