Toronto Then Now

Toronto has long been a financial powerhouse in North America, and this is represented by its many grand bank buildings. Canada's capital may be Ottawa, but the financial power emanates from this thriving city, the fourth most populous in North America.Sites include: Toronto Harbour, Fort York, Queen's Quay Lighthouse, Toronto Island Ferries, Queen's Quay Terminal, Canadian National Exhibition, Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion, Princes' Gates, Royal York Hotel, Union Station, City Hall, St. Lawrence Market, St. James Cathedral, Canadian Pacific Building, Bank of Montreal, Dineen Building, Elgin Theatre, Arts and Letters Club, Old Bank of Nova Scotia, Ryrie Building, Masonic Temple, Osgoode Hall, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Gurney Iron Works, Boer War Monument, CN Tower, Old Knox College, Victory Burlesque Theatre, Maple Leaf Gardens, University of Toronto and much more.

The history of Toronto's nightlife reveals its pulse.From award-winning veteran music journalist and DJ Denise Benson comes Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History, a fascinating, intimate look at four decades of social spaces, dance clubs, and live music venues. Through interviews, research, and enthusiastic feedback from the party people who were there, Benson delves deep behind the scenes to reveal the histories of 48 influential nightlife spaces, and the story of a city that has grown alongside its sounds.

Toronto Then And Now is published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside.

The history of the Chinese community in Toronto is rich with stories drawn from over 150 years of life in Canada. Sam Ching, a laundryman, is the first Chinese resident recorded in Toronto’s city directory of 1878. A few years later, in 1881, there were 10 Chinese and no sign of a Chinatown. Today, with no less than seven Chinatowns and half a million people, Chinese Canadians have become the second-largest visible minority in the Greater Toronto Area. Stories, photographs, newspaper reports, maps, and charts will bring to life the little-known and dark history of the Chinese community. Despite the early years of anti-Chinese laws, negative public opinion, and outright racism, the Chinese and their organizations have persevered to become an integral participant in all walks of life. The Chinese Community in Toronto shows how the Chinese make a significant contribution to the vibrant and diverse mosaic that makes Toronto one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

Mike Filey brings Toronto’s history and the stories of its people and places to life. Mike Filey’s column "The Way We Were" first appeared in the Toronto Sunday Sun not long after the first edition of the paper hit the newsstands on September 16, 1973. Now, almost four decades later, Filey’s column has enjoyed an uninterrupted stretch as one of the newspaper’s most widely read features. In 1992 a number of his columns were reprinted in Toronto Sketches: "The Way We Were." Since then another nine volumes have been published, each of which has attained great success. Included in this latest compilation are stories about the controversial, though not altogether new, improvements to the TTC’s St. Clair streetcar route, as well as accounts of such fondly remembered gasoline brands as Joy, B-A, and White Rose. Then there are those popular Great Lakes passenger ships that carried thousands to such "foreign" ports as Lewiston and Rochester in New York State. Recounting the unforgettable Toronto snowstorm of 1944 and the tragedy of the fire aboard the SS Noronic prove that not all memories are pleasant ones.

Lost Toronto is the latest in the series from Pavilion Books that traces the cherished places in a city that time, progress and fashion swept aside before the National Register of Historic Places could save them from the wrecker's ball. As well as celebrating forgotten architectural treasures, Lost Toronto looks at buildings that have changed use, vanished under a wave of new construction or been drastically transformed.Beautiful archival photographs and informative text allows the reader to take a nostalgic journey back in time to visit some of the lost treasures that the city let slip through its grasp. Organised chronologically, starting with the earliest losses and ending with the latest, the book features much-loved Toronto institutions that have been consigned to history. Losses include: King’s College, Holland House, Hotel Hanlan, St. Patrick’s Market, The Grand Opera House, Metropolitan Methodist Church, Old Union Station, St. Andrew’s Market, Yonge Street Arcade, Sunnyside Beach Amusement Park, Shea’s Hippodrome, S. S. Cayuga, High Park Mineral Baths, Tivoli Theatre, Riverdale Zoo, Odeon Carlton, Cyclorama on Front Street, Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade, Colonial Tavern, Sam the Record Man, The World’s Biggest Book Store.