Coca-Cola on Queen Street West in 1937

It's the spring of 1937 and we're on Queen Street West. We're on north side of the street, looking east toward University Avenue. It's just a block away. Today, this very same spot is home to the big glass wall of One Eighty Queen Street West — a fifteen story building with a bunch of commercial tenants. Next door is one of Toronto's Historic Sites: Campbell House (that old building on the northwest corner of Queen & University). It was built in 1822, but it wasn't on Queen Street back when this photo was taken. They moved it to the current location in 1972.

By this point, of course, Coca-Cola was already an iconic brand. Coke had just celebrated its 50th anniversary. The first bottles of the world's most famous pop were sold in the 1880s. By the 1930s, it was a massive business with lots of advertising. So, while I'm at it, here are a few American ads from this very same year this photo was taken:

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I discovered the photo of Queen Street thanks to the Toronto Archives Flickr page. You can check it out here.

Dundas East Before It Was Dundas East

Dundas is one of the weirdest streets in Toronto. And one of the oldest, too. The guy who founded our city, John Graves Simcoe, ordered it built all the way back in the 1790s. It heads west from Toronto for a couple hundred kilometers — and it also, of course, winds its way through the middle of our city in complete defiance of our grid system.

Part of the reason Dundas doesn't follow the same layout as most of the major thoroughfares in Toronto is because it didn't actually start out as one street at all. The original Dundas — built by Simcoe so troops could move through the province quickly in case of an American invasion — only reached as far east as what's now the intersection of Queen & Ossington. That spot was near the military reserve that once surrounded Fort York. It wasn't until after the First World War that Dundas was extended through Toronto by cobbling together a bunch of smaller streets.

One of those smaller streets was Wilton Avenue. It ran east from Yonge (beginning at the southern end of what's now Yonge & Dundas Square) all the way east to the Don Valley and across it to a spot just beyond Broadview. That's Wilton in the photo above, getting a facelift in the spring of 1912. That spot is just west of Sumach Street — it's completely unrecognizable today, in the middle of Regent Park.

A few blocks to the west of there, between Jarvis and Sherbourne, Wilton took a gentle curve. It was called Wilton Crescent for that bit. And you can still see the curve on Dundas today. It's where Fillmore's Tavern is.

Here it is getting new streetcar tracks in June of 1911:

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Sean Marshall tells a more complete history of Dundas on Spacing here. And Chris Bateman does the same for blogTO over here. You can see what the curve on Dundas looks like today on Google Maps here.

I used one of the city workers in the photo at the top of this post as part of the design in my dream postcard for the artist Kathleen Munn. You can check that out here.

UK Tour Update: It's Really Happening!

Well, the flights are booked and the dates are all lined up, so I guess I can finally announce that The Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour is actually, really, truly happening. Next month, I'll be heading across the Atlantic to leave dreams at Toronto-related historical sites in England and Wales. I'll be there for two weeks: from July 4-19. And while I'm there, I'll leave more than a dozen different dreams at dozens of sites in a dozen different cities, towns and villages.

London, Windsor, Cardiff, Penarth, Whitchurch, Thornbury, Exeter, Budleigh Salterton, Hontion, Buckerell, Dunkeswell, Hemyock... I'll trace stories of Toronto's past from the urban frenzy of Europe's biggest city, to the lush green valleys of South Wales, to the towering cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, to the rolling Blackdown Hills of Devonshire.

As I do, you'll be able to follow along here where I'll be sharing the stories of how the history of our city is tied to the history to those places. From the Englishman who almost became the first President of Canada, to the founder of Toronto facing off against Napoleon, to the Antarctic explorers who nearly froze to death on an infamous expedition to the South Pole.

I'll also be doing lots of tweeting (so be sure to follow me @TODreamsProject) and posting tons of photos to Instagram (also @TODreamsProject) and uploading stuff to my Facebook page, too.

But most importantly! I want to thank everyone who made this possible by contributing to my Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign — and to those who shared it on Facebook and Twitter. This absolutely wouldn't be happening without your support. THANK YOU! And for those of you who picked a perk, I'm hoping to mail them out from across the pond — if not, you can expect them shortly after my return.

Shit You Should See At Doors Open 2014

This weekend is Doors Open weekend in Toronto. More than 150 sites across the city will be welcoming visitors into the some of the most interesting, beautiful and historic buildings that Toronto has to offer. And since there's no way one person can manage to catch all of the cool stuff, I thought I'd share five of my own picks for the some of the most amazing places you might want to check out.

If you'd like more information, you can visit the Doors Open website here. Jamie Bradburn also has a great list of some locations that are new to the event up on Torontoist here. And Derek Flack has his own picks for blogTO here.

I also expect to be out and about at some point this weekend, armed with some of my Toronto Dreams Project dreams, leaving them in historic spots around the city — including some that are part of Doors Open. You can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram (@TODreamsProject) to find out when and where I do.

THE GIBRALTAR POINT LIGHTHOUSE

It's the oldest lighthouse on the Great Lakes, originally built all the way back in 1808, when Toronto was just a few years old. So it has been standing out there on the island for more than 200 years. And the history of the building is particularly interesting, including the mysterious disappearance of the first lightkeeper, John Paul Radelmüller, who served as a porter to Prince Edward (the father of Queen Victoria and the guy PEI is named after) before he settled in York. They say he still haunts the lighthouse today, which fits with this year's Doors Open theme: Secrets and Spirits. Getting the chance to go inside is a rare privilege, so, while you'll have to make the trek out to the island and may have to line up when you get there, it should be well worth the trip. 

Oh, and I'm hoping to pop by with a copy or two of my dream for the lightkeeper's daughter, so that's a reason to visit, too.

THE STEREOSCOPIC PHOTO EXHIBIT

Seriously, how fucking cool is it that there are super-old 3D photos of Toronto? Thanks to the stereoscopic technique, all you need to do is cross your eyes and these archival pics of our city spring to life. And as part of the Contact Photography Festival, there's already an exhibition of them on display at Campbell House — that historic old building at Queen & University — which will also be welcoming visitors as part of Doors Open. It's bound to be one of the highlights of the weekend. And to give you a taste of just how neat it is, you can click on the photos to the left to make them bigger and give them a try. Just cross your eyes like you're looking at a Magic Eye. (Though it might be a bit easier if you then zoom out a little.)

ST. JAMES CATHEDRAL

As far as I'm concerned, St. James Cathedral should be a WAY bigger deal than it is. Not only is it one of the most spectacular buildings in Toronto, it's also one of the most important buildings in the entire history of Canada. The story of St. James stretches all the way back to a small wooden church built at what's now the corner of Church & King in the very early 1800s — and over the course of that century, it played a central role in the battle for democracy in Canada. This was the main church for most our city's leaders, including the preacher John Strachan, who was our city's first Anglican bishop, nemesis of William Lyon Mackenzie and a figurehead of the infamously anti-democratic Family Compact. Strachan is still there today, buried under the chancel. (I wrote the full story for Torontoist a while back; you can check it out here.) And while this probably won't be your last chance to visit the building — the cathedral has long been a Doors Open staple — it's always a good idea to seize the opportunity to venture inside one of the most underrated historic sites in Toronto.

THE NECROPOLIS

The Necropolis Cemetery in Cabbagetown is open (and free of charge, of course) all year round. But it's not easy finding all the coolest graves among the endless rows of headstones. So you might want to visit during this year's Doors Open, when they'll be offering free tours of the cemetery. This is where our rebel mayor William Lyon Mackenzie is buried. It's also home to the bones of Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount, martyrs of Mackenzie's rebellion. Then there's Thornton Blackburn, the escaped slave from Kentucky who established Toronto's first horse-drawn cab company and helped to bring more former slaves to Toronto on the Underground Railroad. He's resting near George Brown, founder of the Globe newspaper and Father of Confederation. And there's also Willam Petyon Hubbard, our city's first Black alderman, who once saved Brown from drowning in the Don River. The Necropolis is easily one of the most fascinating (and beautiful) cemeteries in our city. And since I've got dreams to leave at pretty much all of those graves, I'll probably be stopping by at some point this weekend to leave some postcards there. (Again, you can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at @TODreamsProject to find out when and where I do.)

THE HIGH LEVEL WATER PUMPING STATION

Here's a new addition to the Doors Open roster. You'll find the High Level Pumping Station just a bit north-east of Davenport and Spadina. It's not far from some of the other Doors Open sites like the Toronto Archives and Spadina House. And like the much more famous R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant out in the east end, it takes Toronto's water infrastructure and transforms it into something beautiful. The old building also played a role in one of the most delightful episodes in the history of our city. Back in the 1960s, the residents of the surrounding neighbourhood declared independence from the rest of Canada. As the story goes, they wrote a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, elected a Queen, issued their own passports and sent an "air farce" of children holding a thousand helium balloons to surround the Pumping Station until their demands were met. To this day, the neighbourhood is known as the Republic of Rathnelly. They've even got their own custom street signs featuring their national crest.

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All photos by me, except, of course, for the stereoscopic ones.

Toronto's Second Union Station

When the first Union Station was built in 1858, there were about 40,000 people living in Toronto. By 1911, that many people were using the station every single day. By then we'd had to build a second, bigger Union Station. That's the one in the photo above, pictured here in 1873. It opened on Canada Day of that year, on the land just to the west of the current station (between York and Simcoe). As Wikipedia points out, "The main entrance and façade faced the harbour rather than the city, underscoring the continued importance of boat travel on Lake Ontario." For 50 years, as the population of our metropolis boomed, it was one of the main points of arrival for new Torontonians. One of the exits was a bridge out of the station at the corner of Front & Simcoe. It became known as the Bridge of Sighs. One of Toronto's most important early photographers, William James, took many shots of new immigrants as they arrived. Kevin Plummer wrote about it for Torontoist here.

By the early 1900s, it was already clear that Toronto would need to build an even bigger train station. When the Great Fire of 1904 destroyed many of the neighbouring buildings, the Grand Trunk Railroad seize the opportunity to grab the land. Construction of a new building was delayed by the First World War — as well as the usual arguments — but the third Union Station finally opened in 1927. It's the one we're still using now. And in 2014, more than a quarter of a million people use it every day. 

Glenn Gould's Groundbreaking Soviet Tour

It's Canadian Music Week this week (you can read all my show reviews over at The Little Red Umbrella), which seems like a particularly good time to share my column for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. And it just so happens that this week I told a big, Toronto-related story: Glenn Gould's groundbreaking tour of the Soviet Union, which kicked off during this week in 1957. It was the very first time a musician from North America had played in the USSR since the end of the Second World War — an extremely important moment not just in the history of Toronto, but in the history of Russia as well.

You can read all about it in my column for the Hall of Fame here.

You can also follow the Canadian Music Hall of Fame on Twitter and like it on Facebook to make sure you catch my future columns. 

The Toronto Historical Jukebox: "Honkin' At Midnight" by Frank Motley & His Motley Crew

MP3: "Honkin' At Midnight" by Frank Motley & His Motley Crew

1960s R&B from the Yonge Street strip

Frank Motley started off his career in the United States, learning to play the trumpet from jazz legend Dizzie Gillespie. And not only that: soon, he could play two trumpets at the same time. In the late 1950s, he headed north to Toronto, where he made a name for himself playing bluesy jazz and swinging R&B in downtown clubs like the Zanzibar and the Sapphire Tavern. That made him one of the pioneers of our city's very earliest rock scene, which would soon be shaking the Yonge Street strip to its foundations, earning Toronto a reputation as the hardest rocking city of its time.

"Honkin' At Midnight" may very well be Motley's greatest track, but it's far from his only memorable tune. His version of "Hound Dog" is at least as good as the version Elvis recorded — maybe even better. And when his next band — The Hitchhikers — backed singer and drag queen Jackie Shane at the Sapphire, the result was one of the best live albums Toronto has ever produced.

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This is a recent post from my Toronto Historical Jukebox blog. You can check out the rest of the songs I've written about here — or any time by clicking the Jukebox tab on the menu at the top of this blog.