The history of Toronto's nightlife reveals its pulse.From award-winning veteran music journalist and DJ Denise Benson comes Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History, a fascinating, intimate look at four decades of social spaces, dance clubs, and live music venues. Through interviews, research, and enthusiastic feedback from the party people who were there, Benson delves deep behind the scenes to reveal the histories of 48 influential nightlife spaces, and the story of a city that has grown alongside its sounds.

Toronto has long been a financial powerhouse in North America, and this is represented by its many grand bank buildings. Canada's capital may be Ottawa, but the financial power emanates from this thriving city, the fourth most populous in North America.Sites include: Toronto Harbour, Fort York, Queen's Quay Lighthouse, Toronto Island Ferries, Queen's Quay Terminal, Canadian National Exhibition, Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion, Princes' Gates, Royal York Hotel, Union Station, City Hall, St. Lawrence Market, St. James Cathedral, Canadian Pacific Building, Bank of Montreal, Dineen Building, Elgin Theatre, Arts and Letters Club, Old Bank of Nova Scotia, Ryrie Building, Masonic Temple, Osgoode Hall, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Gurney Iron Works, Boer War Monument, CN Tower, Old Knox College, Victory Burlesque Theatre, Maple Leaf Gardens, University of Toronto and much more.

The history of the Chinese community in Toronto is rich with stories drawn from over 150 years of life in Canada. Sam Ching, a laundryman, is the first Chinese resident recorded in Toronto’s city directory of 1878. A few years later, in 1881, there were 10 Chinese and no sign of a Chinatown. Today, with no less than seven Chinatowns and half a million people, Chinese Canadians have become the second-largest visible minority in the Greater Toronto Area. Stories, photographs, newspaper reports, maps, and charts will bring to life the little-known and dark history of the Chinese community. Despite the early years of anti-Chinese laws, negative public opinion, and outright racism, the Chinese and their organizations have persevered to become an integral participant in all walks of life. The Chinese Community in Toronto shows how the Chinese make a significant contribution to the vibrant and diverse mosaic that makes Toronto one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

Unbuilt Toronto explores the failed architectural dreams of Toronto. Delving into unfulfilled & largely forgotten visions for grand public buildings, landmark skyscrapers, roads & highways, transit systems, & sports & recreation venues, the authors outline such ambitious but ultimately unrealised schemes as St. Alban's Cathedral, the "Newark 2011" subway system, & a 1911 city plan that would have resulted in a Paris-by-the-Lake. Readers will lament the loss of some projects (such as the planned construction boom for the Olympics), be thankful for the loss of others ("City Hall was supposed to look like that?!?"), & marvel at the downtown that could have been (with underground roads & walkways in the sky). With an eye on the future as well as the past, the author takes stock of Toronto's status quo in 2008 & offers some bold predictions on the city's architectural future.

Lost Toronto is the latest in the series from Pavilion Books that traces the cherished places in a city that time, progress and fashion swept aside before the National Register of Historic Places could save them from the wrecker's ball. As well as celebrating forgotten architectural treasures, Lost Toronto looks at buildings that have changed use, vanished under a wave of new construction or been drastically transformed.Beautiful archival photographs and informative text allows the reader to take a nostalgic journey back in time to visit some of the lost treasures that the city let slip through its grasp. Organised chronologically, starting with the earliest losses and ending with the latest, the book features much-loved Toronto institutions that have been consigned to history. Losses include: King’s College, Holland House, Hotel Hanlan, St. Patrick’s Market, The Grand Opera House, Metropolitan Methodist Church, Old Union Station, St. Andrew’s Market, Yonge Street Arcade, Sunnyside Beach Amusement Park, Shea’s Hippodrome, S. S. Cayuga, High Park Mineral Baths, Tivoli Theatre, Riverdale Zoo, Odeon Carlton, Cyclorama on Front Street, Eaton’s Santa Claus Parade, Colonial Tavern, Sam the Record Man, The World’s Biggest Book Store.

With the same eye for character, anecdote and circumstance that made Peter Ackroyd’s London and Colin Jones’s Paris so successful, Levine’s captivating prose integrates the sights, sounds and feel of Toronto with a broad historical perspective, linking the city’s present with its past through themes such as politics, transportation, public health, ethnic diversity and sports. Toronto invites readers to discover the city’s lively spirit over four centuries and to wander purposefully through the city’s many unique neighborhoods, where they can encounter the striking and peculiar characters who have inhabited them: the powerful and powerless, the entrepreneurs and the entertainers, and the moral and the corrupt, all of whom have contributed to Toronto’s collective identity.