After a crazy end to last week, with the seagrave demolition and everything, I though a nice old postcard view would be good for a Monday morning.
This view from the early 1960’s shows a view of City Hall Park and a view south along City Hall Square.
Behind City Hall we can see the old, long demolished court house, and opposite that the original police headquarters, built in 1921 and demolished in 2005 can be seen as well.
Take a look at that building with the undulating roof in the foreground on the right hand side. That was the original Tourist Information Centre. Too bad that place isn’t around anymore.
Funny how as usual, most of the building you can see have been demolished….
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Also thanks to everyone who raised a ruckus about the Seagrave Building. Everyone who called the media or 311 or the Minisrty of Labour, or your councilor, or anything you did, it all really helped.
Your activism forced this issue into the media spotlight, and has forced City Hall to take some action. What will happen, I’m not sure, but keep in mind we still have an uphill battle.
Thanks!
Great pic! The tourist Information Centre must have been quite new back then. There was an old Gulf gas station on that site for years. Also, further south along old Windsor Ave (City Hall Square) where it makes the turn, I believe you can see the Dan Kane Chevrolet Dealership before it relocated to Howard Avenue.
Thanks Andrew. Interesting to see the park so young and new. Just wait for another few years when the city requests to demoish City Hall for a new one. You are correct, another butes the dust…
The new city hall is already built. It’s called the Chrysler building.
City Hall Square was cleaner then presently with all the clutter that now graces the landscape.
The old tourist bureau was a disaster in design, the structure’s short life was due to a collapsing roof. Poor engineering .
The school field trips to the old court house were no fun as it was a sauna in the summer and a freezer in the winter with the most uncomfortable benches to sit on.
I’m probably part of the minority that misses the old provincial court house. Compared to that concrete casket that replaced it, the old provincial courthouse was perfectly scaled to its’ environment and had beautiful carved-in-stone details. The courtrooms were small but comfortable. Too bad it wasn’t renovated but apparently the bigwigs down at city hall were bamboozled by a bunch of high-priced Toronto architects and decided to build that piece of crap Joint Justice Facility on Chatham Street that looks like it fell from the sky and probably costs a fortune to heat in winter and cool in the summer.