A Toronto Album 2: More Glimpses of the City That Was

Mike Filey is well known for his weekly newspaper columns and many books about Toronto's past.It is obvious that he has access to archives that give him an inexhaustable source of photographs from the city's past.While photography became an invention of the 1860's ;don't expect to find anything in this book dating back before the 1940's,except for a couple of photos.The history of Toronto,if one were to look at it from this book,seems to be of little more than street cars,the building of the subway, a couple of disasters such Hurricane Hazel,Construction of highways and shopping malls,a couple of landmarks such as Maple Leaf Gardens,the Exhibition,the CN Tower,a bit about the city during WWII, few old gas stations,etc. Filey can hardly be faulted for not including more exciting,imaginative,or even interesting photographs,for the simple reason that Toronto has never been,nor is even today, a city that conjours up much in the way of a city with a spirit,filled with interesting events,excitement, or much of anything else that gives a city character,spirit,culture,or the things that make a city distinctive;such as one thinks of when imagining cities like St.Louis,San Francisco,New Orleans,Washington,Chicago,Montreal,Vancouver,Quebec,Calgary,New York,etc. There have been a couple of times when it appeared that the city might come out of its doldrums,such as when Ontario Place,and the CN Tower were built,but Toronto remains a city that can't even decide what to do with a natural asset like Thoroto Islands,or even its location on Lake Ontario.Actually,there was more imaginative uses of these assets a half centry ago ;but the planning and use of these resources has gone backward ,rather than forward. The reason for this has to be that the politicians,planners and developers have simply lacked the imagination and more than that,the ability,and maybe even the collective will,needed to develop a vibrant ,exciting,world class city. At the present time,Toronto is continuing to stagnate.The city is shabby,the traffic is in Gridlock,Mass transit is in a mess,nothing of any consequence has been developed,except condos and highrises,and the things that were built decades ago have fallen into disarray,such as the Ex and Ontario Place.While all this goes on,the city has been unable to attract any world class events,and the elected politicians are even overchallenged occupying themselves with bicycle racks and lanes,plastic bags,ridiculous solutions to Hot Dog vendor carts,graffiti by-laws,and on and on. And would you believe it,the city are now congratulating themselves with an inspired solution to the lack of public toilets---portable paid toilets.This is even more inspired than what they came up with to celebrate the city's Bicentinnial --A big birthday cake with candels, placed on top of the washroom structure in front of City Hall.The Mayor must have been proud to sit in his office and enjoy the view,of wathcing the tourists and people admiring that piec