The Bay on Rideau from Above (1981)

Aerial photograph of The Bay on Rideau taken in 1981. Source: HBC Heritage.

The HBC Heritage account on Twitter is always a great source of images of HBC stores and HBC owned/acquired retailers. This aerial photograph was identified to have been taken in 1981. As someone who likes a finer-grained street grid, I still think Mosgrove should not have been closed off for the Rideau Centre and Bay renovation. 

The City of Ottawa’s Views of Elgin, 1991

In 1991, City of Ottawa planners travelled the streets of Centretown, cameras in hand, documenting the neighbourhood’s built heritage. Since I will be speaking for five minutes tonight at Heritage Ignite! about how Elgin street has inspired my love for Ottawa’s history, I figured that it would be nice to share some of those images. They were sourced from Accession 2009.0453.1 at the City of Ottawa Archives.

Bill Cadzow Views St. James Town

Shooting for his employer, the CMHC, Bill Cadzow captures a view of Toronto’s St. James Town from a building on Wellesley in July 1971. Image: CMHC 1971-528.

This shot of Toronto’s St. James Town, taken by the CMHC’s Bill Cadzow in July 1971, remains one of my favourites in what I’ve seen of the CMHC’s historic photo collection. I just wish they would digitize more of them after having done so many a few years back. A boy can dream.

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Elgin Goes From Party Palace to Golden Arches

The Ottawa Citizen was present for the conversion of the old Party Palace sign to McDonald’s, which still hangs proud today. Source: Ottawa Citizen, April 11, 1997, 20.

When I wrote about the Party Palace on Elgin Street a few years back for Ottawa Start, I remember having a hard time locating an image of its wonderful sign. One was eventually located and added to the story, but every time I find another one, I’m instantly brought back to writing that story. Above and below are two of the three I’ve since located.

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Dartmouth Shopping Centre, 195? & 2017

I think I’ll blog a little more on it later when I have more time, but this Christmas, I had the opportunity to spend time out east in Halifax. It was the first time I had been that far east, the first time I had ever seen the ocean, and the first time that Christmas travels didn’t mean heading up to Timmins. As Dartmouth (Cole Harbour, really) is her homeland, Kathleen and her family were more than happy to show me around. As always, if you take a look at my photos section, you can see some of what I was looking at.

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Queen East at Woodbine

Pushing it back another 23 years: Woodbine Avenue, looking north from Queen East (1955). Image: City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 220, Series 65, File 123, Item 4.

At the beginning of the year, I ran a then and now of Queen East and Woodbine from 1972 to the (near) present. While browsing the City of Toronto Archives’ database, I landed on this one of the same view from 1955/56.

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