Grubby looking 1950s Toronto

[xayraa33]

Just perusing the photographic works of James Victor Salmon of his architecture pics of 1950s Toronto and I came to the realisation of how grubby and sooty and old looking and unkempt the Victorian buildings of Toronto looked liked 60 plus years ago.

It made it easier for the city fathers to authorise the bulldozing of these buildings and build huge lookalike featureless glass towers later on.

1950s sooty Boston looked similar as 1950s Toronto in the old and grubby looking department going by the Kepes-Lynch photo collection of Boston.

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/james-victor-salmon-toronto-photographer-1911-1958.19679/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/sets/72157614966285159/

 

[BillBingham2]

It makes me wonder what the next trend in buildings will be that will bulldoze the glass towers?

Here in Des Moines a lot of the new glass building are not even close to featureless. We have a tower or two that I'd agree are less than beautiful, but a few are pretty cool.

Thanks for sharing.

B2 (;->

 

[Archlich]

Great photos. I live in one of those featureless glass towers...they too will fade into history. A city evolves and I think it's actually a good thing. Even better if we could remember the difference.

 

[peterm1]

Fascinating and wonderful stuff. The past as they say is a foreign country.

I think the whole world was in general much less glitzy and was more no nonsense, gritty, business like, industrial and down to earth back then.

You can see something of the same kind of thing in the color work of 1950s /60s Toronto photographer Fred Herzog.

https://www.pinterest.com.au/tedforbes/fred-herzog/?lp=true

You see this kind of thing too, elsewhere - e.g. W Eugene Smith in his photos of Pittsburg.

https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/w-eugene-smith-pittsburgh-portrait-of-an-industrial-city/

And photos of northern england by John Bulmer in the same time frame.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/jan/29/john-bulmer-photographs-north

Or of course Fan Ho who did something of the same for Hong Kong.

https://www.pinterest.com.au/tedforbes/fan-ho/?lp=true