Toronto celebrates its 175th birthday on March 6, and leading up to the big event
CityNews.ca will be posting stories, photos, and video about this city, past and present.
What Toronto landmark was almost turned into an old soldier's home? What was strange about the origins of the Santa Claus Parade? What medical breakthrough celebrated around the world took place at the U. of T. and was first tested on a 14-year-old boy? What was the first ticket ever sold at Union Station and who bought it? And who originally owned the land where Maple Leaf Gardens now stands?
The answers and more are featured in part two of our Toronto Timeline, spotlighting the city in the new century.
1900: The industrial revolution is underway and Toronto is in the centre of the action, as the city becomes a major commerce and business town. Population is now well over 200,000.
April 19, 1904: The Second Great Toronto Fire
Some 55 years after most of the city was destroyed by fire, the downtown core was ravaged again, ironically in the same month as its devastating predecessor. And this time, there are pictures and even some limited video to show the aftermath.
Front and Bay After The Fire,
Series 376, s0376, fl0004, it0057, fonds 200, series 376
Officials were never able to figure out what sparked the flames at the E.S. Currie Building on the north side of Wellington St. near Bay. But by the time a passing cop on patrol noticed the conflagration around 8pm that night,
it was already out of control.
By 9pm, it had spread and a call went out to other cities like Buffalo and Hamilton for help. While crews eventually managed to contain it to the north, they weren't quite as proficient at stopping it from going in other directions.
It engulfed Front St., the Esplanade, Bay and Melinda Sts. before jumping its way to Yonge St. where exhausted crews finally got the upper hand. By 4:30am, it was finally under control, but a large part of the downtown core had been lost.
Aftermath of the fire, Series 376, s0376, fl0004, it0500, fonds 200, Series 376
In all, 104 buildings were gone, at a cost of $10 million, a huge sum today but a staggering figure in 1904. It remains the single biggest inferno in Toronto history.
See more pictures here
Toronto fire slide show
Some limited video of the fire survives.
See it here.
December 2, 1905: We Love A Parade
Who would ever have thought that something so huge could grow out of this? It's the start of the big Christmas holiday merchandising season and Eaton's is looking for a gimmick to set it apart from its competitors. The solution: get Santa Claus to arrive at Union Station and walk with the celebrated first family of retail to their store at Yonge and Queen St.
The very first Santa in 1905
For some reason, this silly simple stroll caught on and got the company the publicity it was looking for. From then on, it got more and more elaborate, adding a horse drawn carriage, footmen and trumpeters. These were the roots of the Santa Claus parade, an annual tradition in Toronto that has been going non-stop for more than a hundred years.
See more history and film clips of the early parades here.
March 19, 1914: The city grows in stature as a cultural Mecca in Canada, with the opening of the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto's first cultural phenomenon was two years in the making. It's now become a part of the very history it chronicles so well.
Find more about the museum's origins
1914: The Story Of That House On The Hill
The ROM wasn't the only new wonder of the world to make its debut in T.O. that year. Another one was also filled with art and treasures and it took millions of dollars and three years to build. But it wasn't open to the public and was meant to be a man's dream home, a magnificent tribute to his own success - and, as it would soon turn out, excess.
It started when Sir Henry Pellatt discovered that there was money to be made from Thomas Edison's harnessing of electricity. He made a fortune as part of the very first local electricity company in the city called the Toronto Electric Light Company. A further investment in the expanding railroads and other ventures made him a very wealthy man.
And with wealth came a huge ego. He spent $3.5 million building his dream home on a hill, a magnificent mansion unlike anything ever seen in this country. He furnished it with valuable art works and the most expensive furniture, giving lavish balls and charitable events.
But Pellatt wasn't watching where his business was going and he soon fell into deep debt. When politicians took away his electricity monopoly and made it public, he had nothing to replace the lost money. With WWI creating more problems and a tax bill he couldn't pay, Pellatt was forced to sell his monument to himself, moving to a farm in King Township in 1924.
He'd been in his beloved castle less than a decade.
Attempts to turn the structure into a hotel and a nightclub met with mixed success and the home on the hill no one could afford or quite knew what to do with languished until 1933.
Realizing the gem it had on its hands, the City of Toronto acquired the legendary structure for just over $27,000 in back taxes. But the problem remained: what should be done with it? It might have been a high school, an art gallery, an old soldier's home or even - at the height of the hysteria over their birth - a home for the celebrated Dionne Quintuplets.
In the end, though, it became what it is today, a tourist attraction unrivaled by any of other building in the country. In 1937, Casa Loma was leased to the Kiwanis Club which runs it to this day. Thousands of tourists still flock to the one-of-a-kind palace, a testament to one man's dream that turned into a heartbreaking nightmare but a legacy for the city where he constructed it.
Take a video tour here
Dec. 19, 1917: The First Leafs To Fall
They called themselves the Toronto Arenas, the city's entry into a newly formed entity known as The National Hockey League. The NHL began because of a dispute with the owner of the Toronto team in the previous league called the National Hockey Association.
The Blueshirts, as the locals were known, were left to fend for themselves, and the four existing teams - two from Montreal, one from Quebec and another from Ottawa, joined together to form the NHL in 1917. But they needed a Toronto franchise, so the new owner of the Arena Gardens was given the honour.
And that's how the Toronto Arenas were born. There's a fitting irony in the fact that the first game they ever played was against a Montreal team known as the Wanderers - and that they lost 10-9 in front of a less than stellar crowd of 700 fans.
But it was the first spark in a rivalry with that city that still burns here to this day.
That Montreal team wasn't around long. They were forced to fold when their rink burned down just six games into that first season. And with the Quebec arm not operating until 1920, that left just three teams in what was a pretty shaky league - the new Toronto franchise, the Montreal Canadiens, and a version of our other recently resurrected latter day arch-rivals, the Ottawa Senators.
Still, the Arenas managed to win the Stanley Cup that year, beating the Pacific Coast League team from Vancouver in five games. Despite their victory, a lack of money forced Toronto to disband and they were replaced by the St. Pat's. They defeated the same Vancouver squad in the 1921-22 season to again win the coveted trophy.
And then in 1927, Conn Smythe, who helped build the New York Rangers, was dismissed by his old franchise and went looking for another one to run.
He found it in Toronto, buying the St. Pat's - who were considering a move to Philadelphia - and keeping them in the city. He renamed them the Maple Leafs and changed their uniform colours from green and white to the now legendary Blue and White.
And a tradition was born that, no matter their futility in recent years, continues to this day. Even with all the competition from other sports, the Leafs remain the number one franchise in the city, and for better or worse (and too often, for worse) will forever remain Toronto's team.
Find out how Smythe built his dynasty thanks to a wager at Woodbine
1921: The Toronto Transportation Commission is created when the 30-year franchise given to a private predecessor expires. Before the TTC, both private companies and city owned entities operated streetcars downtown. But this was the first real public transit scheme, combining nine different fare systems within city limits.
The TTC would not have full control over all the city's bus routes until 1954, the same year the entity got a new name. The Toronto Transit Commission came into being on January 1, 1954 - coincidentally, the year the city's first subway system opened.
May 1921: Banting At His Best
While at the University of Toronto, Dr. Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best do research about a killer disease for which there is no cure. It's diabetes and it's taking countless lives both young and old. The two men spent the entire summer isolating insulin and first tested it on dogs, to great results.
Their discovery was then used on 14-year-old Leonard Thompson, who was weak and dying from the illness at Toronto General Hospital. Their theory turned into a reality when the youngster got better and Banting was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1923. He was furious that Best wasn't recognized in the announcement, but history has since corrected the oversight.
Banting died in a plane crash in 1942 en route to a mission during World War II. But thousands of people owe their lives to the work that started and ended at the U. of T.
See the insulin discovery timeline here
1922: The day the music lived. The
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, then known simply as the "New Symphony Orchestra" plays for the first time. Its inaugural performance comes, appropriately enough, at Massey Hall, the first real "concert" venue in the city's history.
January 1927: It was called 9RB and few people actually heard it when it originally signed on. It was the first radio station in Toronto, occupying a frequency of 1030 on the AM dial, and designed as a promotional gimmick to sell Ted Rogers Sr.'s new fangled batteryless radio. The eventually assigned call letters, CFRB, still stand for Canada's First Rogers Batteryless.
When the Rogers family eventually lost the battle to own the station, it spurred his son to start his own company and the Rogers empire, built by that namesake offspring, was born.
August 6, 1927: It's about to undergo another massive reconstruction, but back in the late 20s, it was brand new and would come to be so associated with downtown Toronto, that it doesn't even need an address. It's Union Station and it opened to the kind of fanfare rarely seen for a train terminal.
Among the guests there that day: The Prince of Wales, the British and Canadian Prime Ministers, and the Premier of the province. According to one report, the Prince got the first ticket ever issued at the hub, a $71 pass to Alberta. There's no word if he ever actually made the trip.
Five days later, the place opened to the public and they've been using it ever since.
Nov. 12, 1931: The Carlton St. Cashbox Opens
It hadn't been that long since the Toronto St. Pats morphed into the Maple Leafs. Clearly, the owners were on to something profitable. Now they need a good place to play that the team could call its own. Enter Maple Leaf Gardens, a storied building near College and Yonge which would become to many the hallowed hall of hockey in the world.
The land itself was purchased by Leafs managing director Conn Smythe from Eaton's for $1.5 million, a lot of money back then but still said to be below the real value. In an unprecedented rush to get it done, the entire place was built from start to finish in an astonishing five months and two weeks.
It opened on a November night at the height of the Depression with a game against the Black Hawks. The price of admission for the best seats: $2.75, spare change today but pretty pricey back then. The Leafs lost their first game 2-1 in their new home - some things never change - but the legacy they set there won't fade for generations.
They wound up winning 11 Stanley Cups in that building, including one in the first year and their most recent - if you can call 1967 recent.
But the Gardens would become known for so much more than just hockey. It was the main place for concerts, shows, and even political conventions, and famously hosted both Elvis and the Beatles.
Other sports events called the place home, too, including weekly wrestling bouts and the famous George Chuvalo-Muhammad Ali fight in on March 29, 1966.
And of course, there was the yearly visit of the ubiquitous Ice Capades (below.)
MLG Ice Show Feb. 1, 1946,
Fonds 1257, Series 1057
While the facility was once state of the art, that state began to decay and with uncomfortable seats, disgusting washroom conditions and no air conditioning, MLG turned into an anachronism by the 1990s, leading to the eventual construction of the Air Canada Centre.
On February 13, 1999, the Leafs played their final game in the Gardens - fittingly against the Chicago Black Hawks, the first team they ever faced there. They lost that game, too, by a score of 6-2.
There is still a lot of rancor about what will happen to this cherished hall of memories. It was purchased by Loblaws and was supposed to be made into a hockey-themed grocery store. But endless delays, wrangling and the economic downturn have left it a ghost on Carlton St., unused and mostly closed to the public for more than a decade.
1945: The seeds of the city's famed multicultural status are sown. World War II ends with a huge influx of immigrants that would change the ethnic make up of T.O. from hugely Protestant and British to a little bit of everything. It remains that way to this day, and to most, it's an incredible symbol of pride that so many who are so different can get along so well.
May 13, 1948: TV Hits T.O.
The CRTC would hate the fact that the very first TV station to attract attention in these parts wasn't from Canada. When Channel 4 in Buffalo became one of the first outlets on the new fangled - and still expensive - magic box to go on the air, few in Toronto were watching. But as word spread about the free entertainment available, a new sight sprang up in the city: the TV antenna, all aimed at our southern neighbour.
By the time Toronto got its first TV station - the CBC in September 1952 - TV was well established here and the number of stations would grow, giving viewers in this part of the world the best of both countries and changing the shape of entertainment in the city.
1952: The very first TTC strike lasts 19 days. Sadly, it would not be the last.
March 30, 1954: The First Toronto Subway Opens
It wasn't really very long and if you didn't live near Yonge St., it took a long time to get there. But Toronto moved into the modern age with the opening of its first subway line, which only ran from Eglinton to Union.
The hype surrounding the unveiling of the underground railway had been building since construction started in 1949. But its roots really stretch back to WWII, when gas rationing forced thousands to use the system to get anywhere. The profits generated help fund the subway that would come later.
Subway sign,
Fonds 1128; Strathy Smith fonds, Series 381
By opening day five years later, thousands came out to see the official ceremonies and take a ride on Toronto's new wonder. The cost of that journey: just 10 cents for adult and seniors and half that amount for children.
The truncated route would go back and forth until the last day of February in 1963, when the University line was finally added.
See more pictures from Toronto's first subway opening here
Toronto celebrates its 175th birthday on March 6, and leading up to the big event
CityNews.ca will be posting stories, photos, and video about this city, past and present.
What Toronto landmark was almost turned into an old soldier's home? What was strange about the origins of the Santa Claus Parade? What medical breakthrough celebrated around the world took place at the U. of T. and was first tested on a 14-year-old boy? What was the first ticket ever sold at Union Station and who bought it? And who originally owned the land where Maple Leaf Gardens now stands?
The answers and more are featured in part two of our Toronto Timeline, spotlighting the city in the new century.
1900: The industrial revolution is underway and Toronto is in the centre of the action, as the city becomes a major commerce and business town. Population is now well over 200,000.
April 19, 1904: The Second Great Toronto Fire
Some 55 years after most of the city was destroyed by fire, the downtown core was ravaged again, ironically in the same month as its devastating predecessor. And this time, there are pictures and even some limited video to show the aftermath.
Front and Bay After The Fire,
Series 376, s0376, fl0004, it0057, fonds 200, series 376
Officials were never able to figure out what sparked the flames at the E.S. Currie Building on the north side of Wellington St. near Bay. But by the time a passing cop on patrol noticed the conflagration around 8pm that night,
it was already out of control.
By 9pm, it had spread and a call went out to other cities like Buffalo and Hamilton for help. While crews eventually managed to contain it to the north, they weren't quite as proficient at stopping it from going in other directions.
It engulfed Front St., the Esplanade, Bay and Melinda Sts. before jumping its way to Yonge St. where exhausted crews finally got the upper hand. By 4:30am, it was finally under control, but a large part of the downtown core had been lost.
Aftermath of the fire, Series 376, s0376, fl0004, it0500, fonds 200, Series 376
In all, 104 buildings were gone, at a cost of $10 million, a huge sum today but a staggering figure in 1904. It remains the single biggest inferno in Toronto history.
See more pictures here
Toronto fire slide show
Some limited video of the fire survives.
See it here.
December 2, 1905: We Love A Parade
Who would ever have thought that something so huge could grow out of this? It's the start of the big Christmas holiday merchandising season and Eaton's is looking for a gimmick to set it apart from its competitors. The solution: get Santa Claus to arrive at Union Station and walk with the celebrated first family of retail to their store at Yonge and Queen St.
The very first Santa in 1905
For some reason, this silly simple stroll caught on and got the company the publicity it was looking for. From then on, it got more and more elaborate, adding a horse drawn carriage, footmen and trumpeters. These were the roots of the Santa Claus parade, an annual tradition in Toronto that has been going non-stop for more than a hundred years.
See more history and film clips of the early parades here.
March 19, 1914: The city grows in stature as a cultural Mecca in Canada, with the opening of the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto's first cultural phenomenon was two years in the making. It's now become a part of the very history it chronicles so well.
Find more about the museum's origins
1914: The Story Of That House On The Hill
The ROM wasn't the only new wonder of the world to make its debut in T.O. that year. Another one was also filled with art and treasures and it took millions of dollars and three years to build. But it wasn't open to the public and was meant to be a man's dream home, a magnificent tribute to his own success - and, as it would soon turn out, excess.
It started when Sir Henry Pellatt discovered that there was money to be made from Thomas Edison's harnessing of electricity. He made a fortune as part of the very first local electricity company in the city called the Toronto Electric Light Company. A further investment in the expanding railroads and other ventures made him a very wealthy man.
And with wealth came a huge ego. He spent $3.5 million building his dream home on a hill, a magnificent mansion unlike anything ever seen in this country. He furnished it with valuable art works and the most expensive furniture, giving lavish balls and charitable events.
But Pellatt wasn't watching where his business was going and he soon fell into deep debt. When politicians took away his electricity monopoly and made it public, he had nothing to replace the lost money. With WWI creating more problems and a tax bill he couldn't pay, Pellatt was forced to sell his monument to himself, moving to a farm in King Township in 1924.
He'd been in his beloved castle less than a decade.
Attempts to turn the structure into a hotel and a nightclub met with mixed success and the home on the hill no one could afford or quite knew what to do with languished until 1933.
Realizing the gem it had on its hands, the City of Toronto acquired the legendary structure for just over $27,000 in back taxes. But the problem remained: what should be done with it? It might have been a high school, an art gallery, an old soldier's home or even - at the height of the hysteria over their birth - a home for the celebrated Dionne Quintuplets.
In the end, though, it became what it is today, a tourist attraction unrivaled by any of other building in the country. In 1937, Casa Loma was leased to the Kiwanis Club which runs it to this day. Thousands of tourists still flock to the one-of-a-kind palace, a testament to one man's dream that turned into a heartbreaking nightmare but a legacy for the city where he constructed it.
Take a video tour here
Dec. 19, 1917: The First Leafs To Fall
They called themselves the Toronto Arenas, the city's entry into a newly formed entity known as The National Hockey League. The NHL began because of a dispute with the owner of the Toronto team in the previous league called the National Hockey Association.
The Blueshirts, as the locals were known, were left to fend for themselves, and the four existing teams - two from Montreal, one from Quebec and another from Ottawa, joined together to form the NHL in 1917. But they needed a Toronto franchise, so the new owner of the Arena Gardens was given the honour.
And that's how the Toronto Arenas were born. There's a fitting irony in the fact that the first game they ever played was against a Montreal team known as the Wanderers - and that they lost 10-9 in front of a less than stellar crowd of 700 fans.
But it was the first spark in a rivalry with that city that still burns here to this day.
That Montreal team wasn't around long. They were forced to fold when their rink burned down just six games into that first season. And with the Quebec arm not operating until 1920, that left just three teams in what was a pretty shaky league - the new Toronto franchise, the Montreal Canadiens, and a version of our other recently resurrected latter day arch-rivals, the Ottawa Senators.
Still, the Arenas managed to win the Stanley Cup that year, beating the Pacific Coast League team from Vancouver in five games. Despite their victory, a lack of money forced Toronto to disband and they were replaced by the St. Pat's. They defeated the same Vancouver squad in the 1921-22 season to again win the coveted trophy.
And then in 1927, Conn Smythe, who helped build the New York Rangers, was dismissed by his old franchise and went looking for another one to run.
He found it in Toronto, buying the St. Pat's - who were considering a move to Philadelphia - and keeping them in the city. He renamed them the Maple Leafs and changed their uniform colours from green and white to the now legendary Blue and White.
And a tradition was born that, no matter their futility in recent years, continues to this day. Even with all the competition from other sports, the Leafs remain the number one franchise in the city, and for better or worse (and too often, for worse) will forever remain Toronto's team.
Find out how Smythe built his dynasty thanks to a wager at Woodbine
1921: The Toronto Transportation Commission is created when the 30-year franchise given to a private predecessor expires. Before the TTC, both private companies and city owned entities operated streetcars downtown. But this was the first real public transit scheme, combining nine different fare systems within city limits.
The TTC would not have full control over all the city's bus routes until 1954, the same year the entity got a new name. The Toronto Transit Commission came into being on January 1, 1954 - coincidentally, the year the city's first subway system opened.
May 1921: Banting At His Best
While at the University of Toronto, Dr. Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best do research about a killer disease for which there is no cure. It's diabetes and it's taking countless lives both young and old. The two men spent the entire summer isolating insulin and first tested it on dogs, to great results.
Their discovery was then used on 14-year-old Leonard Thompson, who was weak and dying from the illness at Toronto General Hospital. Their theory turned into a reality when the youngster got better and Banting was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1923. He was furious that Best wasn't recognized in the announcement, but history has since corrected the oversight.
Banting died in a plane crash in 1942 en route to a mission during World War II. But thousands of people owe their lives to the work that started and ended at the U. of T.
See the insulin discovery timeline here
1922: The day the music lived. The
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, then known simply as the "New Symphony Orchestra" plays for the first time. Its inaugural performance comes, appropriately enough, at Massey Hall, the first real "concert" venue in the city's history.
January 1927: It was called 9RB and few people actually heard it when it originally signed on. It was the first radio station in Toronto, occupying a frequency of 1030 on the AM dial, and designed as a promotional gimmick to sell Ted Rogers Sr.'s new fangled batteryless radio. The eventually assigned call letters, CFRB, still stand for Canada's First Rogers Batteryless.
When the Rogers family eventually lost the battle to own the station, it spurred his son to start his own company and the Rogers empire, built by that namesake offspring, was born.
August 6, 1927: It's about to undergo another massive reconstruction, but back in the late 20s, it was brand new and would come to be so associated with downtown Toronto, that it doesn't even need an address. It's Union Station and it opened to the kind of fanfare rarely seen for a train terminal.
Among the guests there that day: The Prince of Wales, the British and Canadian Prime Ministers, and the Premier of the province. According to one report, the Prince got the first ticket ever issued at the hub, a $71 pass to Alberta. There's no word if he ever actually made the trip.
Five days later, the place opened to the public and they've been using it ever since.
Nov. 12, 1931: The Carlton St. Cashbox Opens
It hadn't been that long since the Toronto St. Pats morphed into the Maple Leafs. Clearly, the owners were on to something profitable. Now they need a good place to play that the team could call its own. Enter Maple Leaf Gardens, a storied building near College and Yonge which would become to many the hallowed hall of hockey in the world.
The land itself was purchased by Leafs managing director Conn Smythe from Eaton's for $1.5 million, a lot of money back then but still said to be below the real value. In an unprecedented rush to get it done, the entire place was built from start to finish in an astonishing five months and two weeks.
It opened on a November night at the height of the Depression with a game against the Black Hawks. The price of admission for the best seats: $2.75, spare change today but pretty pricey back then. The Leafs lost their first game 2-1 in their new home - some things never change - but the legacy they set there won't fade for generations.
They wound up winning 11 Stanley Cups in that building, including one in the first year and their most recent - if you can call 1967 recent.
But the Gardens would become known for so much more than just hockey. It was the main place for concerts, shows, and even political conventions, and famously hosted both Elvis and the Beatles.
Other sports events called the place home, too, including weekly wrestling bouts and the famous George Chuvalo-Muhammad Ali fight in on March 29, 1966.
And of course, there was the yearly visit of the ubiquitous Ice Capades (below.)
MLG Ice Show Feb. 1, 1946,
Fonds 1257, Series 1057
While the facility was once state of the art, that state began to decay and with uncomfortable seats, disgusting washroom conditions and no air conditioning, MLG turned into an anachronism by the 1990s, leading to the eventual construction of the Air Canada Centre.
On February 13, 1999, the Leafs played their final game in the Gardens - fittingly against the Chicago Black Hawks, the first team they ever faced there. They lost that game, too, by a score of 6-2.
There is still a lot of rancor about what will happen to this cherished hall of memories. It was purchased by Loblaws and was supposed to be made into a hockey-themed grocery store. But endless delays, wrangling and the economic downturn have left it a ghost on Carlton St., unused and mostly closed to the public for more than a decade.
1945: The seeds of the city's famed multicultural status are sown. World War II ends with a huge influx of immigrants that would change the ethnic make up of T.O. from hugely Protestant and British to a little bit of everything. It remains that way to this day, and to most, it's an incredible symbol of pride that so many who are so different can get along so well.
May 13, 1948: TV Hits T.O.
The CRTC would hate the fact that the very first TV station to attract attention in these parts wasn't from Canada. When Channel 4 in Buffalo became one of the first outlets on the new fangled - and still expensive - magic box to go on the air, few in Toronto were watching. But as word spread about the free entertainment available, a new sight sprang up in the city: the TV antenna, all aimed at our southern neighbour.
By the time Toronto got its first TV station - the CBC in September 1952 - TV was well established here and the number of stations would grow, giving viewers in this part of the world the best of both countries and changing the shape of entertainment in the city.
1952: The very first TTC strike lasts 19 days. Sadly, it would not be the last.
March 30, 1954: The First Toronto Subway Opens
It wasn't really very long and if you didn't live near Yonge St., it took a long time to get there. But Toronto moved into the modern age with the opening of its first subway line, which only ran from Eglinton to Union.
The hype surrounding the unveiling of the underground railway had been building since construction started in 1949. But its roots really stretch back to WWII, when gas rationing forced thousands to use the system to get anywhere. The profits generated help fund the subway that would come later.
Subway sign,
Fonds 1128; Strathy Smith fonds, Series 381
By opening day five years later, thousands came out to see the official ceremonies and take a ride on Toronto's new wonder. The cost of that journey: just 10 cents for adult and seniors and half that amount for children.
The truncated route would go back and forth until the last day of February in 1963, when the University line was finally added.
See more pictures from Toronto's first subway opening here
October 15, 1954: Toronto Taken By Storm
The original forecast was pretty unthreatening. Weather experts watching Hurricane Hazel approach the city on a miserable October night didn't seem too worried. The storm was weakening, they said, the winds were dying down.
They were dead wrong.
Hazel became the only hurricane to ever slam full force into Toronto, bringing howling winds, torrential rains, and death. It literally washed away an entire street, Raymore Drive in Etobicoke, taking sleeping residents unaware.
The fact the ground was already wet from so much previous rain only added to the gathering storm, and the steady downpour added more. Creeks, streams and lakes flooded over, and on low lying Raymore, most people had already gone to bed when the giant wall of water came down on the homes there, sweeping 32 of them away.
Aftermath of hurricane,
Fonds 1257, Series 1057
Floods also hit trailer parks near Black Creek and Etobicoke Creek, killing 27.
In all, 4,000 houses were destroyed by the howling menace, and large parts of the city were submerged. Bridges were also washed away and trees and power lines were down, adding to the terrible misery. A house on the Holland Marsh actually floated four kilometres with a family inside, before it stopped at the side of a road.
In the end, 81 people died in one of the worst weather disasters in Toronto history.
The experience changed the city forever. From that point on, Toronto bought the lands affected by the flooding, turning them into parks, to ensure no residents would ever settle in the path of such danger again. They remain green lands to this day.
1955: Sunnyside Gets Cloudy
Looking at it today, it's hard to imagine what once stood there. The area of the city known as Sunnyside was once more than just a stretch of beach. It out "Ex-ed" the CNE, with a summer long amusement park, rides, swimming, a bathing pavilion, restaurants, a tea garden, a dock, a stadium and more, where thousands gathered downtown in one of the hubs of the city.
The amusement park went up in 1922, and became something of a legend. The Sunnyside Flyer roller coaster started soaring in 1923 and was an instant hit.
So was the famous carousel which stood on the site for years before being transferred to, of all places, Disneyland in California.
Sunnyside in 1929,
Fonds 1231, Item 658
What happened to the famous landmark? Progress spelled its doom, when the Gardiner Expressway was approved in 1955. The area was all but demolished to make room for the roadway, required to meet the needs of the rapidly growing city.
The bathing pavilion and the Palais Royale are among the few iconic structures that still stand as a legacy of what was once one of the most famous places in all of Toronto, a memorable spot that's now mostly just a memory.
May 27, 1957: Rock and roll radio arrives in the city as CHUM abandons all its old music and adopts a Top 40 format. Despite pleas to owner Allan Waters to "get that noise off the air," he preserves and the station becomes one of the legends of the industry.
Coming up in Part 3: The City Comes Of Age
Other stories:
TO175 Timeline: The Early Years
TO175: Mike Filey on the Changing Face of Toronto
TO 175: Then And Now, Part 1
TO 175: Then And Now, Part 2
TO175: Mayor Feels Toronto Will Be A Model To The World In Years To Come
TO175: New Media Artist Faisal Anwar Wants Your Toronto Stories For My City Project
Top photo: Yonge St. in 1954, S
eries 381, File 319, Image 12641-X
Photo credits: City of Toronto Archives, except Santa Claus, from CityNews archives.