Toronto Archives - Page 8 of 17

Published August 26, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – vivid colours; faded memories of The Junction

Dundas West and Mavety, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

During the years 1980-1986, I did a lot of street photography in Toronto. For the past four years I have been scanning an archive of this material, and posting it online. Toronto Gone represents the final photos, the ones that have been recently scanned or have not been published in my Toronto books.

My memories of living in The Junction have faded. That’s why I’m so glad I have the photos to help me remember my time there (1982-1986). They bring back the feeling of living there and, for me, the colour photos seem to carry a more emotional and psychological component than the black and white ones. It also reminds me the importance and value of the documentary photograph.

Looking at a photo many years later, you may not know exactly why you took it but still be glad you did. Among other things, photography has been a visual diary for me. It helps me remember the places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. Photos can also become valuable documents of things and places that no longer exist.

We never know the full significance of the photos we take. They’re a picture of a moment, and that moment is gone as soon as you’ve taken the picture. That place–or that person, or cloud, or animal–is already changing before you’ve even walked away. We don’t know until much later whether those changes will accrue quickly or gradually. We don’t know if we’ll ever be there again, ever talk with that person again. The relentlessness of change is masked by its ordinariness.

This has been so evident to me in hearing people’s responses to my Toronto series. Taken in the 1980s, they show a city that many feel no longer exists.

Dundas West and Mavety, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas West and Keele, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas West and Medland, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

Keele Street, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Photography Toronto

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Toronto Gone – my days in The Junction

Published August 25, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone – my days in The Junction

The Junction is a neighborhood in west Toronto with the main intersection being Dundas and Keele. When I lived there in the 1980s, it was gritty and somewhat run down. It was still a dry area then–no alcohol could be sold or served. That meant there were no good restaurants, no bars, and practically no night life. It didn’t seem dangerous, though; just a working class neighborhood with lots of small Mom&Pop shops. It was known as Little Malta because of the large Maltese-Canadian community.

I used to walk around the neighborhood sometimes with my camera. It had a lot of character, a lot of tarnished charm. Living there for four years gave me the opportunity to feel at home, and relaxed. I remember the characters who hung out at Crazy Joe’s Flea Market and Poor Boy Restaurant, the tasty toasted western sandwiches at Mimmo’s Place, Vesuvio’s Pizzeria, the pungent smell from the stockyards when the wind blew the wrong way, and numerous parties and gallery openings at our studio. All of these are gone now.

The Junction has been completely revitalized. It’s no longer down at the heels. The elimination of prohibition in 2001 has been a positive change; there are now lots of cool bars and pubs along Dundas Street West. The Stock Yards is now a huge area of box stores. And the electric lines have all been buried, giving the streets a neater, cleaner look.

It’s been almost forty years since I lived there; time has a way of smoothing out the bad times and magnifying the good ones in a tide of nostalgia. And memories are notoriously fickle. The photos, however, do not change. They are documents, and tell a story of what it was like to live there.

Dundas West and Keele, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas West and Medland, Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

Mimmo’s Place Restaurant, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Crazy Joe’s Flea Market, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas Street West, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Ralph’s Barbershop, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

View from New Image Gallery, Dundas St. West, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Film Photography Photography Social Landscape Toronto

photography The Junction Toronto Toronto Gone

Published August 18, 2020 by avardw

Toronto Gone 08-18-2020

Yonge and Dundas, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Looking back now at the photos I spent my precious film on back then, so much comes back to me about dropped into a new environment. We use our creative tools as extensions of ourselves; they help us understand and define our place in the world. For me, having a camera in my hand at all times helped me remember, You only get to do this once. We have to take time and see it, as clearly as we can.

I will be posting more from the series: Toronto Gone over the coming months–photos taken in Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s. It may lead to a new book.

Biltmore Theatre, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Dundas West and Runnymede, Toronto, 1984 – © Avard Woolaver

Malta Band Club, Toronto, 1985 – © Avard Woolaver

Blogging Photography Toronto

1980s photography Toronto Toronto Gone

Published June 13, 2019 by avardw

Nostalgia and Baby Boomers

Yonge Street, Toronto, 1980 – © Avard Woolaver

Nostalgia can be described as a sentimental longing for the past. It comes from the Greek nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain) and is thought to have been derived from Homer’s The Odyssey.

With baby boomers reaching their senior years, nostalgia seems to be their drug of choice. Advertisers target boomers with Beatles music, retro fashions, and even long dead actors such as Marilyn Munroe selling perfume. While boomers seem to be lapping it up, not everyone is crazy about the nostalgia bug. Heather Havrilesky writes in The Washington Post, “While griping about boomer nostalgia has become a somewhat common art, the cultural impact of that nostalgia transcends mere annoyance. Through sheer repetition and force of will, boomers have so thoroughly indoctrinated us into their worldview that we all now reflexively frame most current affairs through the lens of another generation’s formative experiences.” Abbey Hoffman might say not to trust anyone under 50!

I myself am a baby boomer. Born in 1958, I was six years old when the Beatles came to North America. I sang “A Hard Day’s Night” in my Grade One classroom, watched the moon landing on a fuzzy black and white TV, and took my Diana camera to Expo ’67 in Montreal. While I have nostalgia for those early years, the time I miss most was when I was in my early twenties, studying photography at Ryerson in Toronto.

The photos in this blog post capture the time that I am nostalgic for. They were taken in downtown Toronto in my early years of study. Everything was new and fresh, conversations were stimulating, photography was invigorating. Several of my classmates from that year became lifelong friends. Since returning to those days is impossible, I can make the journey with my retro photographs. It’s the next best thing.

The Junction, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Eaton Centre, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Bond Street, Toronto, 1981 – © Avard Woolaver

Yonge and College, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

Keele and St. Clair, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

The Flyer, Exhibition Park, Toronto, 1982 – © Avard Woolaver

Black and White Photography Toronto

1980s baby boomers film photography nostalgia street photography Toronto Toronto in the 1980s

Published March 10, 2019 by avardw

Toronto’s High Park in the 1980s

Grenadier Pond, High Park, Toronto, 1983, — Grenadier Pond, High Park, Toronto, 1983 – © Avard Woolaver

During my twenty years living in Toronto, I twice had an apartment near High Park. For a guy like me who grew up on a farm in Nova Scotia, the park was like an oasis–a refuge from the traffic and concrete of the city.

The area of the park is 400 acres, about a third of which is oak savannah – lightly forested grassland where oaks are the dominant trees. The photo below shows the savannah area in the fall.

I enjoyed High Park year round–jogging, cycling, skating, cross country skiing, baseball practice. And often I would carry a camera and take some photos. It was always fun to check out the animals at the little zoo, of have a meal at the Grenadier Restaurant. Some of my best memories were of watching plays in the summer. A highlight was John Gray’s Rock and Roll featuring the incomparable Frank MacKay. (MacKay died this past week–a much loved singer and actor in Nova Scotia.)

Here are a few photos of my wanderings in High Park in the 1980s.