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.

Twenty-five fascinating images that offer a 360º panorama of the Toronto's downtown in 1856-57 mark the beginning of the use of photographs to document Toronto's growth, its achievements, its great civic works, and its citizenry. Since 1856, the City of Toronto has been commissioning photographs to document and to promote it. This book, published to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the city's incorporation, brings together more than 100 of these images, selected by city archivists from their collection of hundreds of thousands. Waterworks, roads, and bridges, many of them familiar landmarks today, are seen as they are being built. The Bloor Street Viaduct, the R. C. Harris water filtration plant, and the old and new city halls are all celebrated in these images. Toronto's citizens are also captured in these photographs, going about their affairs on the street, as proud workers, or as spectators at public events. At times, in an effort to raise public concern about poverty and poor housing conditions, city photographers have documented conditions for residents in low-income neighbourhoods. Some of these photographs are included here, in an impressive series of poignant images. In the past fifty years, as Toronto has grown into the cosmopolitan metropolis it is now, city photographers have recorded the construction of key projects like the Yonge Street subway, the new City Hall and the CN Tower while documenting major public events and celebrations. This book offers a visual overview of Toronto's history and at the same time documents attitudes and values expressed by City officials, from 1857 to the present.

WINNER OF THE HERITAGE TORONTO 2022 BOOK AWARD Rich and diverse narratives of Indigenous Toronto, past and present Beneath many major North American cities rests a deep foundation of Indigenous history that has been colonized, paved over, and, too often, silenced. Few of its current inhabitants know that Toronto has seen twelve thousand years of uninterrupted Indigenous presence and nationhood in this region, along with a vibrant culture and history that thrives to this day. With contributions by Indigenous Elders, scholars, journalists, artists, and historians, this unique anthology explores the poles of cultural continuity and settler colonialism that have come to define Toronto as a significant cultural hub and intersection that was also known as a Meeting Place long before European settlers arrived. "This book is a reflection of endurance and a helpful corrective to settler fantasies. It tells a more balanced account of our communities, then and now. It offers the space for us to reclaim our ancestors’ language and legacy, rewriting ourselves back into a landscape from which non Indigenous historians have worked hard to erase us. But we are there in the skyline and throughout the GTA, along the coast and in all directions." -- from the introduction by Hayden King

The story of how Toronto became a music mecca. From Yonge Street to Yorkville to Queen West to College, the neighbourhoods that housed Toronto’s music scenes. Featuring Syrinx, Rough Trade, Martha and the Muffins, Fifth Column, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Rheostatics, Ghetto Concept, LAL, Broken Social Scene, and more! “Jonny Dovercourt, a tireless force in Toronto’s music scene, offers the widest-ranging view out there on how an Anglo-Saxon backwater terrified of people going to bars on Sundays transforms itself into a multicultural metropolis that raises up more than its share of beloved artists, from indie to hip-hop to the unclassifiable. His unique approach is to zoom in on the rooms where it’s happened – the live venues that come and too frequently go – as well as on the people who’ve devoted their lives and labours to collective creativity in a city that sometimes seems like it’d rather stick to banking. For locals, fans, and urban arts denizens anywhere, the essential Any Night of the Week is full of inspiration, discoveries, and cautionary tales.” —Carl Wilson, Slate music critic and author of Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, one of Billboard’s ‘100 Greatest Music Books of All Time’ “Toronto has long been one of North America’s great music cities, but hasn’t got the same credit as L.A., Memphis, Nashville, and others. This book will go a long way towards proving Toronto’s place in the music universe.” —Alan Cross, host, the Ongoing History of New Music “The sweaty, thunderous exhilaration of being in a packed club, in collective thrall to a killer band, extends across generations, platforms, and genre preferences. With this essential book, Jonny has created something that's not just a time capsule, but a time machine.” —Sarah Liss, author of Army of Lovers

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.