Photo: Front and Church and Wellington around 1885

Agatha Barc, who writes the excellent "Nostalgia Tripping" column over on blogTO, posted this photo as part of her history of the Flatiron Building—the iconic triangle-shaped building at the intersection of Front and Church and Wellington. This is what the corner looked like in the days before the Flatiron Building was built—when the very same spot was occupied by another one of the Toronto's most iconic historical landmarks: the Coffin Block.

The Coffin Block is the three-story building in the middle of the photo. You can't tell, of course, but it was yellow. It was built in the 1830s, when the city was only a few decades old, by the same architect who designed Osgoode Hall. Back then, Front and Wellington and Church was easily one of the most important intersections in Toronto, with the harbour just a few steps to the south and the St. Lawrence Market a stone's throw away. The Coffin Block would spend 50 years at the heart of city life, home to a variety of businesses, most notably some of our earliest telegraphs companies and William Weller's stagecoach company. The stage would pull up right out front—with the Wellington Hotel conveniently located right next door—and you'd buy your tickets from the small room at the from the building (where the stripey bit is in the photo). Before you knew it you'd be in Montreal; William Weller's stagecoach held the record for the fastest trip between the two cities in the days before trains: a blistering 35 hours and 40 minutes.

The photo was taken by F.W. Micklethwaite, who was one of Toronto's most important early photographers. I'll definitely be posting more of his stuff. Just a few years after he snapped this shot, the Coffin Block was torn down so that George Gooderham, owner of the massive Gooderhan & Worts distillery, could put the Flatiron Building in its place. You can find out more about him in the post I wrote about his company, here.

You can find out more about the Coffin Block here and here. And there's a drawing of it here.

Video: Canada's First Subway Opens In 1954

The world's first subway—in London—had been running for about a hundred years before Toronto finally got ours. People had started suggesting one in the early days of the 1900s, but it took decades of lobbying, a rapidly growing population and fears that the downtown was going to be overwhelmed by cars before a referendum on the issue overwhelmingly passed in 1946. Three years later, construction started. It was, of course, a massive project: workmen spent the next six years ripping up Yonge Street pretty much all the way from Front to Eglinton. In 1954, it opened: an underground railroad that could take you from Union Station to Eglinton in just 20 minutes. To mark the occasion, the CBC produced this video, a seven-minute documentary about the new line. The sound is kind of crappy, but it's well worth  having to squint your ears a little.

The construction project also made for a lot of good photos. I'll post one of Front Street below (click to make it bigger), but there's another great one of Yonge Street near Queen here. You can also find some more, including a neat aerial shot of the trench, if you scroll down on  this article. There's a photo of the official opening ceremonies at Davisville Station here. And there's a YouTube video of one of those very first, very red subway trains rolling into Rosedale Station here.

Front Street outside Union Station, 1950