TORONTO IN THE 1950S

Toronto's skyline changed little between the 1930s and the modern building boom of the 1960s. The photograph on the left looks north from the foot of York Street towards the Royal York Hotel (opened 1929). The other image was taken from the top of the Canadian Bank of Commerce (opened 1930) at King and Bay. The bank tower was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth until 1962. The observation deck on top of the Commerce Building allowed Torontonians to view the downtown as a whole. In contrast, Stephen Leacock described the urban landscape from street level in 1943: ‘The site of Toronto is such that you can't see it. When you are downtown you can't see uptown, and when you are uptown you can't see downtown, and both uptown and downtown can't see sideways.'

City of Toronto Archives, Series 380, Items 325 and 169