Photo: Downtown Toronto in 1857

York Street in 1857

That's York Street, looking north from King in 1857. These days, it's a just a block east of University, in the heart of downtown, lined with skyscrapers. That little white building the bottom right-hand corner of the photo is right where the Toronto Stock Exchange is now. The columned building you can see at the end of the street, at Queen, is Osgoode Hall, which was serving as the Superior Court of Upper Canada at the time. Back in those days it had two domes, only one of which you can see in the photo, but still hadn't been given the iconic black fence that surrounds it now.

You can see a bigger copy of the photo here, which I found via the always helpful History of Crime and Punishment in Canada website.