Historical Toronto

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Milk delivery, 1953

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Sunnyside Beach, 1913

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Toronto Children, 1912

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Maple Leads Parade, Bay St., 1967

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Flat iron building, 1889

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High Park & Bloor, 1914

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Yonge & Front, 1945

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University Avenue, 1888

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End of war celebrations, May 6, 1945, Toronto

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Yonge & King, 1910

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Casa Loma, 1930

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Stunt man Dar Robin jumps from the CN Tower, 1980

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The Queen & Prince Phillip on Bay St., 1959

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Toronto - The Great Fire of 1904

At 8 PM on April 19th, 1904, a massive fire tore through downtown Toronto. The fire began at Bay & Wellington and burned for 9 hours with ruins continuing to smolder for over two weeks. A total of 104 buildings were destroyed in the disaster.

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King St. East ca. 1856 - Toronto

One of the earliest known photos of the city.

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Christie Pits (Willowvale Park) - 1914

The sign reads

WARNING

PERSONS DISTURBING THE TURF IN THIS PARK IN SEARCH OF MUSHROOMS WILL BE PERSECUTED

~ commissioner of parks

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Baseball Games at Christie Pits (then known as Willovale Park), 1922

On the evening of August 16th, 1933, over 10,000 Toronto residents rioted for 6 hours in Christie Pits park. The event followed a baseball game in which a local Nazi group displayed swastikas in the crowd.

The Toronto Daily Star described the event the next day:

"While groups of Jewish and Gentile youths wielded fists and clubs in a series of violent scraps for possession of a white flag bearing a swastika symbol at Willowvale Park last night, a crowd of more than 10,000 citizens, excited by cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ became suddenly a disorderly mob and surged wildly about the park and surrounding streets, trying to gain a view of the actual combatants, which soon developed in violence and intensity of racial feeling into one of the worst free-for-alls ever seen in the city.

Scores were injured, many requiring medical and hospital attention... Heads were opened, eyes blackened and bodies thumped and battered as literally dozens of persons, young or old, many of them non-combatant spectators, were injured more or less seriously by a variety of ugly weapons in the hands of wild-eyed and irresponsible young hoodlums, both Jewish and Gentile".